Pretty in Pink

Today was my sister Jamie's birthday and she came up from Vancouver to spend the day with us.

Now I can finally do more than just say I'm busy crocheting important projects with close due dates.  Since Jamie is one of my faithful reader's I couldn't say what they were for nor post pictures of WIP or talk about the hassles and frustrations or the the successes and pleasures as the work progresses.

The piece that caused both the most frustration and the most pleasure once finished was this two-toned pink drawstring bag I call a coin purse but can be for holding anything small you don't want falling to the bottom of a larger bag--candy, make-up, postage, cell phone...

This is only the second time I've crocheted beads into something and I could get addicted to it.  These beads were more like mini rings than beads--silver bands with pink stones in them.

Jamie's favorite color is?

Altogether now...

PINK

This mini-purse was done in size 10 cotton in the shades French Rose and Dusty Rose.  The bottom section was done in the outline stitch worked in the round and the top was done in chain mesh--2 chain loops below the drawstring and 4 chain loops from the drawstring to top.

As you can see if you are an experienced crocheter, I had trouble keeping the count and the tension on the thread causing the tows to expand and contract on me.  I did a lot of taking out before I finally decided to live with the effect.

When I first started this project in November I intended it to be a beach bag sized bag for Jamie to pack for her frequent overnight stays in the hospital but I soon realized I could not work that stitch for that long.  Besides the difficulty of catching front loops or back loops only and keeping several loops on the hood at once while shifting its position there was the fact that this stitch required finishing off on every row. You never turn and work it back the other direction so that mean there would be two tails per row to tuck.

So sometime in December i decided It was going to be a small something.  Maybe a four by four inch pocket book or wallet or maybe a checkbook cover.

But after having to take out three of the stripes (a stripe = 4 rows) because of dropped stitches I decided that even that was going to be too much.  I resisted working on it for weeks and it wasn't until I got the idea early this month in the first days I was here at Mom's to sew the ends of the one salvageable stripe together and work it in the round thus eliminating the tails that I started working on it daily and in less than two weeks it was dine.

I worked the existing tails down the seam I had made and then braided them together instead of tucking them and trimming them off.

I hate tucking that much.

I would have finished even sooner if I hadn't also been working Mom's scarf whenever she was asleep or busy until after Mother's Day.  Since I didn't finish that scarf I'll be going back to it now.  Along with a few other projects intended as gifts for someone in this area which I hope to finish before I head home next month.  In about three weeks.

This is a bookmark.  The rose was made last November or at least the crocheted part.  Last night I had to sew the edges together at the back to keep it from unrolling and then crochet the leaves and stem and sew them together and then sew them onto the rose.

You can't see in the pic Jamie took but the stem when fully extended is nearly a foot long and has a curly cue on the end.

Jamie discovered that by wrapping the stem around her wrist and hooking the curly end behind the leaves she could wear it as a bracelet.

This was made with size 10 cotton thread in Kerry Green and Variegated pink and white.

This hot pad was made with Sugar and Cream cotton yarn.  I whipped that together last night in about four hours.

And then spent another four to six hours dressing the bookmarks pictured below.  They had all been crocheted long ago.  In fact more than half of them had been intended for her birthday last year but I did not get them ready in time.  Many of them still needed to be tail tucked and blocked and none of them had their ribbons or tassels.

At least I had the tails tucked and the blocking done before last night.  In fact before I left home three weeks ago.  So all I had to do last night was select and prepare the ribbons and tassels.