just for kicks

another first for me: i learned how to make socks!!!!! aren't you gasping with excitement?!? it's a good thing you're sitting down then, isn't it?

the sock has been an enigma to me, i was afraid, okay well not afraid--maybe 'hesitant' is a better word--to try a sock pattern because i thought i wouldn't be able to figure it out, that it would end up looking like some hideous 'circus freak' of a sock-thing that would offend people's delicate sensibilities, and therefore have to be burned ceremoniously and buried 10 feet down in consecrated ground under a full moon during the autumnal equinox, so as not to cause a bad harvest or annihilate the livestock...but really it wasn't that bad at all:


never mind the fact that cee says they look 'like giant baby booties'--which i kind of agree, can't you just picture the commodiously enormous toddler these would fit?--they are quite cozy and soft. i used some extra baby yarn i had left after the frothy baby perseverance sweater (see lemon sorbet) instead of official 'sock' yarn, because i had convinced myself i'd just have to rip it all out when it went horribly wrong anyway, so why bother to use the good stuff. bah, i say!! bring on the sock yarn!

it's not the heat, it's the humidity...

here's a phrase that they will be saying in this part of the country for months to come...yes, it's getting to be that time of year again. sigh, summer in eastern canada (okay i know it's technically more 'central' canada, but to a proud westerner like me it's east). i suppose people that were actually born and/or lived most of their lives in this part of the country wouldn't notice how unbelievably oppressive the humidity can get here, although i do hear the odd person complain about it, but let me tell you it saps the life force out of you. i don't remember doing a lot of crocheting last summer, as it was the hottest/most humid on record for like, the past 50 years or something ridiculous. i do remember sweating while brushing my teeth in the morning, trying not to move too much or touch anything for too long for fear of getting 'stuck' however, and thanking all that is holy that we have central a/c in the house, even though you knew you were going to pay a hefty power bill for it...and not wanting to set foot outside because i was scared that i would: a) collapse from heat exhaustion before i could get to the car, or; b) be choked to near-death by the hideous air quality humidity + pollution creates.

laugh if you must

call me a tree-huggin' hippy if you want, but since i moved to this province, i've become somewhat of a recycler...the program they have here is really excellent, and made me ashamed of the amount of things i would just throw out without a second thought before i came. mind you, the logistics of 'free' recycling in a small town are a heck of a lot more easy to wrap your head around than that of a large city. in that spirit, i decided to try crocheting with, of all things, plastic shopping bags....insert giggle here...yes, i remember hearing from a lady i worked with about a century ago that people actually crocheted with plastic bags...i remember snickering at her saying this, thinking what a silly thing that would be to do...well i suppose i be snickering out the other side of my face now:

there is a process you go through, you have to make the 'yarn' by cutting up the bags and looping them together...some even get really creative with colours and such, but i just used grocery bags--about a million and a half of them. yes, there it is; a shopping bag made out of....shopping bags! har har...suitable for taking along to the beach, the farmer's market, the corner grocer, or the nuthouse!

la grand couchon

this little piggy stayed home...i couldn't resist trying out this pig pattern that was posted by one of the very talented ladies on crochetville. it was an easy little pattern and worked up quite well i think. sctv fans will recognize the title of this post, as for some reason i kept remembering the sketch about the restaurant "la grand couchon"--or 'the big pig' for us anglos...sounds so much more refined en francais, n'est pas?-- where all the 'larger' stars went to eat...the one that served the giant portions and eventually fell off the side of the cliff, due to all the "girth" inside..."ramone, these bread sticks are getting smaller!!" all the while crocheting this cute little porcine friend.


his shih-tzu friend seems nonplussed, but then, they usually are--that'll do, pig.

yo-yo mahhhhh

so i started a new scrap afghan--or scrapghan--last night, thanks to my new friends at the crochetville forum. there was a crochet-along thread there started by one of the ladies and she posted some patterns to inspire, and one of them did...it is called a 'yo-yo afghan', i suppose because you make little circles (resembling yo-yo's, clever, eh?) out of all your scrap bits of yarn and then join them together with one main colour (in my case, black). i have been secretly thinking of them as lollipops, and will probably call it my lollipop afghan, but that's neither here nor there...i was a bit confuzled (no big surprise) as to the joining methods posted on the link, but once i wrapped my head around it i was excited to start. these are super easy to make, and you can make one in no time at all (in my case, about a minute or two) depending on how fast or slow you crochet. the really nice thing about this is they take up very little yarn, which is good, because you need about a gazillion of them to make an afghan, plus if you are carting them around they take up almost no room in your bag or purse...and anyone that knits or crochets with any regularity probably has bags and bags of balls of various sizes of yarn in all different colours and weights, too much to throw out, but not enough of which to make a project--so this is just perfect!! i'm currently working on a knitted sweater-type thingie, and since it takes me

four times as long to knit something as crochet it, it gets a little tedious, and this is just the right project to work on when i get bored of knitting row after row of stockinette. there will be no rhyme or reason to this ghan...the only rule i will set is i won't join two of the same colours together, otherwise anything goes...hopefully it will look pretty...and if it isn't pretty, well, at least it will be warm!