In which I prove that not everything can be done at once

So here we are, on a Friday. It's a quiet morning so far, belying the excitement, stress, panicking and sweat that will define the rest of the day.

Tomorrow hubby and I head to Faires & Berries, the Penumbra Fantasy Faire prelude. This will be my first time as a vendor, and yet I'll be around the faire performing for most of the day while my business partner Crystal (crystalsidyll.etsy.com) sells both her own wares and mine in or double shopping space.

Panicked? Yes. Excited? Oh, heck yeah.

In the process of getting ready for this faire, I visited several garage sales and antique stores, looking for display objects -- something to drape jewelry over and around so that they're not just lying lifeless on a flat table. In one antique shop, they had a rather large pile of gallon freezer bags of jewelry for only $10 each. I was running out of the cash that I had set aside for the endeavor, but his was too good to pass up.


Wow.

Several days later, I finally emptied the bag on the floor to see what I had found. It's funny the way old jewelry always smells the same -- just as recognizable as a used book store -- sort of dank and yet metallic. What did I find but a treasure of potential take-it-apart-and-make-something-new-and-cool ideas, as well as do-I-have-to-take-it-apart pieces. There were even several sterling silver pieces which were individually worth more than $10! Well, I wasn't able to get through all the ideas from that antique bag, but it was certainly a creative boost.

What's more, a couple of the "brass" goblets I picked up from a garage sale for 25 cents each also turned out to be silver!


I've also managed to steal a little bit of riding time in on both mares at the new barn. The outdoor arena is lovely and soft, and Dancer loves to GO-GO-GO in that footing (which makes it harder to rein her in for collection and bending), but Tempest was convinced the other day that there was a ghost behind one set of trees, so we just rode in the indoor arena after a good longe.

Will report back after the show with pics of the booth, etc.!

A now for something completely different...!

Yeah, like you haven't heard that before.

But seriously folks, I've been playing with a few lace stitches and random ideas in additio to the chainmail. Now for sale on my Etsy page are headbands and bookmarks!


These were SO much fun to make. My favorite photo is of the sock sticking out of the book. Until I started coming up with the description, I didn't even think of the Harry Potter reference -- I was already moving on to other things that might look cute coming out of the book -- mittens, scarf ends, etc. However, I don't want a certain author to come after for not having the proper licensing, so it will just remain a simple sock bookmark, a.k.a. the "sockmark."


The headband is also a very comfortable option. It doesn't clink against your glasses or try to push them off. If you have thin hair like me, you don't have to worry about teeth scraping your scalp. And if you have a round head and slick hair like me, it doesn't slip off the back of your head when you look up. It's perfect!

To reiterate from the item descriptions on Etsy, if anyone is interested in getting these in other colorways (color combinations), just let me know! I have lots of sock yarn already, and there are many others out there.

In other news, vaulting camp is this week (Sky Mountain Vaulters), so I'll be busy helping the head coach there. Best of all, we'll go lake swimming several times this week! Although I did accidental drop a steak knife on my toe this morning, point down, so we'll see how it goes.

A shiny new toy

I have a new toy. It actually took a little time to get to play with it. The first part arrived, and hubby had assured me that the Dremel he had would work with it. However, it arrived, and the newer style of Dremel didn't fit. We went back to the site, ordered the one that was recommended (well, the least expensive version of it, which was actually less expensive than ordering a new Dremel).

And it works! Where I would easily spend the better part of a movie spinning and cutting enough jump rings for a necklace, I can now watch the opening credits while I spin a few coils, pause the movie, and then spend 5-10 minutes cutting said coils, and weave chainmail for the remainder of the movie! (Most people know that I don't sit and watch anything anymore -- TV is a very expensive, but potentially commercial-free, radio or book on tape.)


Having had plenty of sunshine and heat lately (and then some), between vaulting, yard work and the craft store, I spent the day in front of a window with the breeze, "watching" videos of Knitting Daily TV from the library, and actually making product! I had enough rings spun to make quite a few items, and here are a couple of them.

The first is a simply elegant birdcage and moebius weave with gorgeous purple shell drops. Earrings will follow eventually. The second is a black and copper bracelet which will have a matching necklace, and perhaps earrings.


These won't be in my Etsy shop for a while. I'm building up inventory for a booth at the Penumbra Faire Prelude on August 22. I can't wait!

Squeaking in some projects

I've been spending a huge amount of time recently on Etsy, in the forums, reading everything I can on getting more traffic to my Etsy shop.

Now, because I've been reading everything possible there, I also now have a fan page on Facebook for the studio (Fan me! Fan me now!) and a Twitter profile (heaven help me, follow me there, too).

Why, you ask? All for the glimmer of hope that someone, somewhere will see my work and to buy some of it. Well, all we can do is hope, right? But I really ought to make more time for actually making things people want to buy! But it's all for the fun of it. If it starts being unfun, then it just becomes another job, and all the sparkle will go out of the end result.


And speaking of fun, I have yarn! Yarn I spun myself on a Greensleeves spindle and on one of my own spindles. I've now divided it into 2 piles: Cat Toy Fodder and Potential Somethings. The 2nd pile may become a pair of fingerless gloves, a scarf, or perhaps even some jewelry, but we'll see how that goes once some other urgent projects are out of the way.


3 new pieces have been posted in my Etsy shop, http://horsenround.etsy.com. My favorite is definitely this jade and agate set. Yeah, OK, so green is my favorite color, but it was just so much fun to put together, and in the process of playing, I discovered a few new techniques that will appear later on more pieces!

In other news, I've just learned that the one vaulter from my team (Sky Mountain Vaulters has been doing spectacularly well at the National competition in Kentucky, all 2nd-4th places. Hoping to see some photos from that later this next week.

Absolutely nothing to do with anything, but have to share this

I've had my socks knocked off this morning. Not by any real news from the media (I tend to ignore it, as it's too frustrating most of the time anyway), but by a choir.

The video starts out very quietly, but grows slowly. The choir crates the sound of a thunderstorm with their hands and the stage itself. Once the singing starts, you also don't eve notice that they're completely a cappella. Just watch -- you'll be amazed!



If for whatever reason you're unable to view it here, here's the link to YouTube: Africa

A slow start to the day

After sleeping in a bit for the first time in days, here I sit with Oscar and a coffee (which I had the forethought to program an automatic start last night). I actually should be heading north to Everett to find more fabric in order to create replacement vaulting pad covers as well as a few other things. It's another refreshingly cool morning, however, and Oscar is nice and warm. And I'm attempting to "upgrade" to the new version of Internet Explorer. Eek. Fortunately, I seem to have figured out how to get most of what I used before back, but what were they thinking with these defaults? This does not bode well for the next version of Windows.


In other news, I may even be able to finish this poor neglected necklace today or tomorrow. It will consist of river agate, fossil coral, B.C. jade and seed beads in pearl and olive tones. I'm making my first attempt at creating some beaded beads for this one. I may end up usng those for something else if it looks strange when put together, but we'll just have to see.

Hubby has also very kindly cleared the dining room table so that I may block the lace scarf and shawl this week. These were finished several months ago and have been waiting for house projects to come to a lull.

Well, the fire alarm just chirped a couple of times -- it seems to be going through batteries more quickly than Daylight Savings Time changes. Hmm....

Here we are again

Well, here we are again -- the random ramblings sort of rambled away and disappeared, didn't they? Life has ben very interesting for the past year-and-a-bit.

Let's see... In May, hubby and I did our 5-year wedding anniversary cruise. We had rough seas in the open ocean, as you can see from the photo. We had a fantastic time, and we're both looking forward to doing it again when we don't have raging colds!

In June, the property where I was boarding Dancer and Tes was sold, so I moved the horses and followed Andrea to her new temporary place. (It's temporary because she will be moving elsewhere sometime this fall.) We all worked our tails off to get the new place ready in late June and early July. Then hubby and I helped our friends with the Pirates of Puget Sound at the Tall Ships Festival for the July 4 weekend.

However, my feet didn't stop hurting after all of that. The pain was bad enough that I actually went to the doctor for the first time since I went to the doctor to ask about the arthritis in my hands in 1997 or so, and he laughed me out of the office. After x-rays and much hemming and hawing, they finally decided that I have osteoarthritis in my feet! So I've been trying to be good and take vitamins, but they make me ill (literally), so we're still working on that.

I'm still working at Ben Franklin, with my own company and with the horses. However, I decided earlier this year that retail management wasn't for me, and that I would much rather concentrate on my business matters and on the vaulting team. The head coach Andrea will be moving elsewhere this fall, which means I needed to step up and start coaching the team between her visits! Fortunately, I also have coaching help from the previous team captain, Cortney, and the current team veteran, Sarah, both of whom are fabulous, invaluable young ladies. (Boy, that makes me sound like an old lady, but it sure feels like it some days!) The whole team is fantastic, and I'm endlessly proud to be in it with each and every one of them.

So we'll still be talking about all the things we didn't before, but hopefully on a more regular basis. Lots of photos to share, and many more to come.

It also looks like Blogspot has added a few more features, and I now have an Etsy shop and a Facebook profile, as well as a few more things, so hang on tight while I figure out how to get those linked as well!

A blog post about...a...blog...post...

Yeah, well, not much going on, really. We had yet more snow on the weekend of April 19th. It's killing all my May flowers! (By the way, that's a shot of the snow the morning of the 20th out my office window at home.)

However, Ben Franklin now has a blog, and yours truly is one of many contributors as the Bead/Jewelry Dept. head and representative. You can see it here: http://benfranklinmonroe.blogspot.com/

(Stay tuned for my post there on the $200 necklace I'm making for under $50! Once the necklace is finished, of course.)

Happy crafting!

(almost) April (snow) Showers

Well, we're so out of touch with things that we completely missed Earth Hour (seen on blogs such as And She Knits, Too and Smoking Hot Needles).

However, we have snow. Lots of snow. This is the Northwest, not the Great White North -- what gives?!

We've been making do with half an inch of snow here and there, and with people not knowing how to drive when it's falling from the sky (it's just fluffy rain, people!) and then I braved the full inch or so of snow, ice and slush down our hill Saturday morning. (We live 800 ft. above sea level, which isn't that big a deal for most of the country, but when the rest of the Puget Sound area is at or below sea level, and 800 ft. is actually high enough to change some cooking/baking directions, and having broken my primary hand in a snow-related car accident 6 years ago, spending 4 months on pain killers that I should have had anti-psychotic chasers for... "Brave" is a pretty good description for going out in that.)

This morning, we woke to several inches...


This is a potted Imperial maple outside the office window that had just started to bud, and then the BBQ on the other side, whose snow has joined with the railing's snow.

I'm thinking some shoveling will be in order, assuming we actually end up going anywhere...

...since the car is certainly blocked in. (While the Honda Insight hybrids are excellent in snow and ice, due to their heavy batteries and narrow tires, the low frame profile rather prohibits getting through snow, as it often high-centers on the snow between tire tracks.) Nope, it's a truck day if we head out to vaulting today.

Also notice the walkway lights, and how one of them is all but buried.

On the bright side, hubby and I will be planning bathtub tiles with brown paper, and I might manage to get some jewelry made. (New porcelain beads came in at work. Check 'em out!)

What? March already?? Since when?

I'm not sure time is flying by so much as getting washed away with the Spring rains. Although there was that 1 hour lost a weekend or 2 ago that some of us are still reeling from.

Since the last post, life has been happening. MIL has safely flown home to the wintry wilds of Ontario, where they have been attacked by snowstorm after snowstorm. (You can read all about them in the blogs from The Yarn Harlot and And She Knits, Too.) I have been unofficially -- yet officially, somehow -- been made bead/jewelry department head and soon-to-be department manager at the Monroe Ben Franklin (an idea which is both exciting and terrifying at the same time).

Best of all, I've been finishing some projects in my dwindling spare time. Aside from web site stuff for clients (which has been taking chunk of time here and there), here are some photos of the more fun-to-share things.

First of all, we have jewelry!

These are some simple chain weaves. The one on the left is a helm chain in gunmetal, silver and copper. (Some also call it a wedding knot, among other things; I'm not sure propriety allows me to share one of my students' names for it after struggling for a couple of hours.) The gold one on the right is the necklace I made for my mother's wedding. (Still waiting for wedding photos, too.)


Here we have one of the simplest pairings I've done so far. This is the product of 4 cheap, stretchy bracelets we received at the store. I cut them apart and restrung them on heavier stretchy cord to make a choker and bracelet. Love these things! Customers love them, too, but we don't seem to have gotten any more in the latest shipment, much to the jealousy of many.


Also since the last post, I had the opportunity to take a class and make this ruffled bracelet. It's all seed beads in greens, ambers and coppers. Somewhat time consuming, but the result is cute, and I just love that button! I swear it's going to end up on costumes.


Here's another chainmail necklace featuring a pendant found in the depths of my manager's office when they were cleaning it out to prepare for expansion. She sent several treasures down and told us to go home with them. Oh, oh, twist my arm. *grin*


This is the piece of which I'm proudest -- the leaf and pearl necklace. I spent the better part of a day on this one, but it's one of my favorites. Freshwater pearls, copper sead beads and a moss agate carved leaf.



And now for the knitted items, mostly socks or sock-like.

Finally! A photo of the No Tears-based sock, based on a pattern from Elizabeth Zimmerman. Lots of fun to make and wear.


Here are the gorgeously soft merino wool socks I had so much help with. The only thing is that the turquoise colored the bottom of my foot after the first day of wearing them. Time will tell.


Lastly, the Cortney legwarmers. Cortney is a fun, fantastic 18yo young woman I know from the barn. She is the vaulting team captain, a skilled vaulter and rider, a hard worker, but she has one of the hardest home lives to grow up having. She has become a stellar person despite her home surroundings, so I have a hard time not doing anything to help keep her cheerful and bright (not that she needs much of my help -- she has a deep well of happiness fed by horses, sunshine and her away-from-home surrogate mother, Andrea the barn owner). When she asked for legwarmers in a long list of bright pastels (to go with her new and very-80s tiger print spandex), I went on the hunt and found a closeout ombre from Knit Picks in a nylon-acrylic blend -- easy to wash and should be pretty durable. Not to mention, this is SO SOFT. I am such a Knit Picks fan these days.



Well, that's it from la-la land these days. Is it too late to do New Year's Resolutions to get better about updating the blog?

No end of help

Things have been somewhat hectic lately, to say the least. We're barely managing to get anything done, though Hubby has managed to almost finish replacing our front door. (There are a lot of steps involved, and we often don't know what's needed until we start to do something.

With some furry little help, I managed to finish the first of a pair of socks done in Knit Picks Essential in Peacock Multi...

This has become a very common pose after working days, me in the Love Sac (a giant bean bag, for those of you who haven't heard of them; a.k.a. world's largest cat bed) with Zoe across my chest and Oscar on my lap. By the end of the evening, I'm nearly supine on the floor, and my arms are tired from holding knitting away from the white fur.

In other news, Hubby has also replaced the kitchen sink. Like most of the other pojects in this house, it turned out to be a muh more difficult taks than one would expect. For instance, in this case, the faucets were welded to the sink. Expected? Certainly not. Also, who would expect that Binna could be so useful at holding Hubby down while he struggled with said project?

Binna's first act was actually to climb into the cabinet onto Hubby's chest, look up under the sink to see what he was doing, and while MIL went to grab the camera, decided that perhaps she could better anchor him in a position on his thigh instead.

More jewelry in progress. Finished a couple of pieces today, but still having trouble getting into the mode of reaching for the camera when something gets finished!

Happy V-Day to all!

I realize that not everyone celebrates, but as today marks the 6th anniversary of when my poor husband tried to propose while I was still high on painkillers due to a broken hand the previous month and was trying to figure out the TV remote!


Yeah, his story starts with "She stabbed me, so I married her" and all the supporting stories just get better.


So anyway, I promised some jewelry pics, so here they are! The above necklace was done with some pink stones (and of course, I've forgotten the name of them), silver bugle & seed beeds and silver pendant and findings. It's sort of a collar necklace design, made to contour a natural neck. (Which is why it's a little buckled on one side -- because this unnatural neck has no contours!)

This next set is some chainmail jewelry with crystal dangles. The bracelet is probably big enough to be an anklet for most people, but the earrings are nice and dainty.

The next is my favorite so far. The darker stones and the pendant are amethyst, and the lighter stones are called "purple crazy lace." If I had actually purchased the materials for this necklace, I wouldn't have let it stay on display at the store.

In other news, I finished the knitting on yet another bag to be felted, but not enough time to felt it today, so that will have to wait for another day. I also attempted some transfer paper printouts we bought from Office Depot, but it didn't work for the punchneedle, so I need to find more options for creating transfers that can be duplicated.

Ph, and the funky-chunky wooden necklace I had been wearing to work decided to explode when I took it off last night. Glad that didn't happen in the dark in the truck! (Or at the store, in Safeway, at the barn, or outside anywhere else!)

Guess it's time to restring the sucker after all...

Lots of chocolate wishes to all!

Photo update & Secret Company revealed!

Now that I have finally had the intro business lunch with the necessary person and had a bunch of questions answered, I can share all the nifty neato things I've been working on during January!

In addition to working almost-full-time for Ben Franklin in Monroe and still teaching crochet and jewelry classes, I'm also now making handcrafted models for Clover! Clover produces many kinds of tools for crafting such as crochet, needle felting, hairpin lace and punch needle.

So now, after long avoidance (not because of lack of interest, but because it would be yet another "skill"; although really, it seems like a skills that was born from someone's husband or child trying to be helpful and dumping the entire laundry basket, wool sweaters and all, into the washing machine and setting it on Hot water [because you take Hot showers, not cold showers, to get clean, right?] and washing and drying everything together).... Where was I? Oh, right. But don't worry, I know there's a very long history of purposeful felting for very good reasons.

Anyway, after long avoidance, I have now been producing a good nmber of felted bags, as well as a couple of fine crocheted items. Here they are!









I think that's everything.... There is a new hairpin lace shawl currently in progress, and then it's on to some punch needle projects. I'm having the time of my life with all of this!

Jewelry pics to be posted soon, I promise!

What kind of yarn are you?

See? I said I'd be posting pics soon! Yeah, OK, so this is an immitation. But it's a fun little so-called personality test.

Here's what it says about the Angora-type personality...

"Angora – Soft and warm

Angora has a warmth that rivals cashmere and softness that rivals qiviut. Best of all, it comes from cute little bunnies that look for all the world like furry footstools with ears.” –The Knitter’s Book of YarnAngoras are eager to please and are highly sensitive. Flexibility and adaptability are your strengths and sometimes your weakness, as well. You are essentially a warm and feeling person, and little escapes your impressionable mind. You are generous with others and strive for harmony in your relationships. "

If you would like to take the test yourself, it's available here.

Happy crafting!

New Year's Resolutions? Nah, I'll pass, thanks.

We've survived through the holiday season, although we're still dealing withone someone in the house being sick at all times. This has been passing around since Thanksgiving, when Hubby and I caught the sickness from my mother's fiance. Fortunately, we've missed the stomach flu variation, but being sick through my mother's wedding (and trying to do the flowers and some decs for it as well while being the Matron of honor) was really no treat, and the night we arrived in Portland (with 1 day before the wedding), Hubby was congested and feverish again. A few days after arriving at home, MIL is also now sick. Whee! Although we finally convinced the furnce people to come out and fix a squished duct underneath the house, so she is now getting heat in her bedroom and bathroom. Progress made on fixing the previous people's stupid mistakes...

But the wedding was beautiful and meaningful to the people who mattered most -- my mother and her new husband. After 26 years of being a single mother to an only daughter, she has now become mother to several more daughters, a son, and some grandchildren who are old enough to be supplying great-grandchildren at any moment! Not sure that part sunk in, but she was willing to joke about having grandchildren now, not just grandhorses and grandcats.

We also, of course, forgot the camera, so am waiting anxiously for pics from other family members. Will post those once they start arriving.

My New Year's Resolution was going to be to make it through a large amount of the stash. However, something better came along. Near the end of the year, smeone approached me while I was demoing at Ben Franklin and offered the possibility of creating models for a variety of things, including hairpin lace and punchneedle items! Needless to say, much excitement ensued, and I doubt my ear-to-ear grin vanished for the rest of the day.

We haven't actualy managed to get together to discuss a lot of details, but my first project is to provide a couple of felted purses. Guess what? I've been reading all about it, but have no meaningful amount of feltable yarn in the stash to provide anything more than small pouches and clutches!

On the bright side, other needed items include crocheted lace (large amount of crochet thread in the stash) and punchneedle designs (good amount of appropriate linen scraps from past costumes in the stash). Woohoo!

Not sure I can really talk about who these models are for, but once my contact comes back from TNNA, we'll talk about more of those details.

In other news, I've finished a very cute pair of cabled socks based on a Elizabeth Zimmerman pattern from Ravelry, but they're somewhere near the bottom of the laundry bin, so will post pics later. Hmm, I owe you lots of photos now...

Happy crafting in the New Year!

Merry Christmas to all!

At last, Merry Christmas! Best wishes for the holidays to everyone, young and old, sick and healthy.

Oops on the bookmarks

Well, the news from last night is that the bookmarks aren't bookmarks -- they're knitting needle holders. Oops!

Some of the much older wooden needles inherited from a friend's mother earlier this year will be going into them today.

The i-cord trivets went over well, but I forgot to get photos of them before they went out. However, the patterns are available for free on the Lion Brand web site.

Shamrock: http://cache.lionbrand.com/patterns/BK4K-0603005.html?noImages=0
Celtic Knot: http://cache.lionbrand.com/patterns/BK4K-0603003.html?noImages=0

For both of these, I simply made a 4-stitch I-cord on size 9 DPs instead of using the spool knitter (or "corking" tool, as it is historically called). The Shamrock was done in 100% cotton yarn, and the Celtic Knot was done in 100% wool in dark and light purple.

It's a bad sign when the cat doesn't trust you with a knife

I haven't cut myself with a knife for over a year. And yet my MIL is convinced that hubby is terrified of me using a knife. She bought me cloth butcher's gloves (the non-commercial kind) because of this supposed fear. Hubby, of course, was nowhere around in order to help me defend myself against the accusation. (I do a lot of defending on my own for 3 months every winter while my MIL is here -- what else can I do when 2 British-Canadians gang up on an American, no matter how non-typical she is?)

Fine. Everything had settled down, and Mum and I were going to have some cheese and crackers for lunch that day. Our male cat Oscar is a lovely, random little boy who feels (and often IS) guilty about a lot of things and will suddenly tear off around the house. I pick up the knife to cut a slice of cheese, an what does Oscar choose to do at that moment? Yup, nails into the carpet, and off goes the grey streak to the other end of the house. What does Mum say?

"It's a bad sign when the cat doesn't trust you with a knife!"

Fortunately, we had a good laugh about it and continued on. Having your MIL living with you for 3 months is not for the faint of heart. This is now the 3rd year of this arrangement (I won't go into the details of why), and we seem to have most of the problems worked out. Granted, I'm running around so much that very little designing is getting done, but when I finally do say that something must be done that isn't on her schedule, I'm allowed time to do it. So it's a matter of putting my foot down at strategic times.

Also in this process, I'm learning how to knit socks! It's using a photocopy Mum has from a 1940s pattern book, and I'm using size 3 needles instead of 2 (because when I was ready to start, I didn't have a set of 2s), so they're a little bigger than they should be, but one sock is done, and the other is ready to have its heel turned. Woohoo!


Oops. Thanks, Zoe. Let's try that again...


Also on the finished project list is a cabled scarf from Big Needle Knitting. This is my first cabled item ever. I've finally figured it out! I've also discovered that I really kinda dislike working on the bigger needles. Go figure!


A couple of fun bits of news. 1) Lulu.com sales continue. (Yay, and thank you, whoever you are!) 2) I'm now on Ravelry! I think there's a sidebar option for that here, so will attempt to add that shortly. Screen name: horsenround.

Well, it's time to go. I'll try not to leave you hanging for another 13 days this time. I have a friend & client coming over to go through web site things this morning. However, before I go, here's a lovely pair of bookmarks from a costumer friend whom I will be visiting tonight...



Aren't they gorgeous???

Surf Practice - Another Free Pattern

Whew! some of you may have heard that we've had a lot of flooding in the Pacific Northwest this week. Fortunately for us, most of this was in urban areas (gutter overflow) with all the rain melting several inches of snow in less that 24 hours. The rivers in our area peaked, but not at record highs, since it was still turning into snow in the mountains, and we were able to successfully get out of Duvall (which has a tendency to become an Island State during flooding) and rescue Mum-in-Law from the airport. My husband's mum, from the Toronto area, will be staying with us for the next 3 months.


With nothing else to post for now, here's the other free pattern from my Crochet 101 class. As always, you can also download this as a PDF file from my web site at http://www.horse-round.com/shop/freepatterns.html. Enjoy!



Surf Practice




Ride the waves of this scarf using single, half-double, double and treble crochet stitches. Cowabunga!

Foundation: Ch 22.

Row 1 (right side): Sc in 2nd ch from hk. *Hdc, dc, tr, dc, hdc, sc. Rep from * across, ending with a tr. Ch 1, turn.

Row 2: Working in back loops, *hdc, dc, tr, dc, hdc, sc. Rep from * across, ending with a tr. Ch 1, turn. (The row should line up so that you tr in a sc from the previous row and vice versa.)

Rep Row 2 until the scarf is as long as you like.

Finishing
Weave in ends. Add fringe to the ends of the scarf, or any other finishing touches you would like to add.

Free crochet scarf patterns

Here I sit at exactly 1:01 am. Hubby and I were exhausted from all the cleaning (his Mum is flying in tomorrow and living with us for 3 months), but my brain refused to shut off. Part of the problem is that I'm teaching my first Crochet 101 class tomorrow afternoon, and I promised we'd be doing scarves in the learning process. I didn't have any public domain scarf patterns! So now I have some great ideas for a few of them.

Also in the process, I've updated the poll. Vote now!

These are such simple stitches, though, that I can't see charging for just the patterns, so they are here for the printing and will soon be available on my web site at http://www.horse-round.com/shop/freepatterns.html.

First scarf pattern from Crochet 101, coming right up!

Filet Lace Scarf




The open mesh created for this scarf gives any weight of yarn a luxurious lacey feeling. It also provides a base for weaving in a novelty or ribbon yarn.



Foundation: Ch an even number of stitches until you reach the width or the length desired for your scarf.

Row 1: Dc in 5th ch from hook. *Ch 1, sk 1 st, dc in next st. Rep from * to end of row. Ch 4, turn.
Row 2: Sk ch-1 sp, dc in next dc. *Ch 1, sk ch-1 sp, dc in next dc. Rep from * to end of row. Ch 4, turn.

Rep Row 2 until scarf is as long or as wide as you would like.

Finishing
Weave in ends. Add fringe to the ends of the scarf or weave in fur, ribbon or other contrasting yarn.