I have mentioned these pillow cases that I found at an estate sale. They are larger than usual and I think I will use them as pillow shams. They still have the directions on one of them. It called for several different colors but I am going to work these like Redwork and use only red embroidery floss. I won’t have to change colors that way and it will get done more quickly. I chose a garnet color that will work well with the items in our bedroom.
It is stained but I hate to wash it yet. I am afraid that the blue stamped design will wash out before I get a chance to stitch it.
I bought the embroidery thread at our neighborhood Michael’s store and also found these beautiful recipe cards at the same time.
They fit together for this photo perfectly. I have a plan for the recipe cards so we will see how quickly I get that one together.
They will also need a pretty crocheted lace at the edges. I will have to dust off my tiny crochet hooks as I don’t often crochet with thread that dainty.
Mondays seem so blah, maybe it is the combination of fun weekend rush + beginning of the week chores +left over work from the week before. Today, I am looking forward to getting to work on this little jewel. I am following a pattern that is in my queue on Ravelry. This is the pattern http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/retro-circles-blanket and it is really pretty easy to follow if I pay attention. I am fairly far along on it and it is just flying.
The colors are cheerful and restful at the same time. I can’t wait to get it finished. I have been waiting on some yarn to come in for a custom project. I would really like to have this little baby blanket complete before I start on the other. The forest green yarn for the other custom project should be in any day now. So I am rushing to finish this one up!
Whew, I am so glad that I get to post this Ta dah! I loved the feel of the 100% cotton yarn.It was a fun custom order for my Etsy shop: ChocolateDogStudio and it has gorgeous colors in it. I can’t wait to ship it off this afternoon to it’s new home in Texas. Here are all the lovely photos. I am sure you remember it in its beginning stages.
I have not crocheted a 100% cotton blanket before. It was a bit of a challenge as cotton has that ability to grow or shrink depending on the humidity. Here it is:
It has the beautiful blue as a simple border to finish off the edges.
Reclaiming yarn is an old practice; an old way of finding new to you yarn. Our grandmother’s and great-grandmothers would often frog (or deconstruct) sweaters to help save money and reclaim the yarn for a new use. I have been wanting to get out and search in the thrift shops, resale shops and goodwill for some lovely wool yarn in some out of style sweaters. It is too late into Spring to find wool sweaters in Oklahoma. IF people wear wool sweaters where you live then you stand a much better chance of finding wool to reclaim. Find the Goodwill or thrift store that has wealthier client donators for the better quality sweaters. So many sweaters these days are cut and sewn which doesn’t frog without a knot every row.
I did, however, find cotton sweaters with nice stripes and lovely yarn. I spent the evening taking apart (frogging) a cotton rag sweater with lovely red and white cotton yarn. It would look wonderful as a scarf or possibly as crochet edging on a baby blanket. I haven’t decided. I only have one sleeve left to unravel (frog) and then it will be washed and dried on the line outside. Taking it apart took a bit of patience and some tv filled evenings. Once I figured it out the unravelling went quickly.
I haven’t decided what to do with them. The orange is glorious and soft. I have about four sweaters left to unravel. I paid wonderful end of season prices for them as the tag shows and it was 1/2 off the lowest red price. It wasn’t hard to reclaim the yarn but the texture of the yarn is not quite what I wanted. I’m not sure why.
Pros and Cons of Reclaiming Yarn
Cons
It can be odd colors, not all the time but if you wait too late.
It can be frustrating at times to unravel it.
It can dirty to work with, if the previous owner didn’t clean the sweater before donation, at the least just dusty from years of neglect.
It can take longer than you want reclaiming it, washing it and letting it air dry before you use it.
You can have yarns that are out of style.
Pros
It keeps good quality yarn out of the landfill
It recycles it and gives it a new life.
it is an inexpensive way to get new yarn for low $
You can get colors and textures not available to the general public
It is sometimes a higher quality than what you can buy. I found that the reclaimed yarn had more interesting textures than what I could find in my neighborhood craft stores.
What to do
Stick with wool yarn in good quality sweaters
Read all the articles you can about reclaiming sweaters
Stick with colors you love and yarns you are dying to use
It is now 2016. I would add that the orange yarn is difficult to crochet as it is in strands and has very low twist to it. I am not sure if that is a result of the deconstruction process or just the way the yarn was spun. The red yarn has been fun to work with and is now being used as ties for my Etsy shop packages. I did use quite a bit in a couple of crocheted scarves. The blue made the most adorable, soft baby blanket. In retrospect, I would only reclaim the yarn of wool sweaters. The cotton can be more difficult to find a use for. Here are a photo of a cotton scarf created from the reclaimed yarn.
Here I was playing with the red and white cotton rag to see what it would make up as. I like the shell stitch I used here but the edges are a little wonky. I will frog this and start over.
I have been taking this apart (frogging) and reworking it into a better blanket. I just didn’t like the cream border around all these intense bright colors. It was going to be a larger square granny square blanket using these squares.
It just didn’t look right. It is now a rectangular granny square blanket. Here is a photo of it in its beginnings.
Here it is in all its glorious beauty!
It is crocheted out of wool yarn and is the first rectangular Granny Square afghan I have
ever made. It is a lap blanket and perfect for a chilly day.
Yes! I have finished this beautiful blanket this weekend.Â
Isn’t it lovely. Crocheted out of Fisherman’s wool and wool ease yarn. It is a lovely spot of color for a family room. Perfect for folding and keeping on the back of a chair. I love the modern and yet retro look of this crochet blanket.
I apologize for the photos but the sun keeps dodging in and out of the clouds. It has been gloomy here lately. I have been hoping for rain or snow but it is too warm for snow this week.
I finished this scarf up last night. It had been laying around the studio begging to be finished  and finally it ended up this very pretty scarf. It is about 5′ long and almost 6″ wide. It has 14 granny squares in it and a pretty scalloped border. The colors are fresh and springlike.
Just a little progress on this blanket. I am working on it and it is beautiful. I love the creamy white with the flash of color here and there. I haven’t decided what color the next row will be and I am tossing some ideas around. It will get the next color row and hopefully one more before the end of the day, but it is getting larger and that just takes time and work.
During that post holiday creative slump, I started several crochet projects knowing full well, that they would be abandoned when the yarn shipments would arrive!
Here is what I started during that time and since the yarn shipment came in.
a bright and cheery granny square blanket
a black and melon granny ripple…
a beautiful big granny square blanket of brilliant colored wool with cream borders
and then this beautiful granny square blanket also out of deliciously warm wool.
I know it seems as though I should finish one before I start the next. My Mom and Grandma’s would agree but, I work best this way. I have two totes with several projects in them that are traveling size. I take these with me to places where I have to sit and wait and work on my projects while waiting. When they reach a point where they are too big to travel, I work on them at night while watching movies. If I reach a point where I have lost inspiration or run out of supplies then I simply put it aside and continue working on the other projects at hand. This system is working as it keeps the shop on a cash basis and I am not buying supplies on credit.
Then why do we keep doing the same things over and over in our business and expect different results. So my question to you is WHAT are YOU going to do DIFFERENTLY this year? How are you going to change the status quo? This has been the question that has occupied my mind the last five weeks. Yes, this question was going through my mind during the Christmas rush. It was a good Christmas season for the shop. Not as good as I had hoped for but quite good anyway. There were some things that I had done differently in the shop and it did pay off.
Since I have been mulling this thought over and over in my mind and the start of a new year is a time for reflection. I was getting frustrated with my inability to come to some decisions. It seemed like the year started with a huge rush of activity; getting kids back to school, kids getting sick, getting some appointments made, updating some paperwork, insurance paperwork, and house keeping stuff. All of it was keeping me from really working on the shop. I felt behind the curve already and we hadn’t even really started the year.
I even worked on this questionnaire  from Etsy and was going to do a great big blog article on it.  http://www.etsy.com/blog/en/2013/reflect-on-2012-t/ It was a great place to start but it built in some frustrations as well. I may still do the blog article but really you have no desire to read about my goals unless it is a bullet list and you can scan it quickly.  I am not sure I can condense it down to a bullet list. I even tried to photograph the studio and motivate myself to clean it up because cleaning always has the ability to start a rush of ideas. I did indeed clean up the studio, but then we found some boxes downstairs that had studio items in them… and you can guess the rest.
It is a big year ahead of us with some pretty major changes. Like all families some big things and lots of little things are ahead of us. Some of them we have advance notice of and some we don’t. Â So here is…finally a short list of things I am going to do in 2013
Try and blog more consistently
Feature other artisans once a week….
Make 12 tutorials for my blog…that is roughly one a month… This is a huge hurdle and one I am rather frightened of.
Keep the studio more organized
Diversify the items in the Studio shop…same style of items just different kinds of things…
Read 4 good books about business… I have two titles that were reccomended by my husband. Since he usually only reads non-fiction he is a great resource.
Try to find 4 brick and mortar shops to consign my items here in my region.
Limit my work time to a more regular schedule which includes time off for family and other activities.
Build a link up spot once a week to help others market their shop items.
Then like everyone else I also have the goals to lose weight, exercise, eat right and save money that fit into the personal list along with
Do the budget thing
Continue working on home improvement projects
Get the veggie garden and flower gardens back looking good.
At least once a week do something fun with kids….
Teach DD to cook and sew…she is the last one to learn. I am on the down hill side of child rearing and she deserves to know learn as much as they did.
