Filet crochet, ghetto fabulous style

After a long crafting hiatus, I am back!


Last week I learned how to filet crochet. Filet crochet is the technique where you crochet mesh and fill in certain squares while leaving others open. It's great for crocheting patterns into doilies... which, of course, gives me a raging she-boner. Just after I learned about filet crochet, I discovered this fabulous page, which gives patterns for the old english alphabet. So what does that mean? Gangster-tastic doilies!

My first attempt at filet crochet was this initial doily for my friend Devon.
I think it turned out quite fabulously, but a little warped.

My next project? A sweet-ass door doily for my boyfriend with his initials going down vertically.

I love lamp.

Has it really been almost a month since I did anything crafty? Well no, I've been crocheting like a mad fiend, but it's just been the same hats and doilies. Everyone loved their Christmas presents I had hand-crafted for them. Besides the earrings I made my sisters, the hats I made my brothers, my boyfriend, and my boyfriend's roommate, and the doilies I made my mom and boyfriend's mom, I also (a while ago) made a baby blanket for my relatively new neice, Meryl.

The weeks surrounding Christmas were ridiculously busy and included a lot of traveling, then getting sick. But finally yesterday I got to do a real craft project, for the first time in aaaaages (that wasn't related to crocheting). My step sister and I asked my step mom if there was anything around the house that needed to be craftified. After listing off a few things that would have been far too ambitious for us to take on, she also mentioned an ugly lamp she had acquired at a thrift store that was currently sans-shade. And that's where we came in!

Article 1: The heinously ugly lamp.

It just screams "great aunt's house", but my step mom adores it. Yes, that is light pink and with gold curlicues. My step sister and I went to JoAnne's Fabrics to see if we could find something to work with it. After locating the lamp shades in the very back corner of the store, we went to work trying to find a fabric to match it, a far more difficult task than one would think. Any mostly pink fabric was too overwhelming, and most other fabrics didn't look quite right with it. We finally settled on a cream colored muslin. Then we went into the findings sections and found a stencil for curlicues, some gold piping, 9 gold buttons, and some tacky glue. The idea was to cover the (pre adhesived) shade with the muslin, trace the curlicues around the base of the shade with pencil, then sew on the piping in the pre-traced curlicue pattern, and finally sew the buttons around the top of the shade.

And our idea worked!!

Article 2: The finished lamp shade, on the lamp. Our craftiness definitely outweighs the ugliness of the lamp. Yessss.






















Article 3: A close up of the shade. You can't quite tell, but the border actually consists of two strands that curl around themselves and eachother.

Bam!

Another doily and some things to keep my legs warm

I finished another doily yesterday! (And of course, couldn't stop myself from starting another one). This one is pattern number 19 from the Big Book of Little Doilies. I think my tension is too tight or I'm not using the steel hook right because my doilies are coming out tiny, and very hard and inflexible. The doilies we have around the house at home are just like lacy fabric and have nice drape. Well poo. Practice makes better.

A lot of people have been asking me what exactly a doily is for. My usual explanation is that they're coasters for expensive things, like all the vases and Hümmels my mom has... which is why these doilies will be the most perfect Christmas present EVAR for her.



Yesterday I also fixed a pair of legwarmers that I made maybe a week ago. I cut the arms off an old wool LLBean sweater that was full of moth holes and they make sweet-ass legwarmers. The problem: if worn with the underarm seam in back, they make you look like a clydesdale horse, and if you wear them with the underarm seam in the front, they drag. So I just tacked the bottoms up a little bit so they could comfortably be worn with the seams in front. (I know it looks like it from the picture, but I don't normally dress like a 14 year old on crack). I'm not usually the legwarmer type, but good-golly these are warm.

Crocheting Madness, et al

I like to make things with my hands. That's pretty much it. On top of my livejournal (http://alphabetsocks.livejournal.com - friends only, sorry) I'd also like to have a place to chronical my frequent craft/baking/etc projects.

This last weekend was Thanksgiving. Every year I go to the Thanksgiving dinner at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Corvallis. Since my dad's the one who runs it, I have many duties acquired over the years: I help set up and decorate, I do the little relish trays that are put at every table, I sit around in the kitchen and eat turkey skin while the turkeys get carved, I provide my dad with endless support and mocking while he runs around in a girl's apron trying to tell dozens of newcomers where to put their potluck dishes and how to scrape their plates, and most importantly, I decorate the tofurkey.


While I was home I also got myself into a bit of a crocheting kick. I bought maybe $35 worth of yarn, string, a book, and my first ever steel hook. First I made a test hat with some old yarn, since I was trying to muddle my way through making a beanie (or toque, if you're from the North) with a bill and couldn't find a free pattern anywhere. Finally I found a nice single crochet pattern that I could work with. I worked the hat with single crochet and then made the bill by going around doing single crochet until I got to where I wanted the bill, where I did about 5 inches of double crochet with two crochets in every other stitch, then ending with single crochets back to my starting destination.

I started the hat, then made the doily (which I just did directly from pattern #22 in the Big Book of Little Doilies from Leisure Arts), and then just finished the hat. I'm very pleased with how both came out. I was surprised at how quickly the doily went, since it looks so complex, but it's actually only 11 rounds. I think it's a little lopsided, but I doubt anyone will notice.