Happy New Year!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!

 DID YOU SEE THE SHERLOCK PREMIER?!?!?! I had nearly forgotten it was airing in the US last night. I was squeeeee beyond belief. So many theories about how he did it; and he's not telling which is correct.  I can't wait to see where the storyline goes.

In other news...

We are 20 days into the new year, and I hope that 2014 has been treating you all well thus far.

I have been lax in making any blog posts, and you have my apologies for that. (My apple-ogies as Hugh Laurie would say in Blackadder.)

After the Glacial Melt Scarf, I took a break from pattern designing to do some knitting and crocheting of other people's patterns for a change. After doing several beginner-level patterns I want to try and expand to something a little more complex than one stitch. It's a learning process to be sure!  

In fact, I purchased a book from my local used book store (Half-Price Books for those of you in the Cedar Rapids area) called Crochet Master Class. It contains a plethora of crochet techniques. I tried the Double Ended Crochet, using a Tunisian/Afghan hook and it came out quite nice.  I just made a very small swatch of about 8 or 9 rows using some light purple baby yarn and some Tatamy Tweed. 

Basically, double-ended crochet creates a reversible fabric rather than the one-sided fabric that Tunisian crochet usually makes. With a double-ended hook you can also to Tunisian In the Round, which I hope to explore at some point in the future as well. 

I am considering making some tutorials at some point, but they will probably only be for patterns I design. There are so many tutorials out there already for basic crochet stitches that I think mine would just be lost in the crowd. However, when I design a pattern that is a little more complex than my past patterns, I will try to include text tutorials for the stitches I use.  

Let's see, what have I been working on lately...In my downtime I made the Autumn Splendor Wrap by Darlissa Riggs. It is in the bin of Things That Need Blocking at the moment, waiting on me to purchase a blocking board. I created mine with JoJoLand Tonic in colorway 252AW (light green).

I also made my first ripple blanket! I am very proud of that one. I always thought they looked so complicated, it took me forever to get around to trying it. But it's really so easy. I am thinking about making another one.  I used the Swatch Guide pattern from a small book called Learn to Crochet Ripple Afghans. I believe I purchased it in the yarn section at Wal-Mart. I created it from 3 colors of Caron Simply Soft: Dark Country Blue, Light Country Blue, and Ocean.

I made my first cowl also! It's been a month of firsts. Frosty Night Cowl by Deborah E. Burger. This is not only my first real cowl, but also my first Mobius. It was difficult to get started, for me, because I was unfamiliar with the concept of stitching around both sides of the foundation in a figure 8 pattern. But I am glad I persisted, because it came out really nice in the Ella Rae Lace Merino Worsted, Colorway number 4.

And for my fellow fans of the Hitchhiker series, there is an e-book of 4 knitting patterns available, written by Martina Behm. Hitchhiker: A Trilogy of Four Patterns.

Worth every penny :-)  I made the Hitchhiker pattern from Zitron Trekking XXL, Colorway 463 (orange). It's a very fiery yarn. Hitchhiker  . 

In other news, I have been fairly productive in my writing endeavors. I am 8 chapters into a nifty tale about a woman who finds a time capsule in her back yard. I am also planning to submit a portion of my YA Romance manuscript in the hopes that they will find it worthy enough to warrant a publishing contract.  So I have been keeping fairly busy.

To Do List: Buy a stitch dictionary. Upload pictures of finished projects.