Winter has arrived.

Each time I start to type, I have the greatest desire to remove my splint… Or just give up before I hardly get started, I suppose this is a test of my patience.

You see, winter arrived in full force this week, just in time for the solstice, and I fractured my right wrist when I slipped on the icy sidewalk in front of our house. I definitely underestimated the layer of ice that had rained down the night before. But it was the last day of finals, and I had things to do…

Anyway, its fractured and splinted now, and I still have things to do–but I have a pretty good excuse for not doing them…

=====Nine Days Later=====

Well, I started writing this post Pre-Christmas, but with the splint and the fresh fracture I just didn’t have the patience for it… Now, I have a neon yellow cast which I will wear until February. And, I need to practice typing with it anyway because my life will not wait for it to heal. Yes, it was my right wrist and yes, I am right-handed. About as frustrating as it can get…

But anyway, before visiting with the orthopedic surgeon today, I did a little bit of cutting and sewing with the splint on. You see, I had a grand plan to finish some WIP’s and start a few new projects during this break. So I ordered some new fabrics and was very excited to work on the Tone it Down quilt designed by Lissa of Moda Lissa for the American Patchwork & Quilting Quilt a-long. I finally ordered some Essex linen to make up a few projects from Ayumi Takahashi’s Patchwork Please book. I will be working on Elizabeth  of Don’t Call me Betsy’s Lucky Stars Block of the Month  in 2014. Working on my Lala Salama 100 Quilts for Kenya quilt. And continuing the And Sew We Craft Modern Blocks QAL and Crochet a-long blanket!

I had big plans for this Holiday from classes! It was the last day of Finals week when I injured my wrist and on the same day I began to receive some of the beautiful fabrics I  had ordered! Then for Christmas, I received a generous gift certificate for the Fat Quarter Shop from my parents. My pre-order of Vintage Quilt Revival arrived on my doorstep, along with the rest of the fabrics I had ordered pre-injury (I mean, those holiday sales were crazy good right?).

So, as I said, I did a little bit of cutting and sewing between the time when I injured my wrist and today’s orthopedic casting. For starters, I spent a good amount of time cutting fabric for the Tone it Down quilt. Just last night, I finished cutting all of the bright fabrics–leaving only the low volume background fabrics to finish up. Right about now, I am wishing I had a die-cutting machine… I think I could manage cranking that with my left hand since I have been strongly advised against using my right hand for much of anything beyond typing.

I also, cut and stitched up a Prettified Pincushion from Patchwork Please with my new Essex linen.

There are a couple of other great little patterns in that book that I would love to work on, I admittedly got on the Zakka 2.0 bandwagon a little late after seeing all of the darling projects pop up during the Zakka a-long. I am pretty excited about the Happy Hexagon trivet, Sweet Trips Embroidery Pouch, Vintage Pencil Case and Triangle Patchwork Box Pouch, all are far too cute (take a peak at some of these in the flickr group.)

That’s all I managed during those few days surrounding Christmas. Maybe I can sew with my hand in the cast, but I probably won’t be able to do much else (rotary cutting, crochet, etc…) The good news is that I officially finished my Master’s degree (yay!), the bad news is I am pretty behind on a lot of other things (graduate assistantship hours, journal submissions, conference abstracts, literature reviews, class prep. *the exciting life of a PhD student*), but maybe I  can catch up a bit now that I wont be tempted by crafting… We’ll see!

Oh, and Happy New Year! To quote Walt Disney, “Keep moving forward.”

Crochet a Long Update

Just a quick visual update on my And Sew We Craft Crochet a Long blanket!

My blanket is approximately 80 inches wide, and is now about 11 inches tall. This is only about 1/8 of the way finished!

Now that the blanket is heavier my stitching has slowed down somewhat.

Not to mention I just don’t have nearly as much time as I had before the fall semester started.

Onward and forward!

xo,

A week of writing, somewhere else.

This has been a slow and sorry week for the ol’ blog here. I have been working with fervor on my research and writing all day everyday, but not finding time to write here. So a short update.

Crocheting is happening during the moments of reading or thinking in between the moments of typing and editing. I have added my second color to the Crochet Along blanket. I can’t remember how much detail I previously gave on this blanket, but my blanket is 74 inches wide, and is being crocheted entirely of double crochet stitches on a size H hook. Needless to say it is a somewhat slow process, but I have actually gained quite a bit of speed over the past 4 days since I began.

Tonka walks are still happening of course. Here she is with her neighborhood cat friend. They run into each other when they are both out on their leash in the mornings or evenings. It’s very sweet, the cat kind of intimidates Tonka. Lately, Tonkas has been trying to take advantage of her walk time by dragging me along on longer walks or finding pinecones to play fetch with. I think she finds all of the still time devoted to writing or crocheting quite dull.

And finally, there are still flowers in bloom though we seem to be in a transitional stage between the summer and fall flora.

No time to sit at the sewing machine this week, which has me down in the doldrums but hopefully that will all change after Monday! Wish me luck!

xo,

Wordy Wednesday: no words today!

For this Wordy Wednesday, I am sparing you many words as I have spent many hours typing a research paper.
So instead, I will share with you a work in progress image for the crochet along.

As well as, a super fun image of my new shiny purple hair!

Happy Hump-day!
xo,
Erin Myone

Hookin’

So I’m changing gears a little bit this week to work on a few crochet projects. I couldn’t help myself, JoAnn’s Fabrics was having a major sale on yarns so I took advantage, and took the plunge into large scale crochet projects!

Yesterday, I began work on the “Weekend in Stockholm” throw by Debbie Stoller of Stitch Nation. This pattern was released for free in 2010 to coordinate with the release of her yarn line, Full o’ Sheep. The yarn was beautiful but at the time I could not afford it, so I picked up the free pattern and went on with life. For the past three years, that pattern has remained pinned to my inspiration board as a “someday” sort of project. Well, yesterday was someday.  With JoAnn’s sale on yarn, and the dream pattern in hand, I hypothetically went to town and ordered the required 25 skeins of yarn in various colors online. I chose Lion Brand, Wool Ease as my replacement yarn (Full o’ Sheep is no longer being manufactured). The colors won’t be an exact match unfortunately, but I think they will still be quite nice; I am working with Avocado, Cranberry, Denim, Eggplant, Fisherman, Mustard, Ranch Red, and Violet.

In no way do I consider myself to be an advanced crocheter(?). So this project is truly a leap from my comfort zone, but I think it’s beautiful and hopefully that will be the inspiration I need to keep going! So I should also mention that with a little help from Ravelry, I located these excellent tutorial videos that break this granny square blanket down into a round by round easy to follow pattern (the free pattern is lacking in a diagram and clear instructions…) Thanks so much to Knit my Grits for creating these! However, last night I only had time to do round 1 and round 2 of my first granny square, so my progress is very very slow!

Tonight, I received my yarn to join in on another crochet project, the Crochet A Long hosted by And Sew We Craft. The first project of the Crochet A Long is a simple crocheted blanket which repeats the same stitch through every row. This makes it a perfect beginner large scale project, and considering I have never attempted to crochet anything larger than what I could hold cupped in two hands, it seems like a perfect project for me. I jumped online and ordered 15 skeins of Deborah Norville’s Everyday Soft Worsted Cotton in Cornflower, Navy, and Cappuccino, from that same excellent Joann’s yarn sale.

Technically, the crochet a long started at the end of last week, and I’m quite jealous of some participants’ progress because I didn’t receive my yarn for this project until this afternoon! Anyway, I decided to follow Tonya’s lead, host of the crochet a long and blogger of The Crafty Mummy, and chained for 74″. I worked the first row of stitches while enjoying the True Blood season 6 finale and Newsroom (we watch HBO shows a day late), but two hours later I have only made it 3/4 of the way through the first row!

Please wish me luck on these might large crochet projects! I think I am going to need it! Many more updates to come, I am sure!

Happy Hookin’

Introduction to Yarn 2-ways

Crafternoon!

I am adding a new feature to the blog: Yarn 2-ways. A post for this category  will be similar to watching Iron Chef when they present “lobster three ways”. You will get to see the results of a yarn when it has been utilized in two different ways, most likely knit and crochet. Sometimes, it will be a simple project. Other times it may be more challenging, but whenever a pattern is referenced it will be linked or presented as a tutorial!

But wait it gets better! I have called in the help of my good friend Cortney, blogger of Cornflower Blue, to guest host half of the Yarn 2-ways posts! Cortney is one of the most talented and creative people I know, and she has skills with a hook or needles! I am so excited to share this opportunity with her!

The first yarn that we are working with is actually a yarn I bought two and a half years ago at Knit Wits in Key West, Florida while on my honeymoon! I purchased two skeins because I just had to have this yarn, but I didn’t know what I wanted to do with it at the time and I certainly didn’t want to run out.  Lambada, by Tedman & Kvist, is a lightweight novelty yarn made of 45% poliamid, 27% polyester, and 28% cotton. (I believe this yarn has also been picked up by Mango Moon now.) When I first brought this yarn home and tried to look it up on Ravelry to see what others were doing with it, there was nothing to be found. It was like the yarn did not exist…

But, soon you will see how I tackled this mystery yarn. Then we will all see the results of my challenge to Cortney as she updates us on her use of the yarn.

xo,