Thrift Store

The Marklund Thrift Store has become one of my regular stops lately. They drew me in with their 50% off sale a few weeks ago. That's when I got this bundle.
Looking for blankets/rugs to line the dog crate, I found this large, never opened, factory stapled, bag of yarn and stuff. I had no idea what the project was supposed to be because the paper enclosed was folded to the inside. There were many, many hanks of some kind of yarn,
a very large piece of burlap and some kind of hooking tool. It was marked $15 and but it was 50% off. I didn't want to buy more acrylic, I like to look for wool or unusual fibers (in sweaters) when I go there. Hmmm, so what to do. I flipped the bag around several times and then saw a hole in one of the plastic seams. The yarn felt very scratchy. Since this looked quite old, could have been some low quality acrylic. Still not satisfied, I continued to look closely. I noticed each hank was tied with a piece of string with a tag and a hand written number on it, most likely a color code for whatever this project was meant to be. Then I saw it, one of the tags was flipped to the other side and printed on it was "100% Pure Virgin Wool"...ooooo, the felting possibilities!!!

The NEXT Next Generation Crocher

Wow, I'm so proud!! Meet the NEXT Next Generation Crocheter, my daughter Sydney. She learned to make a chain last summer when she was 5, couldn't get the hang of the first row of SC. She showed an interest again last week so we found her hook (AMAZING!!), I let her pick out some yarn from the scrap stash and she was off making necklaces and bracelets out of chains in no time . She found a basket to keep all her stuff in - hook, yarn and a pair of scissors. Yesterday she wanted to learn the next step. So we got it all out and she actually did pretty well with the first SC row this time, finding the "bumps" on the back of the chain was much easier than the two loops...whatever works best. On to the regular row of SC...she struggled a bit finding the two loops but she is a very determined child. We put it away before she got too upset and we'll try again tonight. She loves when I bring home new yarn and let her go to the craft store with me....this apple doesn't fall far from the tree!!

Recycled Yarn Project

So the results of my thrift store recycled yarn project are mixed. The first sweater I worked on was the jackpot. Upon dissecting it, I remembered something about looking at the seams. Some are GOOD seams, some are ICKY seams. The good ones are when a sweater is constructed by all the pieces being made to the correct shape then sewn together. The icky ones are when the sweaters are cut from a large piece of knitted "cloth" and a serger is used to keep all the loose ends from fraying. One of my bargain sweaters had good seams (the striped one) the other two have "icky" seams. From the striped sweater I got between 14 and 15 oz of yarn. It was knotted in the seam at each color change. I showed it to my daughter and we decided this is now what I would use for the "crazy blanket" because it really was crazy. I trimmed the knots but pretty much left the yarn in tact as it came off the sweater. I don't mind knots as much as some I guess and I'm going for quantity yardage. I know my daughter won't care at all.
I imagine it's not going to be very big but that's not the point. The initial point was to see if I could be successful at taking apart a thrift store sweater, the secondary point was to quickly make my daughter a blanket. Here's the progress so far....I've used about half the yarn.

Thrift Store Challenge

Last Thursday my daughter saw me working on a comfortghan for my friend's brother and decided blue was her new favorite color and I had to make her a blue blanket. So I opened up the stash and let her look for blue yarn. Being only 6 years old she doesn't understand weights and fiber contents of yarn, however she does have a very good sense of color. I directed her towards the myriad balls of Lion Brand Kitchen cotton I had picked up in the clearance bin of Michael's because they didn't have labels. I have made a couple of items out of various balls but there was still a lot left, many in navy or medium blue. She picked one of each of those as well as a lonely 2.5 oz ball of Sugar 'n Cream light blue. I could tell she already had the design in her head. She said she wanted one like I made Roxy (our 12 year old Schnoodle). I found 3 hanks of rug yarn at the thrift store and made about a 20 inch Granny Square "blanket" for her. I asked her to draw me what it looked like. She was frustrated because she didn't have the right color crayons so we just talked about which color would go in the center, then next, then next. She also apparently decided she was not quite through with her "pink" era because she wanted me to use the left over balls of pink and purple from the skirt I recently made her. I told her "this is going to be a crazy blanket." So I put everything into a project bag and planned on working on it over the weekend.

Then on Friday, on my second trip to the thrift store near work I again went looking for one of those huge bargain bags of yarn I've heard others talk about. What I found was a knitted dishrag made with Sugar 'n Cream for 50 cents. I grabbed it thinking I can take this apart and mix it into the "crazy blanket". Then I thought, "...hmm, taking things apart...." I've heard of people finding great sweaters and recycling them into yarn for something new. Since I was in a thrift store I thought I'll just browse for a sweater that doesn't cost too much so I don't feel bad if I wreck it. I saw a huge rack of them right in the middle of the store. Touched some really nice wool, cashmere, angora, etc. but couldn't bring myself to want to dissect them because they were so pretty. All the sweaters were tagged $4 so I thought that was a great deal if I could find one to take apart. For some reason I was drawn to several cotton ones. I picked three that I liked the color of. I also decided to get a really pretty light bluish gray lambswool/angora cable cardigan for my daughter (as a gift, not as yarn). So began my adventure into yarn recycling. Now as a co-worker has pointed out, "you don't NEED to do this for yarn, you have plenty of yarn!" True. I consider this just an extension of my craft. So here are the sweaters in their original form......The pink ones are 100% cotton,

stripey is a cotton/acrylic blend (VERY SOFT! and pliable).

Modern Day Doilies

What to do with a doily?

It seems that just giving someone a doily these days is impractical to say the least. I made this one for my mom, matted and framed it as a wall hanging (16 x 20) and gave it to her for Christmast 2006. I wasn't sure how she would accetp it...she'd either smile politely and tell me later she really wouldn't use it or she would actually like it. Holding my breath as she opened the wrapping, her eyes widened and she turned to me and asked, "did you make this?". Proudly I said, "yes I did"....I think she really liked it. Brought tears to my eyes. Even now at 43, for some reason (and I'm sure I"m not alone in this) there is a little girl in me that just wants to please mom.

Sanity Check

Poncho and cap "sanity check" projects

In The Beginning. . .

It's hard to say how long I have been crocheting....I started by watching my mom when I was quite young (hence the blog name "Next Generation Crocheter"). My mom always said it was cheaper than a "shrink". Having three kids in 5 years (not uncommon during that time period - early 60's) and now having two of my own only 3 1/2 years apart I understand her comment! :-) So I watched as she crocheted, sewed, needle pointed, counted cross stitched....she did it all! And at one time or another so did I thanks to her. I've gone thru periods of each craft. I don't know when I learned each so I'll take a rough guess at 7 years old being the genesis of my craft-hood. I don't remember ever finishing a crochet project when I was young. I have memories of odd shaped pieces with miscounted rows but nothing in my mind's eye is complete. I have vague memories of my mom explaining how to read a pattern - or at least the abbreviations for stitches. So that is the old testament of my crocheting days....and just as in the Bible there is quite a long time between the end of the Old and the beginning of the New.....

So on to the new testament of my crochet-hood. About 5 years ago my sister-in-law knitted our kids each an afghan. Mom never knit anything as far as I knew so the concept of *knitting* an afghan seemed absurd to me! I knew a bit about the craft; tried to teach myself when I was about 12 I think but failed miserably. So my thought pattern started with "how on earth can you make something 45 inches wide on a knitting needle that's 12 inches long?" Preposterous!!! So I asked mom and she told me about circular needles. Aahhhh! After seeing the afghans Deb sent I got over my "hysteria" of knitting afghans but still remained a "crochet snob". As a gesture of good-will and thanks, I decided to make Deb an afghan. I had a grand idea for one in my head - who needs patterns?! So I bought a book of stitches, a full set of aluminum hooks (because this was going to be the first of many projects coming and I needed to be prepared) and I think 6 balls of yarn (LionBrand woolease sportweight, in a wheat/confetti-ish color) - "that should be plenty and I'll probably have some left over." I decided that since I was quite out of practice, I would stick with a simple single crochet, making strips about 6 inches wide that I would sew together. I had no idea how big it should be so I thought I would make a strip with a ball of yarn and then go buy enough balls to make it wide enough...one ball one strip...sounded pretty simple, right? Yeah, right! Remember the odd-shaped pieces I mentioned earlier? Well the first 10 rows turned into a slightly askew triangle of sorts so I decided to actually LOOK at the book of stitches I purchased and saw that I was supposed to do an extra chain at the end of each row....rrriiiipppp. I finally got to the end of the ball of yarn with a relatively straight piece. I brought it to mom's one weekend and she almost, but not quite, gasped about me doing it in sc stitches. That didn't bother me, it was a nice piece so far; the yarn was soft it didn't feel THAT heavy. However after one ball of yarn it was only about half the length I imagined so I went and bought 7 more balls - two for each strip and I would have to put it together with something. So I finished the strip. Then life with my second child along with work got to be more than enough so it all got put into a Jo-Ann's bag never to be started again. I eventually ripped it all out and keep the yarn for making test swatches of new stitches I find.

Three years went by without even thinking of the craft, then I decided I wanted to make my daughter a pair of slippers for Christmas 2004. I didn't have a pattern, had no idea how much yarn I would need but I was determined. A lady I worked with was always knitting something (usually socks) and she also crocheted so I asked her advice. We went to Hobby Lobby one lunch break and I bought two skeins of Caron Simply Soft (pastel variegated) 3oz each I dug out my crochet hooks, still at the bottom of the bag of yarn! I stared at them. Then I had the brilliant idea to look on the internet for a pattern, maybe I could find something....Boy, did I. Once again overwhelmed, I called mom. I emailed her some of the patterns I found and asked her advice on what I might be able to finish in about a month's time. Mom was great!! She looked at the patterns, gave me good solid advice based on my level of skill and time and also looked thru her books and magazines and found a pattern (that I ended up using), scanned it and emailed it back. To shorten the rest of the story, my foray back into crocheting was successful (I finished the slippers in plenty of time), I called my mom with enough questions that it seemed to re-ignite her interest in the craft and the woman at work took the opportunity to teach two of our team mates to knit and we did it together at lunch as often as we could. Mom is still crocheting (again) currently making premie hats for a nearby hospital, Ray is still knitting scarves for his teddy bear collection and grandma and I crocheted a doily for the knitting lady (sorry, her name escapes me!) when her contract ended and she left the company. I can't tell you off the top of my head how many things I have made since those slippers but I will touch on them I'm sure in future posts. I love to crochet and mom was definitely right, it's cheaper than a "shrink"! :-) Until next time....God Bless your stitches.