Mardi Gras

When I was out pattern-searching, this was one I found.  When I went home for winter, I had to hide my yarn stash (facilities was checking dorms for disallowed items due to bed bugs) and realized it completely filled my large suitcase.  Which means that I need to start using it up before the end of the semester when I head home.

I had three skeins each of WonderArt Wintuk Knitting Yarn in Gold, Montgomery Ward Mothproof Sayelle in Kelly Green and Woolworth Woolco 100% Virgin Wool in Amethyst.  I didn't have a size Q-19/15.00mm hook, so I used my largest one, an N-15/10.00mm) and kept the yarn very loose.  I followed the pattern until I ran out of green, which ended after 38 rows, then did a border of the amethyst 3 sc deep.

Yes, I have a lot of old yarns.

It didn't take 5 1/2 hours like the title of the pattern may have suggested.  It took a great deal longer.  Not sure entirely how much time I spent on it, but it was at least double.  It was outrageously simple, though, and really did produce a lovely product.  Even though I used simple worsted weight yarns made from acrylic and wool, the blanket is super soft.

It's the perfect size to accent the foot of a bed, or to be a lap blanket for warmer weather when fleeces or the like won't work.  It could also easily be altered to be a beach coverup or an overlay for a simple dress.

Kosi: Coral & Turquoise

One of my crafty friends back home was going on about how she was going to knit a coffee cozy so she didn't have to keep making use and consequently discarding the one-time-use cardboard ones available in coffee shops.  I figured it would be easy enough to crochet one, so I did.

I pulled two balls from my scraps, a thicker turquoise and a thinner coral and went to work with an H-8/5.00mm hook.  Ch 40 with the coral, sl st into the first ch.  Switched to the turquoise and went around with hdc... where I realized it was going to be too big.  Switched to coral and sc around, reducing 4 times for a total of 36 st.  Continued the color pattern until there were 5 layers of coral and 4 layers of turquoise and then finished.

Unfortunately, I wasn't thinking which side I was going to want out and used a method of reducing that uses the lower part of the combined stitches, which is invisible from one side but very visible on the other (see second coral layer from the bottom in the photo).  And of course that other, visible side is the one I decided I wanted out.  Such is life.

That's it.  Real quick little piece.  Didn't take more than a half hour.

More pictures to follow.  Friends have already been requesting coffee cozies of their own.  Hooray for reducing waste, even if it's little things like crocheted coffee cozies.

Birthday purple
and red cozy.