Yarn Evaluation 10/2010

I thought that reporting my yarn evaluation in this blog is helpful for everyone. I would like you to use my yarn evaluation when you choose yarn for your crochet projects! I sometimes have a hard time to choose one yarn from numerous selections for my crochet project. I wish I can test all of yarns before buying. :) 

Red Heart Eco-Cotton Blend

Colors that I used :  Vanilla, Currant

Evaluation :★★★

I like cotton yarn, because I don't need to be concerned about the seasons. I made coasters and curtain race with the yarn.

When I was crocheted with the yarn, I noticed that yarn tended to separate, so hook sometimes caught a few strings of yarn. I want to make a bag with the yarn for my crochet tools sometime.

 Lion Brand Yarn Company Homespun

Colors that I used :  Wild Fire, Bourbon

Evaluation :★★★★

I love this yarn! I made boleros with the yarn. I also used it on hair accessory as additional design and on the hood vest as edging. I really want to give the yarn 5 stars as my yarn evaluation, but it was difficult to count stitches.  Anyway, texture was great!

 Red Heart Super Saver

Color that I used :  Aran

Evaluation :★★★

I made hood vests with the yarn. When I touched the yarn at a shop made a crackling noise. I really suffered from deciding to buy the yarn, but the yarn was cheaper than other brands, so I bought it, because I needed six rolls to make the vests for my husband and me. I noticed that the yarn is good to hold shape afterward. 

 I Love This Wool 
Colors that I used :  Burnt Pumpkin, Pale Gray, Sungold

Evaluation :★★★★★

This yarn's name is correct! I love this yarn. :) The texture is great! Since the yarn is nice and elastic, I could crochet smoothly. I made pumpkin hats, ornaments for crochet wreath and door stopper with the yarn. I really recommend this yarn! 

 Baby Bee Sweet Delight Prints

Color that I used : Pink Camo

Evaluation :★★★★

I made crochet socks and crochet room shoes with the yarn. It has good thickness for socks and room shoes. I liked the color, because it makes crochet projects cute.

Yarn Bee Snow Flake Wool Blend

Color that I used : Limelight

Evaluation :★

I made crochet room socks with the yarn, but I noticed that the yarn makes crochet projects twist. :( I like all colors of this yarn series, but I can't recommend this one. I guess that the yarn causes roll up and twist problems on your project. 

I'll report my yarn evaluation regularly.  
Have a wonderful time with crochet

Room Shoes #1

Room Shoes are one of my favorite crochet projects! When I was working on crochet socks, I figured out how to make room shoes from sock pattern. I used the way on this room shoes again.

The room shoes are for me. I actually made another one for me a few months ago, but I didn't want to wear it, because it was so cute and too fancy to wear. That's why I made the room shoes. This time, I attempted to make it simple and cute. Do you like this design? 

I don't like it when shoes flap while I'm walking, so I needed to think of a design which doesn't flap. That's why I made two straps on the room shoe. However, I noticed that my crochet room shoe pattern doesn't flap. Look at this picture. →

The heel of the room shoe is covering my heel well!

There is one more thing that I don't like about room shoes; they wear out too quickly. I solved the problem with sewing felt on bottom of the room shoe. ↓

You can use anything you like for the pads such us leather, denim or thicker fabric. These fabric also get damage over time, but you just need to change the fabric instead of making other room shoe.

Stitches that I used for the room shoes:

• Single crochet
• Half double crochet
• Slip stitch

Yarn that I used for the room shoes:

• Yarn Bee Snow Flake Wool Blend : Color Limelight (Shoe)
• I Love This Yarn Sport Weight : Color Ivory (Edge of shoe and button)
• Patons Grace : Color Snow (as string of sewing felt)

How to Consume Left-over Yarn

Which doughnut would you like? Don't these hair accessories look like doughnuts? These accessories are called "chouchou" in French. I'm not sure what the accessories are called in the U.S. Could someone tell me please? 

I'm going to present one of my ways to consume left-over yarn today. I usually work on my crochet projects six hours everyday, so I often have left-over yarn. However, I never through them away! I used one new yarn and four left-over yarn for the accessories. I used the new yarn for the basics, and added individual designs with the left-over yarn. 

                                                       
This yarn is what I used for the base of the accessories. It's Patons Lace. 
It was great to make a lot of same stuff, which have individual designs, because the yarn has beautiful range of gently shifting colors. You can see various colors on the accessories. Some of them look dark, also some of them look light.              

I made the accessories for my family and friends as presents. The accessories are made with left-over yarn, but it's nice to give women as present. Don't you thinks so? The accessory can also be used as a bracelet.  

Yarn that I used for the accessories as left-over :

• I Love This Yarn Sport Weight : Ivory
• Lion Brand Yarn Homespun : Bourbon and Wild Fire
• Patons Kroy Socks FX : Copper                                       

Ear Flap Ghost Hat

I love making Halloween costumes. I'm going to introduce the ear flap ghost hat made with my original pattern today! I made for my husband's costume, so it's adult man size. I came up with this pattern when I had been working on the witch hat that I introduced last time. The witch hat pattern says to work in a spiral pattern. I used this way on the ghost hat too. This time I increased stitches on the front half of each row and decreased stitches on the back half of each row.  I did this for a few rows, then switched.  For the next few rows I decreased the number of stitches on the front half of the row, and increased the number of stitches on the back half of the row.  This made the rows irregular creating a wavy shape.  It was difficult to figure out how many stitches I needed to increase and decrease in each row. I don't remember how many times I undid the hat to complete the pattern.

After I finished making the hat, my husband wanted me to add ear flaps to it, so I added like this.

Hardest part for me was to decide the look of the ghost's face. I'm not good at drawing at all, so I asked my husband which look he likes, happy, scary, etc, but he said "Surprise me". I searched numerous looks of ghost on the internet, and picked this look. I'm glad to hear that he likes the look.

Stitches that I used for the hat : 

• single crochet, double crochet and slip stitch.

Yarn that I used for the hat :

• I Love This Yarn Sport Weight : Black (Face)
  
• Red Heart Super Saver : Aran (Hat)

Witch Hat

I have made the witch hat for this Halloween as my costume! I found a cute free witch hat pattern on Red Heart.com, but the patter is for child, so I needed to figure out my size as usual. 

Bewitching Hat

I tried a few ways to make a lager hat than the pattern showed, and finally found easiest way. The easiest way is to crochet with two strands of yarn and a thicker crochet hook. I wanted to use my left-over yarn from making the spider for pumpkin hat that I introduced in this blog before, so I used 6mm (USA size 10/J) crochet hook. The black yarn generally recommends using 5mm (USA size 8/H). This way really worked for my size! The hat was just right for me.

My idea this time was to add purple flowers! The pattern says to change the yarn color from black to purple to make ribbon around the hat, and crochet same as hat. However, I used black yarn on purple ribbon part. I made thirteen purple flowers, and attached to the hat instead. I also made the brim of the hat longer than the pattern. I just worked one more row.

You can adjust length of the gray hair as you like. Since my hair got really long, I made the gray hair same length as my hair. I would tie up my hair when I would wear the hat, but I noticed that looks good if I wear the hat with my long hair.

Yarn that I used for the witch hat:

•  I Love This Yarn Sport Weight: Black (Hat)
• I Love This Yarn Sport Weight: Ivory (Hair)
• I Love This Wool Super Soft: Ple Gray (Hair)
• Patons Grace: Amethyst (Flower)

Happy Halloween! 

Helpful Charm

I'm going to introduce my original crochet charm today! When I was thinking of my fathers birthday present, I came up with this idea, and created the pattern myself.

It looks cute, doesn't it? This charm has a function. It is not only charm! My father like playing golf, so I wanted give him something helpful for golf. I needed to think of something round first to make the charm, and picked acorn. Can you guess what those acorn hold inside? The acorns can hold a golf ball each of inside! I have not played golf for a long time, so I didn't know exact size of golf ball. I asked my husband if he knows someone who plays golf, and if he can get one golf ball for me. He got a golf ball from his coworker for me, so I could figure out the size of acorn. You know yarn is elastic, so it's great material to hold golf ball.

I used to play golf when I was in my 20s, so I know that there are many types of golf bag. To use the charm with all type of golf bag, I attached a bottom to the charm belt and made a loop to hang it on any golf bags.

Stitches that I used for the charm:                                              

• Half double crochet on the belt
• Shingle crochet and double crochet on the acorn.

Yarn that I used for the charm:

• Lion Brand Yarn Homespun : Wild Fire (Belt)
• I Love This Wool Super Soft Super Saving : Sungold (acorn cap)
• I Love This Wool Super Soft Super Saving : Burnt Pumpkin (acorn cap)
• Patons Kroy Socks FX : Copper (acorn)

Hood Vest

I enjoy using free patterns from web sites too, but I usually add my ideas to them. I'm going to introduce an example!

I made the Hood vest with a pattern from Lion Brand Yarn Company, which is one of my favorite web sites. The pattern is for a baby, so I needed to figure out my size. Wee Vest  

I used one of my jackets to match sizes for all the parts.  I decided the foundation size of the back of the vest first. However I added popcorn stitch on the bottom of the back, so I adjusted the foundation to fit the popcorn stitch. After that, I split the foundation size into right front and left front. I worked the arm and neck holes the same as the pattern. It worked well for my size.

The hardest part was to know the hood's size. The hood foundation size must be the same amount of chain around neck, so I sewed together the back, right front and left front first, and then I just counted chains. However, I needed to arrange popcorn stitches on it again. 

I made the hood the same length as from the bottom of the vest to the bottom of the arm hole.

 I also added a different color along the edge with single crochet. This red yarn is left over yarn from my bolero which I made with other free pattern. I worked on the vest with half double crochet.

If you have any questions about the vest, please don't hesitate to ask me. I will be happy to answer. Have a wonderful time with crochet♪

 Yarn that I used for the vest.

•  Red Heart Super Saver : Aran
• Loin Brand Yarn Homespun : Wild Fire

Pumpkin Hat

Hello everyone! Are you getting ready for Halloween? I'm going to show the pumpkin hats I created. 

One day, I was making crochet pumpkin to add to a wooden wreath, and I came up with these pumpkin hats!

These are for my nephew and niece. They live in Japan. Halloween is not popular in Japan, so I wanted to tell them how fun Halloween in the U.S is. 

These hats are different sizes. The hat on the left is smaller, and it's for nephew. The hat on the right is larger, and it's for niece. I only knew their sizes around their heads. The hat is composed of eight pumpkin skins, one stem and one belt at the bottom of the pumpkin. I decided the belt size first, then figured out the pumpkin skin size. The stems on these hats are the same size.

I used single crochet on the pumpkin skin, half double crochet and treble crochet on the belt, single crochet and treble crochet on the stem. I also used six different kinds of yarn for these hats including yarn for decorations such us spider, spider web and flower. That sounds expensive, dosen't it? However, I always attempt to use my left over yarn, so three of six yarns are actually left over yarn from my other crochet projects. 

If you have any questions about these pumpkin hats, please ask me without reserve. I will be happy to answer. Have a wonderful time with crochet♪

Yarns that I used for the hat.

• I Love This Wool : Sungold (Stem)
• I Love This Wool : Burnt Pumpkin (Pumpkin Skin)
• I Love This Yarn : Black (Spider and Face)
• Patons Grace : White (Spider Web)
• Lion Brond Yarn Homesqun : Wild Fire(Leaves)
• Red Heart Eco-Cotton : Vanilla (Flower)