Simply Scarves - Super Simple Skinny Scarf

This next scarf is my favourite one to date for wearing just for fun. I'm normally so "granola" in the way I dress that when I fling this scarf around me & head to the bank, I sure get these weird looks from the villagers. I love being unpredictable :P

The only thing difficult about this pattern is trying to see the stitches as you knit. It's not meant to keep you warm, but to be a piece of eye candy, so that's why I opted out of using a carrier yarn (and therefore the reason the knitting goes slowly). Unfortunately, Bernat has discontinued this yarn, called Bling Bling (scarf shown in Brilliant Blue colourway), but you can still pick up some small batches of it on Ebay. All I did was cast on 16 stitches on 8.00 mm needles and knit in stocking stitch (aka stokinette stitch) until the entire skein was very close to being used up, then cast off & wove in ends. what could be easier?

Well, I'll tell you :) Add a carrier yarn along with the Bling Bling (I used Lionbrand Homespun in Williamsburg). I did this one in knit stitch only, which also added to the bulk, but I wanted a really warm scarf for my daughter. Still done with a 16 stitches cast onto 8.00 mm needles, but it is way easier to find those stitches - I think it took me under two hours to finish it, with interuptions from my kids, and I'm no speedy knitter.

Simply Scarves - Striped scarf

It's that time of year when scarves are on everybody's mind, so I thought I'd share some knit & crocheted ones that I've made that are simple to do. Here's the first one:

The striping in this scarf was based on a number pattern known as the Fibonacci series, which goes like so: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89,...etc. Leonardo Fibonacci was an Italian mathematician who came up with this pattern of numbers to relate to what the Renaissance artists of his day referred to as "the golden ratio". The golden ratio was a term used to signify perfection, measurements that in art or architecture that were always pleasing to the eyes. The Fibonacci series is often used to show the spiral of a seashell in nature. But enough of that mathematical history lesson, and on to how the striping was done.

I used cotton chenille that was 1400 YPP and double stranded it (which made it about equivalent to worsted weight). Knitting needles size 8.0 mm. The colours used are Raspberry (R), Butter (B), Chartreuse Green (C). When I selected the order of the stripes, I changed colours after knitting a pattern repeat of 5, 8, 1, 2, 3 rows. In case that doesn't make sense, this is exactly how my pattern went:

Knit the entire scarf in stocking stitch (row 1 is knit, row 2 is purl, repeat rows 1 & 2 to end of scarf). When I changed colours at the end of the rows, I'd leave a 4" tail, and then tie the new colour to it (also leaving a 4" tail) to make mini tassles of 4 strands intermitently along the sides. This would mortify my grandmother if she were still alive - How could I not weave in the ends! - but it's my scarf, and I like it :)

Starting with R, cast on 20.
*5 rows in R.
8 rows in B.
1 row in C.
2 rows in R.
3 rows in B.
5 rows in C.
8 rows in R.
1 row in B.
2 rows in C.
3 rows in R.
5 rows in B.
8 rows in C.
1 row in R.
2 rows in B.
3 rows in C. Repeat from *twice and cast off

Update to the Tea & A Cup of Crochet Website

I've finally done it - I've got my Tea & A Cup of Crochet website up and running in a way that I feel good about. My biggest hurdle has been getting over my own perfectionism & just "gettin' er done". If you like crochet, just pop on over to the site, where I have a free crochet pattern of this Lemon Blossom Motif to download:
I hope you enjoy it - this would make a nice & quick little decoration by itself for any of those last minute crafting needs you have :)

Giving Thanks

Happy Belated Thanksgiving to all of my family & friends down south :) I know that I have many things to be thankful for, despite the trying times with our finances over the past 3 years:

I am thankful for family & friends that care about us enough to continually pray for us and to help us out when they are able. I am thankful for these same family & friends to be able to return the same in kind to. When times are down we are each others moral support, when times are up, we are each others cheer-leaders.While my own biological family is very near & dear to my heart, I can gladly say that I have many friends who are special brothers, sisters, aunties & uncles to me! I am truly rich with loving people in my life.

I am thankful that we own our home outright. As hard as things can get sometimes, I know of one certainty - we will not be thrown out on the street, even if we were to lose the bicycle shop & my online business. Knowing this gives me peace of mind for the safety & security of my children. I sure hope I'm not coming off sounding smug - I know all too well the feeling of desperation that comes with homelessness. When we moved from St.Helena, CA back into Canada, the house that we thought was going to be a good match for us turned out to be a complete dud (I'm also thankful we hadn't signed the contract yet!), and so instead of moving in in 2 days, we lived out of a hotel for 2.5 weeks while we scrambled to find a storage space for our things, hope Dan's job offer was still open and find another house - all while I was 8 months pregnant with baby #5. I am extremely thankful that it all turned out well for us.

I am thankful for Dan's new job at the glass manufacturing plant. Although all the money he is earning so far is just being funneled directly into debts, it is better than going bankrupt. I am thankful for a wonderful husband that not only is a hard worker, but even in times of financial stress, he does not lose his temper, give in to self-defeat, or otherwise be negative (unlike me, the worry-wart of the family - LOL!) I've truly blessed by him, and I love him very much :)

I'm thankful for my lovely children, just for being them :) I love when my oldest daughter shows me a new craft project or reads me a poem she just wrote. I love when my oldest son draws his "ant wars" doodles and makes plans to live sustainably on an island in the South Pacific as a scientist. I love my youngest daughter's obsession with all things pink & princess related and her wild hair. I love watching my second son's ability to build with Kinex and imitation of a T-rex. I love my third son's constant happy smile & the way he says "Otay", just like Porky in Our Gang (Little Rascals). And last, but not least, I love my youngest son's laughter when he sees a cat or tries to type on the computer keyboard.

Feast or Famine

If you are a small business owner, freelancer, farmer, fisherman, or other self-employed individual, I'm sure that you've encountered this. Either you have a lot of income coming in all at once (the Feast), or you have a lot of expenses (usually right when there's no money coming in to pay the bills! - Famine).

It seems that we've been fighting a "Famine" ourselves for the past 3 years - LOL! We had a crooked accountant mess up our taxes by literally doing nothing with the paperwork that was given to her - that travesty is now going to cost us $5000 in back taxes & penalties on our PST - we're trying to get an appeal though, as the auditor didn't put into consideration PST we paid already on products for resale & that we are supposed to be on a yearly remittance, not a quarterly one.

Then our water heater blew it's seals (water leaked inside the unit & fried it), so we have to send it down to the US for replacement. This is the third year in a row that we've headed into winter with no running hot water - one of many reasons why Dan thinks this province is cursed! So I'm back to boiling water on the stove all day for dishes, laundry & bathing needs.

My husband closed his bicycle business for the season on October 31st. Nobody in their right mind uses a bike in winter here where temperatures dip to -40º C. Then the job hunt began - which is difficult when you're strapped for cash as it is, but have to spend $30/day on gas to get into the city where the only jobs he's qualified for are. Thankfully, through the networking of a good friend of ours, he landed a job this past week at a glass manufacturing plant.

I'm glad he now has steady work, but I'm not relieved just yet - we're so far in debt that it will take about two months to "get afloat" as it were. I'm constantly praying that the weather doesn't get too severe so that he can safely get into work & back each day. With the high cost of gas being what it is, I'm also hoping that he can find somebody in Swift Current that he can stay with during the week - maybe paying them half of what he would on gas for rent - then he wouldn't risk driving off the road, which is very easy to do at this time of year. That's just a horrible possibility that I don't even want to entertain in my mind.

Maybe, just maybe we will finally move into Swift Current - even though we'd then be carrying a mortgage, it would save us a lot of money in other ways - and it would be a lot easier for Dan to get work during the bike shop's off season. I'm kind of torn though - there are so many more opportunities in Swift Current for activities (good rec center, home school support group events, six parks, to name a few), we'd be closer to Dan's & my friends, and it would be easier for my Dad to come visit us, but then we'd be in the city - the kids would miss their friends, and we'd all miss the peacefullness and wide open space that we've grown accustomed to. If we could find something on the edge of the city, that would be ideal, but there are very few properties available with the economic downturn. Hopefully, the Feast is around the corner....

Hockey Fan Snowman Wearing Canuck Team Colours Cross Stitch Chart

Time for some shameless self-promotion. In between using the Macstitch program for converting Victorian crochet patterns into colour, I've been actually doing some designing of my own on the side. The Canucks fan came about after I had a reconnection with a friend of mine from college (Hi Jane!), who just so happens to love cross stitching, and has an obsession with snowmen. So I came up with a little something for her & Canucks fans everywhere:

Available as a PDF file that is sent to your email
$3.00

It was designed to be worked on an 8" x 8" piece of 16 count fabric. There are 15 colors of thread (chart tells approximate length of each thread needed to complete project), and has full cross stitches and back stitches. The chart is in 8 st/inch for reading. The pattern assumes that you already know how to read a counted cross stitch chart.

You will receive a PDF file of the cross stitch chart within 24 hours of paying, not a physical paper chart or the finished item. I am able to make the chart in different st/inch if you want me to. If you feel uncomfortable buying directly off of my blog, I also carry the pattern on Etsy.

You'll note that I don't have the whale logo though, as I can't have that on there without having a license to do so. Hope you enjoy!

Cruel Yarn Store

Yarnia is by far the cruelest yarn shop on the planet.

They have the most delicious looking yarns - the secret being that they combine them to you liking right in their store! A good reason to make a trip out to Oregon :) But if you live far away in another country, like I do, then you can't do this . However, they do have some luscious pre-made cones available on their online store:

Now my poor children will be crying that all they have is beautiful clothing to wear, and no food to eat this winter. Curse you Yarnia, for forcing me to blow our grocery budget!

All kidding aside though, I think the concept is great, but like all ideas of sheer genius, it may be way ahead of it's time. Only time will tell, but I sure hope it takes off, and that a similar yarn store can be found near me soon.

Re-Interpreting Old Crochet Designs

I love vintage needlework patterns, and often scour used book stores, thrift shops & the internet for them. An ongoing project I've had for the past 1.5 yrs is going through pattern books that have entered the public domain & digitally remastering the patterns. I used to just scan the books in directly, but when they are so very old, there's so much work to be done afterwords to clean up the black & white illustrations and make the text readable that it sometimes seems hardly worth it. I wanted to see those old patterns in color!

So my brain slowly formed an idea. Why not use my cross stitch software (Macstitch) to interpret (or rather, re-interpret) some of those old patterns? I really don't know why it took me so long to come to this idea - as I've used this software for my own designs for over 3 yrs now. Better late than never, I guess! Anyway, the results so far have been fantastic:

This sample was derived from a 1890's crochet pattern book. For choosing the colours, I just went with the colour descriptions that were in the book and what I could find in my own research online as to what those colours would be like. I certainly don't know if the colouring is authentic to the time period, but I still liked the overall effect. I think this would look lovely as an afghan done in repeating strips, with the background done in Tunisan stitch and the pattern cross stitched on. Another use I can think of is to use the black strip by itself as a frame design on a cross stitch pattern with a Victorian theme.

First FO in a long time...

...and I finished it in less than an hour! It wasn't much of a project - just a little something to keep my youngest son busy.

Nathan, for reasons unknown to genetic scientists, loves cleaning around the house. He is only one year of age, and has a particular interest in stealing the mop and swishing it all over the kitchen floor. This would normally be encouraged, because nobody else here in our house really wants to take up this task, but he's a little dangerous with it - often clobbering unsuspecting victims in the back of their heads with the handle when they are seated at the dinner table.

So I created his own personal mop from an old chair leg (sawed off & sand-papered smooth) and crocheted a nice little mop head onto it from some polyester novelty yarn that I had hiding in my closet.

The polyester yarn is horrible to work with on it's own, so I mixed it with some spare Bernat Handcrafter's cotton to stabilize it.

I started by crocheting a chain around the knob and forming it into a ring. (Hand modeled by my lovely DD Deborah)


Next, it's just a matter of crocheting a long chain and slip stitching back into the base of the ring. I made chains of 30 stitches in length.

Halfway there

Ring is now filled, just flip over and...

....Nathan's mini mop is ready to go.

The smile on his face says it all :)

Fabergé Crochet

Our family just recently inherited some lovely books & magazines from a dear elderly friend of ours who is moving into assisted living. One of my favourites is a jigsaw puzzle book that she gave to the girls, called Fabergé Treasures

How sheltered a life I live - I'd heard of Fabergé before, but had never seen any examples of his work. Just stunning! So of course I had to find out if there were any needlework & tea related items:

Fabergé Crochet Hook

Feodor Ruckert Tea Set

So now that I'm inspired to make my own Fabergé styled masterpieces, I'll leave you these needlework interpretations of the jewel master's art:

Ladyfiddler's Ornaments

Carina's Embroidered Eggs

Ebb and Flow Earrings

Ebay vs Etsy and Shipping Rant

I would be really interested to know how people are finding sales of crafting items are doing for them on both of these two sites. I'm currently listing some spare patterns on both sites myself. What I'm currently finding is that sales are slow on both sites, but that might be due to me not having enough selection up yet. And while I can't make a comparison for Etsy sales last year (being the new kid on the block there), I know that Ebay sales have been extremely sluggish compared to how I was doing last year.

Perhaps it is because everybody is feeling the pinch these days, and not to do with my own offerings. I know that it's going to be near impossible for me to sell books on Ebay anymore, once the Canadian site puts the shipping cap on it that is currently happening on the US site. for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, Ebay.com has rolled out a new policy that all books can only charge a maximum of $4 for shipping - which is really stupid when you think about it.

Not all books are created equal - some are extremely heavy, and even with US Media Mail, would be far more expensive than that to ship. Then there are the rare needlework books that I love - I don't want a seller to skimp on packaging materials just so that they can ship it cheaply to me. I know that the sellers will now have to jack up the initial cost of their books to make up the loss on shipping, but then they lose a percentage of that to Ebay in the way of fees. In my not so humble opinion, it's just a greedy way for Ebay to further rip off the sellers.

The bigger problem with this happening to Ebay Canada down the road is that we don't have a Media Mail shipping option here. A book at 3lbs weight can be stuck in a Priority Mail envelope to travel within the US for $4. That same book would cost $12 to travel within Canada and $15 to go to the US. That's why the majority of book sellers on Amazon.ca are from the US - Canadians can't compete with the cheap shipping that our American neighbours can offer, even in our own country.

Back to Ebay vs Etsy - Ebay is getting to look more and more like a giant box store, full of the same souless goods that can be found in Walmart. Not that there isn't a place for some of those goods, but if I'm going to buy those types of things, I think I would just rather buy it at the box store in my own town than one in another country. Esty is like some wonderful international craft fair. If you want to buy something truly unique, I think it is the best place to go on the internet. However, if you are a seller, I think it takes a longer time to find your target market, because there are just so many incredibly talented artisans that you are up against.

It seems to me that the best option is to put a few items on both sites, plus some other sites like it (iOffer, eBid, Craigslist & Kijiji), all with links and promotional materials to take your customers back to your own website for future sales. Again, I'd love to know from other's experiences what has worked best form them in respect to selling craft related items on the internet.

Vintage Patterns & Gadgets

I love vintage patterns - I don't know exactly where this love stems from - maybe it's in my blood, as my maternal grandma is into collecting all kinds of depression glass, vintage plates, salt & pepper shakers, egg cups and anything to do with the Royal Family. I'm sure that if I had all the time, money, space and unction to live as selfishly as possible (not saying collectors in are selfish, I just think my money should go into more practical things, like food for my 6 children & their home-school supplies, in this stage of my life) I'd amass a collection of ivory carved crochet hooks & knitting needles, gold & mother of pearl inlaid tatting shuttles, ornately carved work-tables, and shelves - row upon rows of shelves - filled to capacity with every kind of yarn and thread imaginable and lined with tomes of antique & vintage needlework books.

Then there would be the gadgets. Those wonderful, and sometimes ridiculously time consuming gadgets which were supposed to make the needle-worker's job easier. Obviously, some were a god-send, such as the knitting rakes & looms, which some previous non-knitters are happily discovering today. Then there were the items that take up more time, use way more fibre and still produced (IMHO) a shoddy product - lap weaving & the K-Tel Knitter come to mind.

One of my favourite gadgets of late is Walter Palange's Knitting Pal. I bought a grey market version of it from a thrift store 7 years ago, but it didn't have the instructions, so it sat in my closet & moved with our family twice before I got the opportunity to use it. I finally sourced a copy of the instructions last year and made a really nice scarf from some novelty yarn in less than 2 hours. I know that would have taken me 2 days to hand knit, so I was really pleased with the results, especially when I considered that I didn't use the knitter to it's full advantage - I only used one yarn colour and therefore only one row at a time. For my next project, I think I will try to make a striped poncho, made up of two rectangular panels, and see how fast the work goes.

The real disadvantage to the Knitting Pal (and any knitting machine, for that matter) is that once you start a project, you pretty much have to take it to the end. If you don't have a separate space to set up the Knitting Pal, you have to worry about pets, children, significant others or guests getting into it and messing it up. And once you have yarn on it, you DON'T want to try to dismantle it from your table and put it aside in a bag, where the yarn will come off the pegs and tangle up. Planning is key to make it enjoyable - I would never make an afghan out of it unless I was going to make smaller panels to join together later. If you have a craft room that is off limits on threat of death though, you could make as large a project as you could stand to make - buy several of these gadgets and line them all up into one massive knitting machine & you're good to go!

More on my adventures with the Knitting Pal to come...

New Blog + Better Access = More Postings?

I already have a blog, actually, three blogs, but I never bother to write anything on them. One blog, attached to my Ebay account, is useless for what I want it to do. Ebay doesn't allow any links on it, which to me is the whole point of having a blog that is actually useful to anybody reading it, and they also have a policy of unfair policing of what is written, so it just wasn't worth it for me to keep writing there. This blog is now going to serve as my replacement for the Ebay blog.

My other blog, also on Blogger here, I just got waylaid to post to, and then I actually forgot what the name of it was, what email address & Id I used for it, so it's lost in the vast reaches of my short-term memory! I guess it wasn't all that important to me... then my most recent blog before this, which I really love, I haven't been able to get access to since March this year. I was hosting it myself from my husband's Macbook, but then he needed the laptop for work. Since I hosted it with iWeb, I can only use that software to update my blog, and I need the original files from the laptop transfered to our new computer before I can make new postings. Really inconvenient, but I love the iWeb format better than all these free blogs on the net. Oh well!

So, here I am starting up another blog, with an easier name to remember (I hope), and I know I can at least access it from any computer with an internet connection. Will it mean more regular postings by me then? Only time will tell :)