knitting projects – The Crochet Architect

I’ve been quiet (on my website/blog) these past few months, but with good reason. At the end of September, my husband, youngest son and I flew to China to visit our middle son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter, Rubekah (Ruru for short). We were there for about 2 1/2 weeks and had a wonderful time! We didn’t do any big sightseeing this time. We spent most of the time with our family. We thoroughly enjoyed playing with Ruru! Since she was 3 1/2 – 4 months old during our visit (she’s now 5 months old), she’s a lot more “interactive” than she was as a newborn! We took lots of new photos of her and spent lots of time getting to know her. She’s got a great personality! Here are a few of my favorite photos from (or around the same time as) that visit :

After returning from China, it always takes me a while to get back to Arizona time, since China is 15 hours ahead of us! Since we’ve been back for 5 weeks now, I have no more “valid” excuses for not getting things done, like blogging!

One of the things we did while we were visiting in China was take place in a photo shoot at a photographer’s office. Unfortunately, not all of our family was there in China, but most of us where (my husband and I, 2 of our 3 sons, our daughter-in-law and our granddaughter). Ruru looked great in the photos and we really enjoyed joining in the photo shoot with our kids/granddaughter! Here are a few photos from the photo shoot:

I really enjoy being a grandma, but it’s hard to be so far away from Ruru! However, they’re going to be moving back to Arizona in just 2 months, and I can hardly wait! It’ll be great to see our kids and Ruru again. I expect that she’ll have changed more and will be doing a lot more at 7 months old! I’m so happy that I’ll be able to spend a lot more time with her!!!

One of the nice things about being a grandma is being able to knit and crochet for Ruru! She’s wearing one of the sweaters that I knit for her (and a headband that I crocheted for her) in the 2nd photo at the top of this blog post (the colorful one). She’s also wearing another sweater that I knit for her in the professional photographer’s photos above. I’ve knit and crocheted a LOT of things for her this year (and enjoyed every minute of making them, too!).

I wanted to buy some Chinese yarn while we were there, but I didn’t get a chance to go to a big yarn store. However, one day my husband and I took a walk nearby the university where our kids live and there was a little yarn shop along one of the streets. So I purchased 2 skeins of yarn, which I believe are 92% wool and 8% nylon. I’d say they’re about the weight of sock yarn. Since the labels are all in Chinese, I don’t know everything I should about them! But that’s OK. I enjoyed buying them and going into at least one yarn shop during our trip! The 2 skeins, which have 100 grams of yarn in each skein, cost me about $5 US dollars total! I can have a lot of fun with the amount of yarn in these skeins and $5 is a bargain for 200 grams of yarn! Here are the 2 skeins of yarn for you to see:

I used some of the pastels yarn (on the right) to make the headband in the 2nd photo at the top of this post, along with some leftover yarn from the sweater. I also made a headband with only the Chinese yarn. Here’s a photo of those 2 headbands:

This yarn has a lot of stretch, making it perfect for baby headbands! I made the stretchy headband pieces in Tunisian crochet (with the Tunisian knit stitch). They look like they’re knit, but they’re actually crocheted! There are lots of yards in each of these skeins, so I’ll be making more projects with them in the future.

I hope you’re enjoying the fall weather (if it’s fall where you live). I love the fall weather because I enjoy being able to wear my crochet and knit scarves and cowls again!

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, for those of you who live in the US. I’m thankful for many things, especially for family, faith and fiber (the yarn type)! And I thank God for the gift of creativity almost every day!

Happy crocheting,

Susan

Do you make New Year’s resolutions every year? What is your track record on keeping those resolutions? Like many people, mine isn’t so good! In the past, I’ve resolved to read one book per month, but since I’m not much of a reader, that doesn’t last very long at all! I’ve also resolved to exercise every day, but I’m lazy and I start skipping some days, so that one doesn’t last long, either (or gets modified to a more realistic resolution like exercising 3 times per week)! Why do we set such unrealistic expectations at the beginning of the New Year? I guess we want to improve ourselves in one way or another. That’s not a bad thing to do, especially when we realize where we’re lacking in our lives. Improving ourselves is a great goal and I think we should always strive for improvement! If we don’t strive for improvement, we stagnate and start smelling! Just kidding! But I think improvement in our lives is always a positive goal and I’m all for improvement in my life!

For our New Year’s resolutions in 2015, how about setting some more attainable goals, like learning a new craft or learning more stitches and/or techniques in a craft we already know? Now that’s a New Year’s resolution that would be easy for me to keep! How about you? And it would satisfy the goal of self-improvement, too!

So for my New Year’s resolutions for 2015, I resolve to learn more knitting and crochet techniques. I also resolve to finish more projects than I currently finish and to finish some of my UFO’s (for crocheters and knitters, UFO does NOT mean “unidentified flying object”, it means “UnFinished Objects”). If you’ll notice something about my goals, they aren’t terribly “specific” on how many new techniques I’ll learn or how many UFO’s I’ll finish up in 2015. So these goals are attainable (without being unrealistic)! I guess they’re more of a “guideline” than a goal, but that’s okay with me. At least I can strive for them!

I just did a search on Ravelry.com for UFO groups and there are lots of them! There’s even a group for procrastinating knitters (like putting off the seaming or knitting the 2^nd sock)! I’m all in, since I’m a procrastinator, too! In fact, I have 2 books from the library on procrastinating, but I haven’t finished reading them yet! Dare I say that I’m procrastinating on reading them? Unfortunately, nobody has posted in that Ravelry procrastinators group for 2 years! I guess they’re all procrastinating about posting!!!

Don’t get me wrong: I finish lots of crochet and knitting projects every year (projects for publication and personal projects, too). I haven’t kept track, but I estimate I’ve finished 10-25 projects this year, ranging from small to large. Here are photos of a few of the published projects I’ve finished this year:

Nantucket Cowl from Dec 2014 Crochet World magazine

Easy Cell Phone Cosy & Heart-Shaped Key Fob from Red Heart UK website

Mosaic Blanket (knit) from Vogue Knitting magazine Winter 2014/2015 issue

Each year, I start some new projects that I don’t finish (at least I finish more projects than I start, so it’s not ALL bad!). If I keep adding to my UFO’s pile, there will be too many to finish in my lifetime! So it’s time to get them out to decide which ones I should finish in 2015! I think I’ll organize them today or tomorrow and make some decisions on how/when to proceed with each one!

How about you? What resolutions are you making for 2015? Are you going to learn a new craft? Are you going to learn some new crochet or knitting techniques? Are you going to finish some projects before starting a new one? I’m definitely NOT going to say that I’ll finish ALL of my UFO’s before starting something new! I know myself and I’m very easily distracted by other things, like new projects! Plus I don’t like to set goals that I can’t keep, no matter how hard I try!

Whatever your resolutions (or lack of resolutions) for 2015, I wish you all a very Happy and Healthy New Year!

Happy crocheting (and knitting),

Susan