Sweet Picot Shamrock
Here’s a St. Patrick’s Day idea Just in time for St. Patrick’s Day 2023!
Use DK weight cotton to crochet Shamrock mug mats. They’ll be large enough to protect your table, and absorbent enough to trap most of the condensation on the outside of the mug. The beer mug, you know.
Instructions for the Sweet Picot Shamrock mat are in the Sweet Picot Heart pattern, in my Ravelry shop.
One dollar of your purchase price goes to Comanche TX All Pets Alive. A bargain!
Crochet Bouquet Tutorials List
Here’s help for some of the flower patterns in Crochet Bouquet. I’ll update this post as I add more of my lost retro-posts to this blog.
If you need help with a flower or leaf from the book, and you don’t see it here, please contact me at knitandcrochetwithsuzann@outlook.com. Help may already be there, just not republished yet.
Also, here are the known errors in Crochet Bouquet
Tips for finishing the Shamrock.
Stay tuned, there are lots more.
Valentine’s Day is for Fun
In elementary school, each one of us students gave a silly little Valentine’s Day card to every other student in the class. The idea of fun and silliness is forever linked to Valentine’s Day in my mind.
I’m surprised and saddened to be reminded that, for whatever reason, people feel unhappy about Valentine’s Day. When I stop to consider the pressurized marketing around Valentine’s Day, I can understand their distress.
How about let’s return to the fun, less expensive, less fraught idea of Valentine’s Day? It’s a day of fondness and love, and that love can extend to friends online and off, to a pet, or to a craft you enjoy.
Originally published early in May 2012, this post was titled “Valentine’s Day Quilt Finished!” It’s about a project created with contributions from friends and daughters.
On a Tuesday evening in 2012, at Eva and Ella’s piano lesson, I sewed the last button onto my Dublin Rippers quilting group’s Valentine’s Day Quilt. I tried to sew more buttons on, but when I put them tentatively on the quilt, the quilt said, “Enough already!” Usually, I can find a place to tuck in one more, but all my attempts were rejected.
So it was finished! Yay!
This quilt combines old and new and bits and pieces that will remind me of friends and fun times. Like this pretty quilted heart will always make me think of Peggy. The flower below the yellow buttons is a Twirl Center Rose from Crochet Garden.
These yellow and white applique daisies are from my mother-in-law’s sewing collection. She was a lovely lady named Mary Eugenia Frederick. She went by ‘Gene,’ but we thought Eugenia was a beautiful middle name for our younger daughter, Ella.
Rachel made the fabric flower with the red center. Rachel’s daughter Beth and Eva like to go adventuring together and talk about music. Gail Hughes made the green buttons that serve as leaves for Rachel’s flower.
Three pink heart buttons from Hazel are surrounded by flowers from Crochet Garden: Begonia (lower left), Turkestani Star with a button from Gail Hughes, and Any Color Pinks at the upper right.
For Donna’s quilt, she asked us each to sign a piece of fabric, which she incorporated in to her quilt. The spool charm is from Donna.
This heart, cut out of an antique quilt, is from Mindi. Both green buttons and the crystal topped button on the heart are by Gail Hughes. Hazel’s buttons are the red heart-shaped ones hidden next to the big heart.
This quilt is full of love!
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More Valentine’s Day posts:
Heart-shaped hoof-prints, handmade Valentine’s Day card, and very retro heart, 2013.
Read about the making of the Valentine’s Day Quilt here, 2012.
Ella creates a Valentine’s Day card collection box, 2012.
Crocheted roses, inspired by painter Barbara Van Wyk, from Crochet Garden, 2012.
Kerrville Honeycomb Doily Origin Story
Hexie quilts are so pretty and simple, they’ve inspired many a quilter to take up paper-piecing. Quilters get into the slow process of hand-sewing the hexies together, and one day, they have sewn together enough motifs for a quilt top!
I’m all about flowers, so I studied the “Grandmother’s Flower Garden” version of a hexie quilt, where you make lots of motifs with a yellow hexie in the middle, and surround them with rounds of flowery colors. My thoughts went something like this: “Hm. I could crochet that, but crocheting a bunch of hexagons and sewing them together does not appeal.” That was the end of that.
It was the end of that, until the summer of 2021, when my husband Charles invited me to come to Kerrville on one of his work trips. The idea was that I would enjoy a break from routine, visit a few bookstores, yarn shops, coffee shops, and so on, while he worked at an archeological field school.
We shared a nice town home with Charles’ colleague Gus and his wife Mel. The wonder of it all, was that Mel is a spinner and knitter! A yarn crawl partner! A coffee shop pal! A fellow bookstore afficionado! We visited The Tinsmith’s Wife, a large yarn, cross stitch, and needlepoint shop in Comfort, Texas. We stopped by The Sheepwalk Ranch and Fiber Arts Studio, a yarn shop, workshop venue, and sheep farm in Bandera County, promising “A Farm to Fiber Arts Experience.”
One evening, the four of us went to a pleasant party to socialize with archeologists, at an Airbnb house in town. The bathroom floor design at the house was a lot like a Grandmother’s Flower Garden hexie quilt pattern. The difference was, each hexagonal tile was surrounded by grout.
Grout. Really?
Yes! The grout gave me a whole new perspective on designing with hexies. Suddenly I could visualize how to crochet the outline of a hexagonal space. The space could be open, or I could fill it with more stitching. It was a big mind-shift.
I printed several copies of my photo of the hexie floor, sketched various ways to crochet the design, and wrote notes on the copies.
In the end, the best way to figure out a crochet pattern is to crochet. Late in July, Charles and I boarded a plane to visit our daughters in Boston. With no dogs needing to go in and out, no phone calls, no snacks calling my name, I had three uninterrupted hours to figure out how to crochet the hexie pattern.
The first draft was way too complicated. I had to rethink. I kept trying, until the method of crocheting the design became clear to me. It finally did. Yay! Here’s a photo of my moment of triumph, with the photocopy of the bathroom floor at the lower edge.
Today the Kerrville Honeycomb Doily pattern is for sale on Ravelry. Instructions include how to make the doily in larger sizes, and how to starch the doily. When you buy the doily pattern before March 31, 2022, you can download a Honeycomb Snowflake pattern free. No coupon code needed.
Knit Advent Day 24
Number 24 at last! The bell is worked from a chart in garter stitch intarsia. It is worked from side to side, increasing and decreasing along the edges for the curve of the bell, the clapper, and the upper shape of the bell.
And here is the Advent Calendar all loaded with its ornaments. Wishing you many happy returns this holiday season, I look forward to seeing you in the New Year.
Knit Advent Day 23
This long, skinny triangle is shaped with short rows. I wanted to twist the triangle, which would mimic some icicle ornaments I had seen. Oops, when I twisted it, the wrong side of the knitting showed. There was nothing for it, but to knit another long, skinny triangle. I sewed the triangles together, twisted, then mounted the icicle onto felt.
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Charles was working in Austin this week (in 2005), so the girls and I came along for fun. Eva and I went out the first evening to visit the wonderful Book People store, and then on to Half-Price Book Store. Half-Price Book Store has a lot more remainders and bargain new books than it had 25 years ago, when I first became a regular customer. The number of truly used books is pretty low, outside of paperback fiction. But it was great to browse without a particular goal in mind.
On our way home today, we stopped by the Bluebonnet Yarn Shoppe in Cedar Park, Texas. Judy, of Heavenly Babies, raves about this shop, and I can understand why. The shop is full of beautiful yarns, the atmosphere is happy, and the staff is friendly. We spent money there and it was fun. I recommend it. The address is 2800 E. Whitestone Blvd., but if you are coming from Hwy 183, you need to turn on Hwy 1431, between the Albertson’s and the HEB. It is in a row of shops next to a supermarket.
2021 UPDATE: the Bluebonnet Yarn Shoppe in Cedar Park closed several years ago.
Knit Advent Day 22
The only stranded color ornament in the collection is this Fair Isle snowflake. I like the shaded blues. That’s the great thing about using embroidery floss. There are so many shades and tints and tones of each color, that you’re bound to find the one you need. Granted, measuring only eight yards per hank, embroidery floss isn’t exactly sweater material, but it’s good for small pieces. I can imagine flowers crocheted from embroidery floss, perfect for embellishment.
Knit Advent Day 21
This is probably my favorite of the ornaments. I love the little poinsettia leaves, so cleverly knitted and sewn onto the felt backing. The gold sequins are the crowning touch. I also like the shape of the background felt.
Got a new book for myself today (in 2005): a compilation of seven Perry Mason novels in one volume, by Erle Stanley Gardner. For hours of reading pleasure, Erle Stanley Gardner rates as my favorite author of all.
Knit Advent Day 20
Santa is knitted in intarsia, and can be color-customized. Eyes and mouth were added later with duplicate stitch.
Knit Advent Day 19
Short rows shape the heel of this stocking ornament. It’s knitted from the top down. I started the short rows with the top gold outline on the heel, then made a lot of very short rows for the cream-colored heel. The gold outline at the bottom of the heel is also a short row, and I had to do quite a bit of ripping out to get the gold rows to meet properly.
To get the perfect angle between foot and cuff, the short rows continue into the turquoise of the foot. You should be able to see how the first three turquoise ridges after the heel are short rows. The toe is decreased on each side, then bound off to give the classic stocking toe shape.
