Just a cute little trinket dish with snuggle puppies.

I've had this placemat for probably 2 years and never used it. I thought it would make a good cheese platter for the bachelorette party. I ended up not putting feet on it so now to dry SLOW.

My sister is getting married in March and I am the matron of honor. We are doing a bachelorette weekend up in the Finger Lakes and I decided to make wine sippy cups for the party. The theme for the party is Rose All Day and I got ridiculus straws that look like diamond rings to put in them. I'm excited with how these turned out.


I will likely do these in a couple of different colors as I glaze them. Not sure yet it if will be all pinks and purples or if I'll throw in a few other colors. I've also batted around the idea of just using an underglaze on the lettering and clear glazing the outside.

This might be the coolest sweater that I've ever made. I found the stich for this in The New Crochet Stitch Dictionary by Nele Braas and Eveline Hetty-Burkart. I found this book recently and there are a ton of new stitch patterns in here that I hadn't seen before.

I used Miss Babs Yowsa for the yarn which is a DK weight yarn, but has a massive 560 yards per skein. The main color of the sweater is Plum and the ropes alternate Orchid and Chances are. I used 3 full skeins of the Plum. It's hard to say exactly how much I used of the other two, it wasn't a full skein, but it feels like a bit more than a half. I used a 4.5 mm hook.




Stitches:
ch - chain
sk st - skip stitch
sc - single crochet
hdc - half double crochet
dc - double crochet
fhdc - foundation half double crochet

sp sc - sc inserting the hook in the diagonally located hdc underneath the front loop of the hdc with the hook from the bottom to the top. More succinctly - you're doing a sc but in the middle strand of the hdc. This will create a bit of a ridge. The stitch pattern is cast on in multiples of 7 + 3. I cast on 105 + 3 (108) for my panels.

Back Panel + 2 front panels:
Row 1: hdc in the 3rd loop from the hook and all the way across
Row 2: ch 1, sc, sc, *ch 5, sk 4 st, sc, sc, sc. Repeat from * across ending with the 3 sc.
Row 3: ch 2, hdc in each stitch or chain all the way across
Row 4: ch 5, sk 2 st, sp sc, sp sc, sp sc, *ch 4, sp sc, sp sc, sp sc. Repeat from * across until you get to the end. Finish by sk 3 st, ch 2, dc in the last stitch.
Row 5: ch 2, hdc in each stitch or chain all the way across
Repeat rows 2-5 until you get to your desired width. Note: in my first attempt I didn't notice that row 3 is chaining 5 and row 4 is chaining 4. Instead I did chain 5 for both - this will do an increase and not keep the rectangle. I did a total of 41 rows for all of my panels. Sew together the 3 panels leaving 7-8 inches for the arm holes. When you sew together the panels make note of which side has the ridges. It's personal preference which you want for your outside, but make sure all 3 are the same orientation. Across the top I decided to sew 4 sets of holes in or about 6 inches




Next you're going to add on the arms. Make sure that as you're doing this the ridges are the same orientation as the panels. For the sleeves you already have a row of hdc since that was the last row on your panel. I picked up 8 holes for mine and then made it work with the stitches. I know, not exact but that's me.

For the sleeves you need to work back and forth. Row 1: ch 1, sc, sc, *ch 5, sk 4 st, sc, sc, sc. Repeat from * across ending with a slip stitch from a chain.
Row 2: Turn your work and go the opposite way. ch 2, hdc in each stitch or chain all the way across. End with a slip stitch
Row 3: Turn your work and go the opposite way. ch 5, sk 2 st, sp sc, sp sc, sp sc, *ch 4, sp sc, sp sc, sp sc. Repeat from * end with a slip stitch
Row 4: Turn your work and go the opposite way. ch 2, hdc in each stitch or chain all the way across. End with a slip stitch


Make the sleeves your desired length. My sleeves are 24 rows long.




Next you're going to make the weaving ropes. The pattern says to do 10 fhdc for each pattern repeat plus 11. What I actually did was do the first one pretty long, weave it through, ripped out stitches until I got to the desired length and then used that as my measurement. Not at all exact, but it was easier than trying to count all those stitches. When you're weaving them in make sure to keep them as flat as you can. I think its impossible not to have some kinks, but you want as few kinks as possible. Sew both ends in once you have it looking the way you want.

I really like the alternating colors, but you could do the ropes all one color as well. You'll need a rope for every set of holes. I had an idea that I was going to use one long rope for the sleeves and it just didn't work well, the holes don't line up to neatly go from one row to the next.




I decided that it needed a collar. I did alternating rows of back loop only hdc. I made my collar 18 stitches high and it worked out to be 65 rows long. Sew it to the top of the 3 panels.

Last I decided I wanted buttons for when I wanted to wrap up tight. I had these amazing large hazelnut buttons from Favour Valley Woodworking. It took me a bit to place them because if they were too far down they looked a lot like headlights. I decided to put them both on the right front panel. One is just below the collar on the open side and the other is just below the collar on the sleeve side.

Having the 2 buttons means you can wear it completely open (first picture above), you can button just the inside panel (second picture above), or button both (picture just above)




This sweater was definitely a lot more work than most of my other sweaters, but I absolutely love how it turned out!

I finally did inventory last night. I had to unpack everything from my last show before I could do that. It's also just not a super fun task. The assumptions I made about what was or wasn't selling was directionally right so it didn't modeify my plan for 2025. The biggest modifications will be around what I start making in 2025 vs what I have some inventory on and can make a bit later.

I keep wondering if at some point there will be a saturation in the crab market. So far it has not slowed down so I'm going to continue to make with the assumption that it will continue. I'm going to start with mugs, small plates, bowls, and spoon rests. Despite the push at the end of the year, I have little to no stock in all of those categories.

Birch also continues to be really popular, although less popular with some things like spoon rests and platters.

I need to spend some time thinking about aliens and whether there are things beyond mugs I want to put aliens on given the popularity of the mugs. I don't know that it makes sense to do a wider line, but I'm still thinking about it. What's interesting about aliens and dragons is that they definitely appeal more to a male audience. Females buy them too, but there is a lot of my work that really only focuses on a female audience and I like that these hit a wider audience.

As I think about the evolution of what I'm doing in general I am thinking about whether I want to increase my selection of mugs as a decrease some of the other things that I have. I get a lot of feedback from those that love the variety in my booth, but as we've seen with my metrics what people end up buying is mugs.

An area I think I want to explore in 2025 is texture relief vs impression. What I'm thinking about specifically is having raised texture vs sunken texture. Some of the rolling pins I use do this, but I want to do that will leaves and flowers as well.

The idea of relief work ties to still wanting to be able to unify crochey and pottery more. I saw a video of how to create better impressions of yarn using a caulk mixture. I just now need to try it :)

I actually haven't touched clay since the week before my last show. I need to get back in the swing this weekend.

I made this shawl while I was traveling a lot for work and doing a lot of shows. It's a fingering weight yarn and it feels like it took forever. I had intended to write down the pattern, but got really busy and did not. The yarn is from Kim Dyes Yarn and is the Smoothie Fingering in Bunch of Zinnias. I have two tags on my desk, but I can't remember if it was 2 skeins or 3.

It's a lightweight shawl. When I started it, we were still having random 70 degree days where I totally could have worn it. I am writing this now in January while its frigid and there's a snowstorm so it will now have to wait for spring. I intentionally made it really large so that it will stay on my shoulders without having to wear a clasp. I call it a Butterfly Shawl because it has 5 points on the back and looks a bit like a butterfly.