Something it's Not

You should see the exciting new sweater I got at the thrift store for $1!

Now before you call me crazy, let me explain. Yes, I'm pregnant but there's still no way that this thing would ever fit me. It's very wide. But it's still a great find and I'll tell you why. It's a beautiful soft grey color and the yarn feels even softer than the color is. The seams make me even more excited because they weren't sewn, just crocheted together. You may see a huge baggy sweater but I see a LOT of yarn in one of my favorite colors! For a doller. And that makes my crocheting/knitting heart happy.

Changing a sweater into yarn is a great idea my sister told me about. And if you've ever spent more than you wanted for yarn, you might be interested in how to do it. You may be seeing the sweater in the back of your closet in a new light, or maybe the thrift store is calling to you too now. It is easy (and fun to me at least) to do but takes a little patience. There are some tips and tricks to it I've found.

Things to think about when choosing a sweater:

1. What is it made out of? Is the yarn still in good shape? If it's a wool sweater and it's been washed in hot water and/or agitated, it's "felted" already and you might as well forget it. You're never going to get good yarn from it. You can always cut that sweater up and sew it together to make other things. Wool yarn/material is great for so many things, like making diaper covers/soakers, or extra warm winter wear. If you find a wool sweater not felted yet, you've found a great thing! But you will have to be careful how you wash it and handle it yourself.

2. How was it put together? Turn it inside out and look at the seams. If the knitted or chrocheted fabric was cut and sewn together with a machine, be aware you'll only get a lot of short threads from it, not usable unless you tie them all together and that's a pain. It's also harder to get these seams apart and I call it not worth it! If just the top shoulder seam (or the collar) is sewn, that's pretty normal, and you'll still get a ton of usable yarn. If, on the other hand, you see two finished knitted or crocheted edges at the seams (picture right) and they look to be crocheted together, then you've got a sweater that will almost fall apart into a ball of yarn for you! Ok, not really, but if you pull the right string, it'll come apart beautifully.
3. The bigger the better. I always peak in the extra large section of the second hand store because you want a lot of yarn, right? What's even better is if you find an afghan to take apart. Crocheting also uses up more yarn than knitting, so if you know how to tell these apart, you can have a better idea how much yarn you'll get. This sweater, above, was loosely knitted but it's huge so I'll still get a decent amount of yarn from it.
So, on to how to turn this:

into that:

Sweater to Yarn

First wash it gently by hand and dry it by lying it flat. You'll need fabric scissors and a seam ripper. Look at your seams again. Mine on this sweater were ideal. They had no machine stitching and were crocheted together. You can see the two finished edges that were pulled together then on one side of these edges you can see little stitches that look like backstitching. You can see these stitches running parralel with the edge of my seam ripper in the picture below.In the second picture you can see the other side of the edges that has very small loops like the top edge of a crocheted piece. (Click on the pics to enlarge them.)

Follow these loops to where they begin and find the yarn ends, pull them out and either unknot them or cut them (picture left). You'll have to kinda flip it around and look closely, and investigate at this point to find the top and that magic string as sweaters all seem to be put together differently. Do your investigating to find just the right thread to pull though, and you're golden! I cut at the top until I could pull the seem apart and see the threads running across (picture below), snipped one of those threads and pulled on the right end of it and it undid the sleeve seam and down one whole side. The collar, this time, was the trickiest to take off but I finally found the magic thread. If you really can't find the elusive thread-to-unravel-all, or if someone machine stitched the edges, just pull the edges apart and cut along the seem. It takes longer but still makes nice yarn.

I ended up with two arm pieces and two body pieces in the end. The tops were finished and again (picture above), I had to find the thread to take the edge apart. After that was done though, I just had 4 pieces to frog. Frogging is undoing a crocheted or knitted piece. The term comes from the "ripping" (somehow sounds like ribbit I guess) you do when you pull, pull, pull on the yarn to undo the stitching.

This is my daughters favorite part and she begs to help me with it. And the end result, next to a H crochet hook and size 8 knitting needles for comparison. I can't wait to make something with it now! I have lovely ideas for it and promise to post them when done.

No-Oven Muffins

My love of fall and winter is usually celebrated with a bout of baking many yummy seasonal things. It makes me feel all warm and wonderful inside to smell it cooking. This year, however, our oven has given out. I've found out that I really don't need an oven much, as we procrastinate about getting a new one, and have adapted some of my usual recipes to stove-top, slow cooker, grill, bread machine, or microwave. It turns out that grilled pizza is incredible, you can grill an entire chicken, my husbands favorite enchiladas are great in the crock-pot, and baked potatoes in the microwave aren't half bad. Thinking of the kids' birthdays and Thanksgiving next month, however, has made my creative problem solving rise to new heights. As part of my desire to find a way to make cupcakes without an oven I've been experimenting with muffins. And it turns out to be true that muffins can be made in a crock-pot. And, just in case you ever find yourself in a situation where this would be helpful, I'll share.

No-Oven Muffins


**Warning! I do not condone this... anymore. My crock-pot broke shortly after this so please, do not attempt. See my later post On Second Thought**

Slow cooker muffins are easy and likely heat up your kitchen less than making them in the oven. I would not be surprised if they saved energy too. You have to have a large slow cooker to accommodate a muffin tin, or you can use stand-alone muffin cups in a cake or bread tin. I had a 9" round cake tin that fit perfectly, slightly elevated, as it caught on the inner lip about halfway down in the crock-pot. I put stand-alone cupcake liners in the tin and filled these with my muffin mix (banana muffins). I covered the cake tin with foil, put 1/2 cup water on the bottom of the slow cooker, and covered the slow cooker. After 2 hours on high, the result was extremely moist and yummy muffins! The one downside of slow-cooker muffins is that they somehow did not smell fabulous as they were cooking. I believe it may have something to do with the steam in the crock, though the water is added to help heat conductivity. I just sighed and lit a pumpkin spice candle. Next time I think I'll try it without the water and see what the result is. I may also stack a bread tin under my cake tin and see if I can do 2 layers at once.

Now, how to roast pumpkin seeds without an oven. Hmm... skillet?

Oh, and Thanksgiving. If you have any brilliant ideas for how to make a turkey and a pumpkin pie sans oven, leave me a comment and let me know!

Happy Autumn!

An Annoucement

Ok, so there's another reason I'm starting a blog. And that's related to the online STORE I'm opening! Take a look at bethsco.com. You'll find mostly jewelry for now, just a few other items. Soon, though, I'll be adding some of my favorite crochet items. Just in time for some early Christmas shopping! Subscribe to my blog to keep updated on my store and for more creative inspiration.

Intro and a Free Pattern

This blog has been in the ponderings for a while. Yes, I made that up. It's my blog. :) I'm excited to start documenting the creative things inspiring me, and hopefully you'll catch some inspiration too. Whether I am crocheting or sewing, working on some project, or taken with a particularly exciting idea... I'd like to share with you.

So to get on with it. Last year about this time I was full of ideas for Christmas, as I am now, and wanted to crochet something for my little girl. She inspires me a lot these days as she gets every bit as excited as I do over creative things. I couldn't find the pattern for what I wanted anywhere, so I made it up. And was Christmas day ever fun! So, I'm going to share the pattern because maybe you know a little girl that loves all things colorful with hearts on it and made with love.

Rainbows and Hearts Blanket
(My first published crochet pattern so please leave feedback if a part is unclear or incorrect)

I used Red Heart Super Saver yarn but any yarn would work. Gauge is also not as important. I used a G size crochet hook. My finished blanket is 46 inches x 64 inches long.

When changing colors:
--Changing color after a sc: Insert hook into stitch below, grab yarn with your hook and pull through the stitch, grab the new color yarn with your hook and pull through the 2 loops on your hook to finish the sc.
--Changing color after a dc/shell: On the last dc of the shell y/o, insert hook into the stitch below, grab yarn with your hook and pull through the stitch, grab yarn with your hook and pull through 2 of the loops on the hook, grab your new color yarn with your hook and pull it through the last 2 loops to finish the dc.

Chain a multiple of 12, plus 5 more (I chained 150 for a blanket 46 inches wide.) For each multiple of 12, your finished product will have one heart across. I had 12 hearts across, 12x12=144+5=150.

Row 1: sc in 2nd chain from hook, skip 1, 3 dc in next (these 3 dc are a shell), *skip 1, sc in next, skip 1, shell in next* repeat between *s to end of the row, chain 3, turn (38 shells, 38 sc total)
Row 2: *sc in middle dc of shell below, shell in top of sc below* repeat between *s to the end, chain 3, turn
Repeat row 2 for each row after.

Color Pattern:
*2 rows of light pink
3 rows each of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple in that order
2 rows of light pink
6 rows of dark pink with light pink hearts (see below for how make the hearts)
2 rows of light pink
3 rows each of purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, red in that order
2 row light pink
6 rows dark pink with light pink hearts*
Repeat between *s until reach the length you desire. (I did 3 sets to make a blanket 64 inches long)

To Make the Hearts: You continue the same stitch pattern as above when working the hearts. There are several tricks though to make the hearts look right and make your blanket look good on both sides. If you change colors as described above and work through how to hide the strings from the color changes, it is not hard. So bear with me while I explain in detail.

To hide color change strings:
I cut my light pink strings for each heart but I just stitch over the dark pink ones to hide them...
--To sc or shell over the dark pink strings. When you insert your hook into the stitch below to make a sc or dc, pull the string you want to hide alongside the stitch and insert your hook under it too. YO and continue to make your shell/sc as usual. This will secure the thread above or below the heart, where you will not notice it later.

Steps to make the hearts:
1) On the third row of dark pink work: sc, shell, sc, in dark pink.
2) After that 2nd sc switch to light pink.
3) Make 1 shell in light pink, working it over the dark pink strand to hide it. At the end of this shell, switch back to dark pink. This light pink shell is the point of the heart, the bottom half.
4) In dark pink work sc, shell, sc, shell, sc. Then follow directions above in steps 2-3 to make another bottom half of a heart.
Repeat steps 2-4 to the end of the row. You’ll end the row with a sc, shell, sc, shell, ch 3, turn in dark pink.
5) On the next/4th row of dark pink work: sc, shell, sc in dark pink, switch to light pink at the end of the 2nd sc
6) Work shell, sc, shell in light pink. Switch back to dark pink at the end of the 2nd shell, but leave some slack in the dark pink yarn strand. When doing the next row you will work the shells and scs on top of the hearts over this strand to pull it up over the heart.
7) Work sc, shell, sc in dark pink then switch back to *using light pink shell, sc, shell, using dark pink sc, shell, sc* repeat between *s to the end of the row, ch 3 turn.
8) On the 5th row (next row) of dark pink be sure to work all shells and scs over the hearts over the dark pink threads to hide them.

With all my patterns feel free to use for personal use, gifts, and charity. Please don't sell the finished product though. Thank you!