It’s Friday! Hey-O!

Oh, Friday… ::sigh::

I love Fridays. I’m not really sure why considering I stay home with the girls, and the weekends are not necessarily any different than the rest of the week (ha!), but I do. It must be left over attachment from school days? I don’t know.

This week has been.. Meh. Just one of those weeks, I guess. I spent the week in kind of a crochet slump. I’ve got ideas, but follow-through? Not this week.

BUT — I didn’t come here to whine and complain.

Actually, I wanted to show you all what I DID get accomplished this week.

An order for this sock monkey hat:

A blue sock monkey order

And this pullover for Lilly:

WIP — at this point, I kind of wanted to just make it a blanket.

But Lilly wanted a shirt, so that’s what she got!

And she LOVES it 🙂

This pullover is not only my first completed clothing item, but also my first “Granny Square” pattern. Can you believe that I’ve been avidly crocheting for nearly TWO YEARS and have never done a granny square until now?! I’ll definitely be making more granny squares, AND more of these pullovers. In the future, I’ll probably stick to solid colors with accents instead of the self patterning yarn.

I found this pattern on this fantastic blog:

http://pardonmychaos-amanda.blogspot.com/2011/08/granny-square-top-tutorial.html

I actually did not follow the pattern this time, just used the idea. I had to find the granny square instructions, as they are not included, but that was no biggie. I just headed right over to Teresa Richardson (The Crochet Geek) and found a video. To save you time, however, here it is:

http://www.crochetgeek.com/2009/01/crochet-traditional-granny-square.html

Watch the video. I honestly did not find the written instructions to be completely accurate (it doesn’t seem to include the corner instructions in every row), but the video is fantastic, and the chart is spot on and easy to follow.

I just made it as big as I thought it needed to be (11 rounds – the pattern says 9 rounds, but my girl is bigger than hers), and followed her design (kind of) for the sleeves and neck.

It was super easy! A great beginner project and first clothing item. I’ll be scouring her blog for more patterns in the very near future!

Other than that, I didn’t get a ton done around here. I managed to get most of the chairs sanded, so they’re almost ready to paint.  Hopefully, I’ll get that post up soon. I’m ready to get those FINISHED and off of my queue of unfinished projects. I’ve been feeling that end of summer panic — you know, the “OHMYGOSHITSALMOSTTHEENDOFSUMMER!” feeling that drives you to pack your days and weeks full of all of the summer activities you intended to do at the beginning of summer, but haven’t actually done yet? Yeah, that one.

So, weather permitting, we’ll be at the pool later. Maybe the Denver Zoo next week, and then my oldest goes to camp for two weeks. Once she gets back, it will be a mad dash to get everything ready for the school year. BOTH girls are starting new schools — Kacie – HIGH SCHOOL ::shudder:: and Lilly – Preschool. I can’t believe it!

Happy Friday and have a fantastic weekend! What are your plans?

 

How-To Tuesday – Color Inspiration: Choosing Colors for your projects

“Why do two colors, put one next to the other, sing? Can one really explain this? no. Just as one can never learn how to paint.”
― Pablo Picasso

I think Mr. Bob Ross may disagree on the “one can never learn how to paint” (happy little trees..ha!), but what a beautiful quote. Some colors do just sing, don’t they? Lovely. I feel the same way about some yarns.. Anyway, on with the post.

When I started this blog (about a month ago! Time sure flies!), I reached out to fellow crafters and asked what they would like to read about. One crocheter asked how to choose colors for projects. Now, I don’t particularly consider myself an “expert” in anything really, but I happen to get quite a lot of compliments on my color choices. I’ve been struggling a little with how to describe my process for you. I think, because honestly, it’s mostly just intuition. My best projects are those I don’t have any problems picking colors for. Sometimes, I decide the color scheme before I even decide the project, like the yarn is asking to be used. I’ve even not started projects in the past because when I started thinking about what colors to choose it would give me anxiety, and who wants that?! This is supposed to be fun, and stress relieving, not inducing!

Tip: When I’m having a hard time envisioning how my colors are going to come together in a pattern, I actually grab my colored pencils and sketch it out. This has led to color scheme changes more times than I can count!

Sometimes I just like to look at these pretties

So. Here goes. Some *hopefully* useful methods to assist in choosing color schemes.

• Get Online – We all want to create things that everyone considers beautiful. I’m not saying go copy whatever is popular in cyberspace. I’m saying, one of the best ways to find out what color schemes are “hot” is to do a quick search of your favorite online shopping sites. Let it inspire you. 

• Get Outside – Mother Nature is gorgeous if you’d just look at her! Head outside. Lift your head and look around. Stop looking at your phone 😛 (I’m guilty of that one sometimes). What do you see? More likely than not, some amazing colors!

“I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.” 
― Alice Walker, The Color Purple

Seriously. Look around you 🙂

Lovely double rainbow I snapped the other day. I actually pulled over to take a picture 🙂

This is the Foote Lagoon near the library here.

This pretty tree and garden are next to the Foote Lagoon

This is a crazy tree along the hike to Hanging Lake

Hanging Lake — In my opinion, the most beautiful spot in my entire state of Colorado

My hiking crew

Look at all of those gorgeous greens and blues!

So pretty 🙂

• Go Shopping – At the home improvement store. The paint sections at The Home Depot and Lowe’s are wonderful resources for finding gorgeous color palettes — AND they’re already put together for you! For FREE! Go grab some swatches!

Example of some paint swatches you will find at The Home Depot — pretty, right?!

• Experiment – Step outside your comfort zone. Go BOLD. Something. Just try something you wouldn’t normally try. If you’re apprehensive about potentially wasting time on the wrong colors — do what I do. Grab your colored pencils and sketch pad and release your inner artist!

Some of us have an easier time “stepping outside the box” ..

I once bought what I considered to be a fantastically beautiful skein of yarn, only to come home and have my teenager announce that she thought it looked “vomit-ish”. Lo-and-behold, when I completed the scarf I intended it for, I was overwhelmed with compliments on, you guessed it, the colors! Even my opinionated teen later admitted that, when paired with the gunmetal grey, the chartreuse (yes.. really) actually looked quite good.

Scarf in question — what do YOU think?

Color is more complicated than it seems. I’ve taken whole classes centered entirely around color theory and choosing colors that complement each other (in hair school, not for crafting, but someone should offer one!).  Get friendly with a color wheel and learn the basics of color theory. This site has a wonderful (and easy to follow) explanation: http://www.colormatters.com/color-and-design/basic-color-theory. It really is helpful to get to know the basics.

Even a boring old color wheel is pretty to look at

Happy Tuesday! What colors are you currently working with? I’d love to hear what inspires you in choosing colors! Feel free to add your two cents in the comments. Any totally odd color combos that have just worked for you?

Weekend Re-cap and Upcoming Plans

I’ve been quiet since last week, as I was prepping for a market over the weekend. I am still here, though, and making plans for some exciting things to share with you in the upcoming weeks!

One thing I am looking forward to sharing with you is a new format! I’m in the process of making some changes here, a major one being the addition of a shopping tab, where I’ll have the ability to process sales directly. More like an actual website, while still keeping a mostly blog format. I enjoy the blog vibe and sharing fun ideas and tutorials with you all.

I’m working out the details of a fun tutorial, and if all goes as planned, I’ll roll that one out next week  for a fun, and unique How-To Tuesday. I’m just itching to tell you what it is, but I’m going to keep it under my hat and hope you find anticipation exciting 😛 . I will say one thing about it — be prepared to get messy. Messy crochet?! You betcha!

Also, I asked some fellow crocheters what they’d like to see here, and got the following responses:

• How to work with varying weights/thickness in yarn
• How to take care of tails when working with nylon thread
• How to pick color combos for projects
• Sweaters — one crocheter is looking for a specific kind
• Plus sized items

I’m looking into all of these requests and will find the best possible answer for them. If you know of any good resources I could share, feel free to leave links in the comments!

So, there you go! There are a few things you can look forward to this month!

Oh, what’s that? You want to know how the market went? Well.. It hovered just under 100 degrees here on Saturday, which apparently, does NOT make crocheted beanies, hats, scarves, and accessories very appealing to John Q. Public. I ended up doing just OK considering the very little expense I put into participating. I’ll probably not do another farmer’s market, or summer show period — unless I start making stuffies or other “off the body” crochet goods 🙂 Here is a peek at my table from Saturday. Thankfully, I had very little expectation from this market, so was not terribly disappointed. Also, I didn’t put a ton of effort in (which probably didn’t help lol).

My Table

Sunday, however, I scored the best Craigslist find! I found these chairs that I cannot wait to get started on! I’ve already started a little sanding.  I’m taking pictures along the way so I can throw in a non-crochet related project in the near future.

My next DIY project – aren’t they awesome?!

I’m pretty new to the blogosphere, and I’d like to take a minute to thank you all for reading, and for clicking that follow button 🙂 I love the crochet community and look forward to helping you all in any way I am able! I really love hearing from everyone, so please, don’t hesitate to leave a comment. Whether you have a request for an upcoming post topic, or would just like to say hello — I enjoy getting to “know” everybody!

 

Hey…That’s MINE!

You may see the title of this post and assume that I’m about to tell you a story about my 4-year-old. Sadly, you would be assuming wrong.

Let’s talk a little about one of my biggest pet peeves as a crocheter.

Copyright.

Do you already know where I’m going with this? The crochet community (and all handmade, from what I understand) has been abuzz recently with much talk, and even more confusion about what “copyright” encompasses in the world of handmade goods. I’m going to focus on crochet, because that’s what I’ve familiarized myself with.

Some designers seem to be under the impression that if they write a pattern, it gives them license to determine how things are produced by that pattern, and furthermore, what may become of any items created using it. These designers are either blatantly making up their own ‘laws’, twisting the existing law to suit their purpose, or are simply unaware of the details covered in the actual law. I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt, and assume it’s the latter.

What I imagine some people are actually doing (see Sweet Brown .gif below ha!).

Please forgive my crude drawing skills 😛

In a nutshell — or read directly from the copyright law website here— the copyright ends with the written pattern. The end. Easy peasy, right?

There is no “for personal use only”. There is no “You may sell after the purchase of a cottage license”. There is no “you may not sell any finished items”. There’s not even a legal “Please link back to my web address”. That is just a common courtesy (that we really all should follow. I mean, really, let’s give credit where it’s due).

This is a pet peeve of mine because we’re all in this together. We all started somewhere. We’ve all taken the time to learn how to crochet the stitches, and read the patterns. I don’t understand where this sense of entitlement came from (MINE!! MINE!! MINE!!). This idea that someone else owns the rights to something I created, essentially from a piece of string, is outrageous. The crochet community is, for the most part, a very tightly knit (no pun intended) group. I guess there are always a few “bad apples”, as they say.

In my opinion, it boils down to this (I literally cut and pasted this from an online discussion I was in earlier today and apologize for any redundancy):

As much as the authors don’t want you to sell anything made from their pattern, they have exactly ZERO right to tell you not to. As has been very thoroughly discussed in this thread, copyright does not extend to finished items. It covers the pattern only. Pattern authors can ASK people not to sell finished items, but in my opinion, that only hurts their business because, as I’ve said here, I will personally never buy a pattern that has a contingency. We’re all crocheters. We’re all fiber artists in our own rights. If we’ve gone through the process of learning how to follow a pattern and actually crochet the item, that finished item is ours to do with whatever we want. Not all of us crochet to sell, but a LOT of us do. I don’t understand WHY a person would go through the trouble of writing/formatting/listing a pattern to sell and expect no one to sell their work!? WHY?! Most of the time, it’s because they themselves are selling the finished items and want to try to control the amount of competition in the market. Well, too bad. Once you sell the pattern, it’s mine. Not to sell (the pattern), but the items I create with my hands and my hooks are mine, and I will sell them all day. If they don’t want people making their items to sell, they should *probably* not put the pattern out there.

Like I said, it’s a pet peeve of mine. One that I feel very strongly about. I intend to post free patterns (of my own), links to free patterns that I love, and links to patterns that I love that are not free. I will NEVER try to tell you what you can and cannot do with items that come off of  YOUR hooks. If it is made by you, it is yours. If you make it and love my pattern or my blog and you want to let people know where you got it, great, but I don’t “require” that of you — I get enough mothering in with my own children. I don’t have time to mother fellow crocheters. It would be cool to see some link love, not gonna lie, but it’s your choice.  I will also NEVER link you to a pattern designer who puts these stipulations on their patterns. I don’t support selfishness, and I won’t propagate the misuse of “copyright” law.

Seriously — Ain’t nobody got time for that.

That being said, it’s isn’t ok to use someone else’s pictures as your own. I actually suggest you watermark your pictures to deter people from using them. It’s also not ok to use someone else’s blog content as your own (actually covered by copyright law), and you obviously cannot take a pattern (free OR paid for) and call it yours, or redistribute it without permission.

Where do you stand on this topic? I’ve found there seem to be very few people who side with the “do not sell-ers”, but I’m open to hearing why you disagree with me if that’s the case.

*Be forewarned, I’ll delete bullying comments (even if they’re in agreement with me), so be nice. I’m looking for lively conversation, not crafter-bashing. Thanks!

*The above .gif is not my own creation. I borrowed it from a terrific .gif site I found, http://www.gifrific.com. I’d hate to infringe on copyright in the midst of my copyright post!