Girl on the Rocks

Tawashi Town March 31, 2008

Won’t you take me to…. Tawashi Town!!

i just discovered what a tawashi is… It is a japanese knit or crochetes scrubber. Powered by a book from kinokuniya called “Magic Scrubbers Part 8″, I whipped up a number of little crocheted scrubbies and dusters.

A baby seal. Believe it or not the pattern gives him x’s for eyes - that wasn’t my idea

For dusting off my TV screen

For dusting off my keyboard

After I started, I discovered the Ravelry group Tawashi Town, and through it that many japanese tawashi are made with an antibacterial acrylic yarn. I snapped some up on etsy and tried it out:

This little fella lives by my sink and does a great job helping me wash dishes!

If you want to give it a try I’ve found are few freely available charted Japanese tawashi patterns:

- Flying Carp
- Ohina Doll

And if you are looking for something in english, try:
- Spiral Scrubbie

and a knitted version at this direct PDF download, or here.

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Toot toot! March 27, 2008

That’s the sound of me tooting my own horn! My kitchener stitch markers were featured this month in Knitty’s ‘”Cool Stuff” (scroll down to the very bottom and don’t click the picture). It is always nice to know that someone likes your stuff.

And I am not the only one selling stuff….

Abmatic opened up an etsy shop where she is selling the famous tweed chicken and highly acclaimed recycled vinyl wallets. For the wallets she uses repurposed vinyl banners and tyvek mail envelopes for her materials. They are slim, durable, and recycled. She’s sold several to friends and they COME BACK for more!! You should check out her shop. If you want to get something from her shop, and mine we will combine shipping (just let us know in the ‘notes to the seller’ section). So start shopping!

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retro-clean March 18, 2008

Has anyone tried “retro-clean“? It is a detergent for cleaning old linens. Sounds nice.

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Luck o the irish March 17, 2008

Happy St. Patrick’s day!

last week I was goofing off with my crochet hook and thinking about St. patty’s day. i thought I might make a four-leaf clover… I found a few shamrock patterns, but none of them had 4 leaves! After a few failed attempts, here is my version.

This pattern is probably intermediate in difficulty: it requires that you are able to cast on in a magic ring, double crochet (dc) and treble crochet (tr). it can be done in any yarn as long as you use an appropriately sized crochet hook. The larger one I made used caron simply soft worsted weight yarn and a size F hook.

- [sc in ring, ch 1] 4 times end sc 1.
- sc 2 so you begin work in the space created by the ch1 of the first row.
Work each leaf in the space created by the ch1 of the first row.
- ch1, tr1, dc1, tr1, ch2. slip stitch into sc from first row to end the leaf. sl into space created by ch1 from first row to start the next leaf.

Repeat the leaf pattern 4 times (3 times more) and you should be almost all of the way around.

Make stem:

- ch 5
- sc 4 starting in second ch from hook. (you are working your way back up the stem toward the leaves.
- sl st. break yarn, pull through and weave in the end.

Let me know if you have any problems with the pattern! See if you can trade them for some free beers tonight!

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I don’t speak or read Japanese. Is that a problem? March 10, 2008

Pretty much without even a second thought, I recently bought a few Japanese craft books in Japantown. These are my first, and while I don’t speak or read Japanese, everyone always says the diagrams are so good that you can figure everything out from the pictures.

Well, they are mostly right. So far my experience is just with crochet which hasn’t been too bad. Instead of having row by row directions, all of the patterns are represented in charts. In each book there is a section where they define what the symbols mean, and have some of the best instructional diagrams I have ever seen. I dare say the ambitious could teach themselves to crochet from these diagrams.

I made it through my first pattern by flipping back and forth between the chart and the instructions with almost no problem. Now I am not sure that I even want to ever read a non-charted crochet pattern again!

Every once in a while I do wonder things like “What is the title of this book?” and “That little arrow is labelling something that is clearly important. I wish I could read what it says…” I am trying to compile a list of helpful online sources for translation, but many are for knitting… i’m working on it…. in the mean time, if you have a japanese pattern that you are trying to read, I have found some friendly, helpful Ravelers in the Japanese knitting and Crochet group and Tawashi Town.

If you don’t know what a Tawashi is (I didn’t until last week), stay tuned because they are cute cute cute!

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Your days are numbered, ripple afghan March 9, 2008

Lately, I have had visions of ripping this out.

It is sized to become a queens sized afghan, so it is several feet wide. There is a lot of crochet going on there. I an unhappy with how strictly I striped the colors. Each color row is actually two rows and I feel like I have to keep doing that over and over. Oh, and I hate the pattern. Working one direction is fun, but working back the other direction is boring (sc) and doesn’t make much progress. Oh, and I kinda think I am doing it wrong.

I originally chose this particular ripple pattern (from 200 Ripple Stitch Patterns[Ravlink]) because i liked the rounded ripples, and i had this crazy idea that afghans HAD to have little holes in them. So you could stick your fingers through them, or peek out when you are all wrapped up in it. Then I realized this is not a lap afghan, it s a bedspread. And I realize that crocheting something the size of my bed is crazy (jobs like that are for sewing) and maybe I should downsize to a practical sized afghan.

Since I have tons of the yarn (Cascade 220 superwash wool from webs) I think I am going to start a simultaneous afghan in a pattern akin to the ever-popular soft waves ripple pattern [Ravlink], it will be still for my bed, but I might decide to downsize it so that it may someday be complete.

The original rippled afghan will survive another day.

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It’s like a wooden frame but it’s not March 7, 2008

i felt so lucky when I found these at the east bay depot, and the price was great. They are the nicest emboidery hoops I’ve ever seen

The outer ring is flexible rubber with a faux bois pattern. They are much easier to deal with than the flat sided wooden or plastic ones, and they wouldn’t look too bad hung up on the wall. I thought I was super-special and a few ebay and google searches revealed that these were pretty widely available in the UK. I smugly thought about how much cooler that made them, but then lamented the fact that I couldn’t get more.

I found them at Michael’s this weekend. When they go on sale… Watch out!! I’m stocking up.

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I am old on the inside March 6, 2008

I can’t wait to get old and retire. Well, I guess I can wait, but I already have plans. I will get an old lady helmet hair perm, and enjoy my weekly gossip filled salon visits. i will yank my pants up too high (I’m guessing they will be corduroy) and act like I don’t see anyone else as i bump my cart into everyone when I am shopping at the grocery store. I will barely be able to peer over my steering wheel and if I bother to parallel park (as I will actively seek pull-through parking lot spaces* whenever possible) I will bump off of both surrounding cars every time. I will go directly to the window at the post office despite the giant line because hey - I’m old. i don’t have time to wait and no one will get mad at me because I am old. And even though I could take a minute to figure out what is going on, I will just act confused and get my problem solved right away (at least that is what I guess they are thinking when that happens EVERY time I am at the post office). I will probably die surrounded by weird collections of something that I couldn’t bear to throw out - like yogurt containers or wine corks (I have a dangerously sizeable collection of these already). I will be surrounded by a million cats. I don’t have a cat, but I love them. I am saving it up for future crazy-cat-ladyhood.

In the mean time i figure it is that crazy little old lady inside me that thinks things like these are the most wonderful things ever.

More pics.

They are crocheted Chair cushions!! Aren’t they fantastic? I am guessing from the questionable “uh-huh” response all my friends give me when I ask them that question that it might be my inner granny that is irrationally captivated by these things. They are pretty much the entire reason I bought a whole Japanese Craft book. did you notice that the first one is ALL little poofy flowers?! I already have a recipient for one of these fantastic cushions:

My desk chair. It will look great with a square cushion, don’t you think?

* In my family these parking spaces are called “Aunt Carmella Parking spaces.” my great Aunt Carmella was the designated transporter of all of my great aunts and she would only park in parking spaces that she could pull through. The only thing she ever backed out of was her driveway.

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Well hello there March 5, 2008

Hard to believe that I haven’t had anything to say in such a long time, huh? Well, I was busy with a visit from my hometown friends!

We went to Alcatraz

Don’t let this photo fool you - I really like it there

Did you know that some of the prisoners crocheted? Something tells me they weren’t really using pink yarn…

We tasted wine

Ancient vines at Valley of the Moon Winery

And we went to Daiso AND Japantown - see why we get along? I had to make a pit stop and by the time I made it into Kinokuniya, Amanda had already found the craft books. The next two hours are a blur. Despite the complete variety of books, I inadvertently chose only crochet books:

Motif crochet winter accessories

Tiny crochet accessories

Magic Scrubbers Part 8

Title translations are from some helpful Ravelers. The books have served as the focus of my crafting since I got them. Stay tuned for finished projects!

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Stuff white people like March 4, 2008

It’s funny because it’s true: Stuff White People like

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