Monthly Archives: January 2015

Making Progress on New Year’s Resolutions: Recently Unraveled Projects

I didn’t get around to posting my New Year’s Resolutions online this year, but one of the biggies was to do something about all the unfinished projects I have hanging around. I’m glad to announce that I’m making some headway on this. Woohoo!

Resolution #1: Unravel every crochet project I’m not going to finish.

I’m just about finished with this resolution. It was easier than I thought it would be, although there were a few that I agonized over a bit before jumping in and ripping, ripping, ripping.

Like this:

This photo shows you an example of the shallow single crochet stitch combined with the tapestry crochet technique. The piece looks a little like knitted stockinette stitch, but the feel and drape of the piece doesn't AT ALL resemble knitted stockinette.

This photo shows you an example of the shallow single crochet stitch combined with the tapestry crochet technique. The piece looks a little like knitted stockinette stitch, but the feel and drape of the piece doesn’t AT ALL resemble knitted stockinette.

This just needed to be unraveled. There was no good reason for hanging onto it. It was ugly. It was full of mistakes. It was turning out completely the wrong size and the wrong scale. There was not a chance in this world I was going to finish it.

Yet, despite the flaws, there were many interesting things about it, and I invested more effort than you’d think into the piece.

Take a close look at it. Can you tell that it’s crochet? It looks a little like knitted stockinette stitch. Sadly, it works up even slower than stockinette. It’s actually shallow single crochet stitch. Despite being crochet, this stitch is most un-crochet-like in multiple ways; for example, it’s stiffer and less flexible than fabric made using many other crochet stitches.

So instead of pink stockinette stitch flying saucer lookalikes, I now have a pile of pink yarn that I suppose I could use for making some cute little Valentine lovelies. Or maybe a baby headband. Who knows?

Resolution #2: Finish every craft project I’ve started that I’m not going to unravel or give up on.

I haven’t made any headway on this part of the list yet, but that’s what I’m going to tackle next.

Resolutions #3 and 4, for now, will remain secret. But maybe — just maybe — I will let the secret out a little later this year.

For now, over and out.

Back From a Long, Unanticipated Blog Hiatus

So, I’m dusting off this blog and trying again with daily blog posts. I stalled out on doing that for a few months, because I’ve been staying at a marina with unreliable Internet access. I haven’t been able to get online until just a few days ago. It has been so frustrating!

In the past, when I used to blog for a corprorate crochet website, I was able to maintain daily blog posts for a couple of years running. However, since I knew I had unreliable Internet access, I used to schedule the posts ahead of time. I’d usually blog about a month ahead. I’m realizing that’s doable in my particular situation, whereas “Today in Review” style blog posts are not necessarily sustainable for my particular situation. At least, not on a daily basis. Bummer! Because I really like doing them. I’m thinking it over and pondering where to go from here.

I do know this: I’m at the mercy of both the local Internet antenna and the network, which are susceptible to going down for a number of reasons. The network seems to go down a few times a day for no apparent reason, and then the antenna often goes down for longer stretches of time — particularly when it rains or gets wet. It was the same when we were cruising in southern and central California; in Two Harbors, California, on Catalina Island, the Internet tower would go down every time it rained — typically every weekend during the rainy season. They wouldn’t usually fix it until sometime Monday morning or afternoon, which would cause me much anxiety and stress if I hadn’t already scheduled my weekly newsletter to go out. I learned quickly: work ahead. Work far, far ahead.

I’m not sure I want this blog to consistently include bunches of scheduled posts, just for the sake of maintaining a daily blog. That doesn’t make much sense. So I still have some thinking to do about whether to just pick up with what I was doing, or try a different approach.

I did use the down time to begin working on a crochet book, and the book is now nearly finished. I’ll be posting more about that soon. Update 7-9-2019 I decided to scrap the book and post all those patterns for free instead of trying to sell them. But I did resume working on the crochet stitch dictionary.

Also in the works, for those of you who are crochet fans, I am putting the finishing touches on an interview with Sharon Silverman. I’m hoping that will go live later this week at KnittingandCrochet.net. Update: You can now find 2 interviews with Sharon at my website: Interview #1 with Sharon Silverman covers Tunisian crochet shawls, Tunisian crochet tips and more interesting stuff about Tunisian crochet. Interview #2 with Sharon Silverman covers crochet cowls, fashion tips and more.

I’ve also been caring for a disabled cat, in addition to all the other cats I already help to take care of. Poor little baby. I’ll post more about that soon, too.

Well, hopefully I’ll be posting about those things soon. We’ll see how that goes. I’ll be posting soon if all goes according to plan.

About the Author: Amy Solovay is a freelance writer with a background in textile design. She has been crocheting and crafting since childhood, and knitting since she was a teenager. Her work also appears at KnittingandCrochet.net , ArtsWithCrafts.com and Crochet-Books.com. Amy sends out a free knitting and crochet newsletter so interested crafters can easily keep up with her new patterns and tutorials. If you’re already an Instagram user, Amy also invites you to follow her on Instagram.

This page was last updated on 7-9-2019.