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my creative space

my creative space

Are you sitting down? My creative space is filled with knitting today. Yes, I said knitting. Can you believe it? It’s been awhile.

Our local guild is making squares for charity blankets again. I took a break from this last year, but the year before I met my goal of 12 squares — one a month. I was hoping to meet that goal again in 2010, but here it is almost May and I’m on my first square! We’ll see how many I get done.

There were some lovely creative spaces last week listed on Kirsty’s blog. Did you check them out? You should!

stash and pattern: More acrylic from my thrifted stash. These skeins must multiply when I’m not looking! The patterns are being chosen by the group. This is the January square listed on the Hanks website.

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my creative space

granny square scarf

In my creative space today (and tomorrow and the next day…) are granny squares. I had no idea how relaxing these were until I stopped making them. Then I felt a hole, like something was missing, and I realized it was clusters of double crochet!

I’m using my recycled sweater yarn for this one simply because it’s so soft and nice to work with. Whenever I start to feel stressed, I take a deep breath and grab a square.

What’s in your creative space today? Why don’t you pop on over to Kirsty’s blog and join the fun!

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more crochet, more recycled sweater yarn

recycled sweater yarn granny square scarf

I know it seems like I crochet all the time now. I haven’t abandoned knitting or sewing. My daughter is going through what I call a “grabbie” phase. She’s always been very interested in my crafting, but now she’s all about touching everything. I joke that it’s like living with an octopus. There seem to be way more than two little hands trying to get at my projects.

Sewing is hard because of all of the shiny, pointy tools: pins, needles, scissors. She loves the heavy click the sewing machine on-switch makes and how the light turns on. Knitting and crochet are both difficult, too. She LOVES to pull out my needle or hook and try to do it herself. Pulling out a crochet hook isn’t that bad, but pulling out a knitting needle makes an unraveled yarny mess.

Sometimes I’m lucky to get a stretch of time when she’s playing with playdoh or concentrating hard on her letters and numbers. And there’s always that hour during Sesame Street. Until this phase is over, I’ll just grab a stack of books, sit on the floor next to her and crochet while we read.

recycle: Yes, I’m still working from my stash of recycled sweater yarn. I’m thinking about another granny square scarf. It’s snowing today, so I’m guessing I’ll get a lot of time to work on it!

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finished: granny square scarf

granny square scarf

Yay for pictures! I was so excited that the sun was out today, as we were expecting more rain. It’s still kind of chilly — perfect scarf weather.

lion brand wool ease scarf

Some squares were a little smaller than others. I’m not sure if it was daily life that messed with my tension or my learning curve. I arranged them smallest to largest for seaming and you really can’t tell.

woolease granny square scarf

I got 7 squares out of each skein for a total of 14. It blocked nicely considering it’s only 20% wool. I can’t wait to wear it tomorrow!

project details: here and here.

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granny square scarf almost finished

granny square scarf

You’d think that with all of this gift making I wouldn’t have any time to make something for myself. These granny squares are perfect for fleeting moments of “me time” and I can’t believe the progress I have made! I’m going until I’m out of yarn, which will probably be two more squares. I’m loving the atypical, monochromatic look.

Even though these are fun and working up quickly, I can’t imagine doing enough for a blanket. I’m not even looking forward to seaming these together for a scarf. Any future granny projects will probably be small ones for me!

project notes: Granny pattern from Attic24. Yarn from Freecycle.

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my first granny squares

granny squares

I needed a small, portable project for our trip to Kearney last weekend. In the past, my travel projects have mostly been socks. Now that my daughter is older, I prefer something that doesn’t require so many needles and won’t completely unravel if I throw it in my bag to chase her down.

granny squares

I decided it was time to try my hand at granny squares and I think they’re looking pretty good. I finished one in the car on the way out and one during the day. (That’s the president of the local BMW Car Club holding my square over a Porsche. Isn’t it great how the fiber arts bring us all together!)

granny squares

I’m planning to seam these together and make a scarf for myself. I’m really happy with the colors and the yarn is really soft.

stash: Yarn is Lion Brand Wool-Ease from a giant freecycle haul. Most of what I got that day has been given to knitting guild members to make squares for charity blankets. There were about five skeins of this colorway that I kept for myself. I’m not sure what I’ll do with the rest of it yet. Maybe matching wrist warmers?