Quarantine Crafting

Like most of you, I have been stuck at home quite a bit over these last few months. Being the crafty person that I am, I spent a lot of that time with a hook or a set of needles in my hand making different things. I decided to spend some of that time working on honing my craft by learning new stitches and trying some new patterns. Here are a few of the things I have done:

Jellyfish: These are something that I had made a few of before COVID caused me to have a lot more free time, but I have made quite a few in the past few months. I make the bodies out of yarn left over from other projects and the tentacles out of solid black or white yarn. I like the contrast provided by having brightly striped bodies and solid tentacles.

The first one I ever made was out of a patriotic yarn, and I made the tentacles the same color. While it is cute, it doesn't pop quite like the ones with contrasting tentacles do.

Find the listing for these beautiful stuffed jellyfish here.

Knitting: There are a couple of knitting projects I have been working on recently. The first is a cross drop scarf I am making myself. I had initially planned to make it to sell in my shop, but I soon realized why such pretty yarn had been on clearance. While the color is beautiful, the yarn does not stick together well at all. I knew the scarf would not be very high quality because of the issues with the yarn, but since I do like the colors, I decided to finish it to keep myself. However, I'm not as motivated to work on things I'm keeping, so I had stuck it in a bag two years ago and not picked it up again. Since I have extra time now, I decided to go ahead and finish it.

I also am working on a brioche knit scarf. I signed up last year for Dollar Yarn Club, which includes a bunch of classes, but I hadn't yet gotten around to watching any of them. I decided to start by learning how to brioche knit, and while I'm having some trouble getting my tension right, I'm enjoying it. I might add some brioche knit items to the shop once I'm more comfortable with the technique.

Testing Patterns: I had given Mom some crochet pattern books for her birthday a few years ago, but she hadn't yet gotten around to using them yet. With her permission, I borrowed them to try out some of the patterns. One book was simply a book of squares. Most of them were modifications of granny squares, but some were stitch sample squares. I went through the book and made one of each type of square.

I chose to work some of those squares with some cotton yarn I already had, and they made beautiful trivets that I added to my shop. I made them with three colors since that's what the pattern called for, but I'm considering seeing how they would look in a single color. It's hard to weave in ends on a square.

Bullseye Trivet

 

Wagon Wheel Trivet

There was also a hexagon pattern and a flower pattern. I added the hexagon to my shop as a coaster and the flower as a washcloth. Like the trivets, I am considering trying the patterns in single colors to eliminate the need to weave in ends.

Hexagon Coaster

Flower Scrubby

Can cozies: One new pattern I tried during this time was for can cozies. The pattern called for stripes, but I decided to try it with solid yarn first, because, as I said before, I'm not a huge fan of weaving in ends. After the first one, I made a few with self-striping yarn, and I liked those even better. What I didn't like, however, was the seam. The pattern was done in rounds and called for a slip stitch join at the end of each round, but doing that left a very discernable seam that was not attractive. I ended up redoing all of the ones I had already finished, and this time, I did them in continuous rounds, and I like the result a lot better. I have already added them to the shop, but I'm considering adding rows on any I make in the future. They really don't seem to be covering up the cans very well.

Find these can cozies in my shop here.

Coffee sleeves: The book with the can cozy pattern also had a pattern for coffee sleeves. Since neither pattern takes up much yarn, I decided to go ahead and make these out of the same yarn as I used for the can cozies. Once again, the pattern used different colors but I stuck to just using one to cut down on the need to weave in ends. I also tweaked how the seam was done. The pattern called for a whipstitch seam, and I chose to use slip stitches instead because they lay flatter and create a seam that is less likely to unravel. They turned out smaller than I had anticipated, but since they're made with a flat panel that has a seam to make it round, I could easily make it bigger if needed by adding more stitches. That's one thing that's nice about simple patterns like these: they're easily adapted to make different sizes.

Mermaid backpack: The little girl my mom takes care of had her seventh birthday earlier this summer. While I normally just help Mom pick out a gift for her and pay for a part of it, I saw this pattern and knew I had to make it for her because she loves mermaids. I wasn't able to find the color the pattern called for, but I found another color in the same brand that I like even more. As I expected, she absolutely loves it and is even thinking about using it for school. It's a little small for a school backpack, but I'm glad she is so excited to use it.

Masks: I initially didn't want to make masks because I didn't want to spend time and energy making something that wouldn't be useful for very long. Even after Etsy said that it would cover listing fees for any masks listed in April, I still decided no to. Then at the end of April, I got a text from our pastor's wife asking if I would be willing to join a mask-making ministry at church, and I said yes. So far I have made 28 masks for the mask ministry, two each for my mom and I, one for my dad, and one for the lady I pick up for church. I've been making them with fabric that was donated to our church's quilting ministry, and crocheting ties out of cotton yarn. I also crocheted a mask out of cotton yarn for each member of my family, which is how I got the idea for the ties. I haven't yet added them to my shop, but since the pandemic still seems to be raging and mask mandates are driving up demand, I'm considering adding them. If people I know want to buy masks from Etsy, they might as well be ordering them from me.

Boa Scarves

Many of the things in my shop were inspired by seeing a pattern I wanted to try, but not these. The inspiration for these scarves came from a clearance aisle at Walmart. I saw a stack of skeins of Red Heart Swerve yarn and was intrigued by its softness and embedded loops. I bought every skein they had: two blue and green, two purple and pink, and one purple. I didn't know what I would do with them, but I thought I would figure it out at some point.

A few years later, I was going through my stash when I found the skeins. I wondered again what to do with them, and I figured checking the pattern on the back of the paper was a good place to start. When I saw that all it called for was hand crocheting a chain until I ran out of yarn, I immediately did that with all five skeins. I decided to keep the purple one for myself and sell the other four. I then looked around online to see where I could buy more skeins. It was then I discovered that it had been discontinued, which is probably why I was able to get it so cheap. I could still buy neon yellow skeins from Red Heart, but I wasn't nearly as excited by that color as I was by the others, so I decided not to.

I looked around for similar yarns, but all the ones I found were significantly more expensive, and none of them seemed like it would make a scarf nearly as beautiful as what I had already made. I figured the only way to make more would be developing my own pattern using regular worsted weight yarn, but I never got around to making one.

Then, three weeks ago, Mom and I were talking about the production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat we are currently doing, and how the costumers were looking for a boa for Potifar's wife. I asked her if she had told them about the boas I had made, and she said no, so I texted one of the costume ladies and asked her if she would be interested. She said to bring them to the next rehearsal and ask the actress which one she would like. After talking to her, I happened to think that a ribbon yarn might work well for making a boa, and I had a few balls of rainbow ribbon yarn that I thought would be fun to try. When I went to get them, however, I couldn't find them, but I did find some teal fuzzy ribbon yarn that I thought would work even better. After some trial and error, I finally settled on a method that worked, and within a couple of hours, I had another option to bring with me to rehearsal.

At the next rehearsal, I met with the actress and started by pulling out the pink and purple scarf. She immediately decided on that one, which matches the wig she brought to wear for the production. Since its twin sold back in December, I deactivated the listing later that night, and it will stay that way until after the production is over.

Blue Boa Scarf: https://www.etsy.com/listing/538544979/blue-boa-scarf

Ribbon Boa Scarf: https://www.etsy.com/listing/783085679/ribbon-boa-scarf-bright-crocheted-boa

Pink Boa Scarf: https://www.etsy.com/listing/524738600/pink-boa-scarf