I have been on a bit of a crocheting kick recently. After all the sewing for kcwc I got rather sick of looking at my sewing machine. And I got sick of certain little people poo-pooing things I made for them. So I went to the yarn store and bought some beautiful, soft, and squishy yarn to make something just for me.

I’m not usually a fan of things trying desperately to be something they are not–think tofu dogs. Crochet is not knitting, even though they both use yarn. Crochet is its own art and has its own strengths that I try to showcase. But I wanted so badly to make the bandana cowl pattern by Purl Bee.  Looking at it was painful, because it is so perfect, but I can’t knit to save my life.

Thankfully someone made an equally awesome crochet bandana cowl–no tofu dogs in sight. The cowl is the same shape as the knitted version, but I think the stitches were chosen by someone who loves crochet and knows how to show of its strengths.  It worked up super fast in the gorgeous wool/silk blend yarn I bought. All the cowl details are on ravelry if you are interested.

ooo! looks like there’s a little crochet on crochet action going on in this last picture.

I’m over at a happy stitch today for her new series fail friday. I was so happy that Melissa asked me to contribute, because crafty/sewing blogs really need to talk about mistakes more. The pretty pictures are nice, but everybody screws up sometimes! Failures are hard to own up to, but honestly they are a lot more interesting and a hell of a lot funnier than perfectly perfect projects all the time. So go check out my post about my kcwc double fail!

Today I am super excited to introduce you to Mary Jo of Five Green Acres. I am lucky enough to know Mary Jo in blog life and real life. She is a whirlwind of creative energy! When she walks in a room you cannot help but be swept up in her projects and plans and insatiable curiosity about all things crafty.

This is wool. First Harvest: Backyard from Mary Jo, FiveGreenAcres on Vimeo.

Years ago, Mary Jo had an idea that started with carting home sheep in the back of her minivan. Since that day, she has thrown herself into raising sheep, grazing sheep, birthing sheep, and shearing sheep. If that weren’t enough, she then went on to clean the wool, card the wool, dye the wool, and spin the wool. And now yarn! gorgeous, squishy, soft, subtly colored yarn! Please watch this lovely video to see the birth of  beautiful yarn, named appropriately First Harvest.

Because we live so close, Mary Jo delivered a skein in that same minivan! Then my work began. I needed to find a project that was worthy of the yarn. A skein of First Harvest yields a precious 100 yards.  I asked her how she determined the weight and length of each skein:

When I set about spinning up the dyed fiber, I knew I wanted to make a yarn that could be knit up fairly quickly – something that was at least worsted weight or heavier.  The downside of this is that I can only fit so much on my spinning wheel’s bobbin before it becomes too full, limiting the length of each skein to about 100 yards.

Another thing about designing yarn – determining the gauge can be something of a guessing game.  It all depends on the size of needle (or hook) used, right?  I had determined that First Harvest was about a worsted weight, comparing it to other yarn I had in my stash, but now that I’ve added the yarn to the Ravelry database, I see that by their standards First Harvest is a Bulky weight.  Ravelry gets the final say, I suppose, so I’m changing my tune – Bulky it is.  The semantics of weight don’t matter as much in the actual working up of a project, as long as you do a gauge swatch, which we all do, every time, right?  Hee.

I of course did not swatch, so I crocheted and ripped and crocheted and ripped and crocheted and ripped. I couldn’t find a pattern that was special enough for the yarn and used just the right amount of yarn. Finally I gave up the never ending Ravlery pattern search and made up my own pattern (first harvest cowl pattern here).

 

I came up with a pebble-y stitch that shows off the yarn beautifully. Mary Jo created this gorgeous gray/brown color with sumac berries of all things. She named it Portobello, which describes it perfectly: mushroomy, earthy, soft and loamy. Of course I’m not perfectly pastoral, so I added a stripe of shocking blue for the city side of things.

Visit Mary Jo’s blog, Five Green Acres (and shop, This is Wool) to see more of First Harvest and hear stories of her yarn from sheep to skein.

Fall is fading fast here. We had an rainy and sometimes humid autumn, but there were beautiful, cool and crisp days too. There are precious few days of fall left. Here are a few projects from the archives to soak them up:

1. make a leaf crown
2. dip fall leaves in wax and put up on the wall with washi tape
3. why not cross stitch on a pumpkin?
4. fill your house with the beautiful aroma of brown butter bars

1.mountain shirt  2.the fiesta dress  3.scrunchy apron 4.quilted baby gilet  5.sailboat top  6.squirrel tee  7.neon dinosaur  8.hannah dress  9.kitty jammies

Jaw dropping is how I would describe this edition of kids clothes week. 641 of you signed up and then proceeded to blow me away with your amazing creations! The flickr pool is full of beautifully made, simple, stylish clothes for kids. Just because the clothes are stylish though, doesn’t mean they take themselves too seriously. You have kids, so you know they light up when you put spaceships on their shirt or shoes on their skirt and it makes mamas laugh when there are numbers on their butt.

1.grey polka dot top  2.upcycled pants  3.paperback writer pants  4.clover shirt  5.lemon-lime top  6.totally 80s  7.wollige klaas  8.matching dresses  9.retro boom box top

Could you feel the creative energy of everyone sewing together? We are scattered across the globe, but this week we came together to sew and cheer one another on. We all need to support each other in our crafty endeavors! You can continue to support your fellow sewers by subscribing to their blog, their instagram feed, their flickr photos, their facebook page, their whatever. A little encouragement can do a lot–for them and for you. I mean just look at the kcwc flickr pool!

1.sandbox pants and envelope tee  2.horsey tee  3.raglan tee  4.walrus tee  5.oliver + s croquet dress  6.raglan   7.flashback skinny tee  8.blackbird butt  9.slouchy pants

Even if nothing turned out the way you wanted this week, or most things didn’t get finished, or the pants are two sizes too big, I hope you are inspired to keep sewing for your children. If things weren’t perfect, I don’t want to think you failed. This challenge sits you down in front of your sewing machine and gets you to sew a little, then maybe a little more. This momentum feeds your creativity: the more you sew, the more ideas come to you, the more you want to sew! I hope you had a good week and I hope the creative momentum takes you into next week and beyond!

I would love it if you told me what you thought of this kcwc: what could be better? what did you like the most? what do you want more of? what isn’t necessary? If you were in charge, what would you do? Anything! Everything! I want to hear it all!