Chocolatedogstudio information Archives - Page 6 of 35

Posted on August 3, 2016 by Karen Stewart

So You are New to Crochet: How to Weave in the Ends

Here is my next installment of So, You are New to Â Crochet: How to Weave in the Ends. Crocheting so many granny square afghans has given meÂ soÂ many chances to learn how to weave in the ends. I have used several different methods on weaving in the ends and have finally stopped with this method. I like it best.

The week is a busy one with the brick and mortar shop Lokal and Main’s Grand Opening last night and some gardeningÂ later in the week. The shop was overflowingÂ Â with people so I didn’t take any photos. I will try to stop by later this week and take a few photos so you can see how lovely it looks.

Today is bittersweet for me. I remember my father today as this is the day he lost his fight to cancer 10 years ago. He fought a long hard fight for 15 years, and it was devastating when the news came that there was nothing more that could be done. He was cheerful Â and sweet tempered to the end and I never heard him complain. DadÂ was usually the first to share a joke and a laugh. Â One of Dad’sÂ gifts was the ability to change the mood in the situation by making people laugh. I watched him time after time enter a hospital room or hospital waiting room where family was waiting nervously and by sharing funny stories help people relax and laugh. He did that for me more times than I can count. Â Today, I want to remember him as he lived, laughing.

I don’t normally share so much that is close to my heart but today I Â just had to share. I am doing Â a little planning today and later I hope to be spending time with the crochet hook as I keep working on a new afghan. I can’t wait to show it to you. It uses suchÂ beautiful wool yarns and it is another granny square afghan. It makes me so thankful that I learned how to weave in the ends. It truly is a crochet skill worth having!

Talk to you later,

Karen

P.S. Remember long ends are easier to weave in!

Posted on August 2, 2016January 10, 2020 by Karen Stewart

Get Yourselves Organized!

How do you get yourselves organized? I use a variety of organizational methods to keep myself organized, but first one of my favorite movie clips.

This movie clip has one of my favorite lines “Get yourselves organized down there”. Sheep on a motorcycle doing acrobatics. I often hear “Get yourselves organized” in Wallace’s voice while I am working in the studio. It must be something to do with the sheep = yarn thing.

The design idea can start with the flash of an idea, a color theory carried over from another textile, or an outgrowth of another crochet blanket, a photo off of instagram. Keeping track of ideas has been difficult. Brief flashes of insight are difficult to write down on paper and keep. Visual ideas are even more difficult.

Recently, I have been working hard to write down and keep these ideas trapped and in my mind. Often I will draw out an afghan plan. I keep these in a notebook, composition book (link) or binder. place where ideas sit and incubate until they are ready to hatch. The incubator is a compilation of different places. It is a little bit secret Pinterest board, a little bit composition book and binder combination.

Many times the yarn itself tells me how to use them in a pattern, I will do some color play with the yarn to get an idea of how it will look when it is finished.

If it is a fabric that has given me an idea for color striping, I will take a photo or print out a photo of the color stripes. I will use this photo as a basis for my afghan, adding colors and taking colors away until it is truly a design of my own. This is what I am doing in the photos up above.

Get Yourselves Organized

It can also look like this.

Here I am doing a little math to see how many squares I need for an afghan I am working on.

or even this

Get Yourselves Organized

Ideas often sit in my scrap yarn bucket just waiting for the right time.

I work hard at not copying another’s design work. It is difficult with the media bombardment to keep your work original. There are so many avenues to search out patterns and to generate new ideas. As a crochet designer, I feel it is important to be as original as I can be and not knowingly copy another’s design work.

Talk to you later,

Karen

How is your WIP (work in progress) going?

Send me some photos via instagram… just tag me in the photo and I will pop by and comment.

Posted on July 30, 2016 by Karen Stewart

Matisse Exhibit

It was time to see Matisse: In His Time this past weekend and it was incredible. Seeing overÂ 100Â works of art from various big name artists on the same day was exciting. Kuddoes to my art history teachers as it was surprising how much I remembered from the classes I took.

Chihuly’s glass to a Calder mobile to Matisse and Picasso, made the wholeÂ visit fun. Calder’s mobile was in a special exhibit downstairs of art held in private collections throughout Oklahoma.Â Please excuse my photography.Â Photography was allowed without flash and many of my photos are dark or too blurry to share.

This painting is by Matisse and the other by his friend Albert Marquet. The view is the the bridge Pont Saint-Michel. Matisse and MarquetÂ shared a studio when they were young men. It is fun imagining them sitting side by side painting and sharing in the frustrations of putting what you see in your mind down on the canvas. There were a total of 50 works by Matisse and 50 by his contemporaries.

This is a Le Corbusier painting and one of my favorites of a man playing a guitar.

This week:

I have been busy working on tutorials, videos and new aprons for the consignment shop. The shop is located in downtown Jenks, Oklahoma, and opens on August 1.

Art is always aÂ great inspiration. Inspiration hit for a new afghan that I can’t wait to show you. Yarn shopping is on my horizon first and then I will get started crocheting. Time is filling up with finishing up anÂ afghan in browns and greys. Crocheting with a different color palette than I normally use gives my brain space and cleanses myÂ color palette. There are some fun new patterns that are quick, easy and perfect for this Fall; in the works as well.

Talk to you later,

Karen

Posted on July 27, 2016 by Karen Stewart

So You are New to Crochet: Tools of the Trade

There is another youtube video out today, So You are Â New to Crochet: Tools of Trade will go over my tool kit and what I use in my crocheting. There are a few points that I need to tell you about that I don’t think I cover in my video.

The length and diameter of the crochet hook are important to me.

The length matters as a slightly longer handle helps me grip the hook better.
The diameter or how big the handle is around also matters as I have arthritis and it is easier on my hands to hold a fatter crochet hook.

Experiment and try different brand hooks and see what works better for you. Â The hooks in the photo above are both the same size “J”. You can see that one is longer than the other and the shank is longer as well. This can make a difference. The style of head is also different.

I hope you enjoy the new video. I am still so new to creating videos. The only thing I do not carry in my tool kit that you might want are stitch markers. They are pretty vital when you start crocheting in the round.

I’m sitting in the coffee shop this morning, waiting for enough time to pass that I can go to an appointment with my daughter. She just took advantage of a 40% off Â coupon for new colored pencils. I am rather jealous of all of the beautiful colors! Amazing that the first words out of her mouth were

“Wouldn’t it make a beautiful crochet blanket”!

(I have trained my children well, they know what their Mother likes!) I agree but I have too many items waiting for the crochet hook…well, maybe.

Life has been busy the past several weeks. Who, am I kidding? Life is always busy, if it weren’t I wouldn’t be alive. There is much to be done, much left to do and much more left undone at home. I have been working on an afghan in neutral tones of grey, brown, beige, and creams. It is beautiful but I think it will be difficult to write a pattern from as it has taken a certain amount of stretching, fudging and frogging to keep the sides evenish. I have been enjoying it, even though it seems so beige and boring. It is great for showing texture.Â

If you watch my shop then you know that I have removed a greater portion of my sewn items from my shop. There is a great reason for that. They will be available for consignment at a shop near the house and completely on my flight path.Â I have also been sewing again to add a bit to the consignment items. The shop is new and will be great for quick gifts for family and friends. There will be no shipping and finally my Etsy shop will be more crochet and yarny items. I am very excited. I will take you on a quick preview later this week as they get ready for opening.

Talk to you later,
Karen

P.S. Please give “So You Are New to Crochet: Tools of the Trade”Â a thumbs up after you watch it. It will encourage me to keep filming.

As always if you shop online at either Joann Fabrics or Craftsy for anything, please use my affiliate links and I will get a very small percentage back. It will help me pay for my yarn addiction!

Posted on July 19, 2016 by Karen Stewart

How to Join Yarn in Crochet

This past couple of weeks I have been posting new youtube videos once a week. This week I am adding Â a new video to the series So, You are New to Crochet: Joining yarn. This is such a short video and takes a little bit of the mystery out of joining yarn. It is one of my favorite joining methods and a little different as it takes care of weaving in one end of the yarn as you go.

The week has been full and busy with family and business pulls on my time. I have spent quite a bit of time at the library this week as one of my daughters has had a commitment 4 days this week from 8-12.

This was the view from the second floor of our library one day this week.

A direct consequence of her time commitment has been extended time getting work done, just not housework. I need to head out to the library more often. It is quiet and there are no dogs barking or household chores pulling at my time.

I have a neat opportunity heading my way at the beginning of August. I can’t wait to tell you about it.

Crocheting has been simple and direct. Right now, I have 4 afghans started and I have finished 4 quick and easy projects.Â I am working with some neutrals in shades of grey, beige, cream and brown in a wide variety of textures and incorporating some stash yarn. I love how the colors blend.

I am not sure of the pattern as it is bugging me right now.

The orange is reclaimed yarn from a sweater. It has been hanging around in my stash mocking me. The yarn is very low twist and exceedingly hard to crochet into anything that looks great. It is turning into something strictly utilitarian. I think I will get rid of what is left. I am very disappointed in the yarn.

The lovely purpley blue is turning out quite nice. I’ll show you later what it is turning into.

Remember the hexies, they had a couple of rounds added and some joining in a bright red yarn. It is about 1/3 the size that I need it to be so I am going to lay it aside for awhile. I will let it grow organically as I am left with little balls of stash yarn. It is making quite a nice afghan and I love that each hexi is different.

I have also been working on the home front and there are odds and ends to finish up before school starts next month.Â I was painting my daughter’s bedroom a couple of weeks ago. It was this horrible cafe au lait color with a muddy green wallpaper accent wall. It was dark, depressing, and made the room feel incredibly small.Â

I have it finished and it looks wonderful. Pardon the lumpy quilt. I originally took this photo to show my Mom and it ended up here as well.

There is more work to do in her room. There is a little bit of wallboard repair that needs to be finished and then I will need to touch up the paint. Needing to repair the wallboard didn’t show up until we were in the middle of the painting. Her roomÂ looks so much better, even needing the repair. I need to get back to work on it and finish it up!

What have you been working on lately, home chores, crochet or other things?

Talk to you later

Karen

Posted on July 12, 2016 by Karen Stewart

Where I Talk about Gauge and Why it Matters

What is gauge and why does it matter? There is another youtube video out today and I am introducing gauge and why it matters. It does matter, most of the time. I am not too concerned about gauge most of the time but you should be. Since I design most of my own crochet and walk my own path.

Gauge matters most when you are crocheting from a pattern. The one thing about gauge is that you MUST use the same size crochet hook throughout a project, unless the instructions say otherwise. Â You can find out more in my youtube video on gauge.

There is much going on this summer as we ready our house for a fun gathering of friends. I have been reading about scruffy entertaining. I am afraid that the house will be Â scruffy looking but I hope that it isn’t too scruffy. Scruffy entertaining is having friends over with Â minimal cleaning. I really do need to find the tops of my coffee tables as they are full of yarn, patterns and scissors. Since some of the friends coming have toddlers, I haveÂ to put away all the pins, scissors and yarn. Life has been busy this summer with full time crochet work, three kids at home and all that life brings in the course of the week and will be sorting these things out. It is wonderful to feel well enough to work and clean in the same day.

What are you working on and how is the summer going at your house?

Talk to you later,

Karen

Posted on July 5, 2016 by Karen Stewart

Where I Burn Yarn and Expose my Okie Accent

This is where I burn yarn and expose my Okie accent at the debut of my Youtube channel. Â It is funny to me how I actually sound and I hope it doesn’t grate on too many nerves. It is amazing to me to see these videos come together so quickly. I am showing tips, tricks and just generally sharing my knowledge. I have found it hard to crochet slowly enough to show what is going on. The first video I am releasing is called Burn Test. Â I was terribly afraid that I would set the house on fire and you can see the results of the test in the video. It was very interesting to see how the yarns actually burned. We did this test in one of my classes at college. I was amazed to see how much knowledge I actually retained. Here you go!

It was fun to create and see how things turn out. I have been filming little videos all week.

The July 4th weekend has been fun and busy. We have been finishing a bunch of yard work and cleaning in the house.

I am working on a couple of different crochet projects. This one is fun and it looks nothing like this now but I played with the colors bit.

These are the basis of my blanket.

The next photos remind me of the Grandmother’s Flower Garden Quilt.

I have already moved on from these square arrangements. I am crocheting a scrap afghan and just ran out of yarn for these little flowers. The yarn that I have left over I roll into little balls of yarn. These end up in a jar or when it overflows into Â a large plastic box. When the box overflows, I try to start using them up. I am and it is turning out really bright and colorful.

Talk to you later,

Karen

I would love to see your projects. Post your photos in the comments and I will stop by and see them. What are you working on now?

Posted on July 1, 2016 by Karen Stewart

Squared Circles Afghan Tutorial

I use the term tutorial very loosely. This is a very simple description of how I crocheted this blanket and the yarns I used. It does not give you step by step instructions. If you are new to crochet; then this isn’t the tutorial for you. The yarn is a pain to work with as it doesn’t frog easily.

Skills needed

ability to crochet circles and then square them
ability to add the granny square stitch to the squared circle
ability to change colors
join as you go

I added this border. Â http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/all-shawl/people?view=&search=all+shawl+pink

(This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, Iâ€™ll receive a small percentage of any sales.)

Lion brand Fisherman’s wool in Oatmeal 2 skeins.
The yarns I used were Lion brand Amazing yarn in all colorways.Â 2 skeins of each colorway for the centers
size g crochet hookÂ .
5Â skeins of Â Amazing yarn to add the bordersÂ and join all the squares together.

I’m sorry that this is such a sketchy tutorial. This is what happens when you spend almost a year crocheting an afghan and run out of yarn three times.Â

I used two skeins of yarn for each square. This was easiest by dividing the yarn into two different batches. Those that were light and those that were darker. Â I then crocheted the centers out of the light yarn and then squared the circle with the dark yarns. Then I blocked the squares. I also let them sit for six months while I decided what to do next and ordered more yarn.

The next Â step was to crochet around each square granny square style with the oatmeal fisherman’s wool. I felt that each square was busy and need a bit of a visual break. I added five groups of double crochet on each side including corners.

Â This worked well. I simply used the join as you go method to join the squares together with more of the Amazing yarn.Â

After joining all the squares I made sure that the oatmeal granny square was completely surrounded by Â the amazing yarn in granny square stitch.

I crocheted granny square style around the whole blanket with the oatmeal.

This row was followed by a row of granny square in the amazing yarn.

Another row of HDC all the way around

1 row of oatmeal Â double crochet long stitch (into the base of the HDC) chain two repeated all around the blanket, being sure to square the corners.

Then I started with the Doris Chan all shawl border. I adapted it so it wouldn’t be quite as ruffled but still add a nice ending to the blanket. The goal was to use up all remaining Amazing yarn. (I left out some chain spaces in between the double crochet groups.) I only completed five rows instead of six as she has in her border. I also added a 3 chain picot in the middle of each peak. There are 2- 3 hdc groups in the valleys. I hope this make sense to you.

It is a really rough tutorial but I didn’t write anything down while working on it. The yarn amounts are estimates at best and I used a size g crochet hook throughout. I was worried through the whole thing that it would be too small. It has turned out to be larger than I expected and also more expensive than I imagined it would be in the beginning.

Thanks for reading this and if you have any questions I might be able to answer just let me know.

Thanks,
Karen

Posted on June 21, 2016 by Karen Stewart

Patriotic Wreath

Here is my Patriotic Wreath. July 4thÂ is coming up and I wanted to crochet my Mom a patriotic wreath for her door. If you read my post yesterday you read how I glued my wreath back together. Now that it is together I started designing it. It is so much fun, Â quick and easy. I was going to put lovely white stars on it but ended up just putting the flags on it instead. The flags look wonderful. This is a free pattern to my email subscribers and you should be receiving it. If you do not wish to sign up for my email list but you like the patternÂ then you can buy the pattern in my Etsy shop.

Isn’t it beautiful.

It has been a frustrating morning but I have hustled around and put away the laundry and threw a bunch of cluttery paper out. The house feels better now and my frustration is going away. Too much clutter tends to shut down my creativity and just irritate every last nerve, or at least it feels like it.Â I hope your day is going great and things just keep improving as the day and week goes on.

This week I will beÂ concentrating on cleaning, putting away, writing, peeling more wallpaper, filming a Youtube video and Â painting my daughter’s room. One daughter is at camp so the other can use her bed while we finish removing wallpaper and get ready to paint her room. We are painting it a shade of blue-grey. If you watch Fixer Upper then you know the soft color range that I am talking about. She already has soft blue curtains and the blue grey paint will go nicely. We are hoping to make the room feel larger than it is. I’m off to get my work done so I’ll talk to you later,

Karen

P.S. Why is that when one of the kids is gone we think we morph intoÂ Super -Woman and get everything done that we haven’t done in the past 12 months? I really will settle for just three of the things on that list!

Posted on June 19, 2016 by Karen Stewart

How to Fix a Floral Wreath Form

There days when I wonder why I do certain things. This week was one of them. I bought a lovely styrofoam wreath form at the store this week. It was in one piece and not broken. I made a point of not buying a wreathÂ that was broken. I wanted a nice whole wreath without having to worry about glue and putting it back together. Well, things happened and this was the result.

There are affiliate links included in this post and I will receive a small percentage of any sale.

It broke in almost four equal pieces! I did what I was NOT going to do which is show you how to glue this wreath form back together.

Â supplies

Bamboo Skewers
tacky glue
wreath form
Some form of non-stick surface (I used my cutting mat but I have to say it isn’t a non-stick surface and I had to peel the glue off of it when I was finished.)

Lay the wreath out and figure out which parts go together. Be gentle and don’t grind the edges together.

Break the bamboo skewers in half and use just the pointy end.Â Slather tacky glue on one edge of the wreath form. Take a bamboo skewer and push it into the wreath form at an angle on the outside so that it pins the two edges together. Break the bamboo skewer off right at the surface of the wreath.Â Then do the same to the other half of the wreath. You will leave these skewer bits in the wreath.

Walk away and do not try to glue the other half of the wreath together until the next day. The glue needs to dry and it does take almost 24 hours. Glue the two halves together and you are set. I am not sure how it would stand up to floral arranging but it worked perfectly for my needs. Which I will be sharing with you tomorrow!

The week has been busy with one child at camp and the weather has been hot and humid here. We have had several weather advisory days about the heat. I am glad that the weekend is here and we are celebrating Father’s Day this week. The summer is speeding by and I am not sure that I getting everything finished that I want finished. How are things at your house? Are you busy, on vacation Â or having fun. I have been trying to change some eating habits and I keep finding myself out of sorts at dinner time. It is difficult figuring out what to cook and feed everyone. The heat is also tending to keep me out of the kitchen.

Talk to you later,

Karen