red heart yarn – Bead Yarn & Spatula

Granny Square Tote Bag – Red Heart All In One Granny Square Yarn

Most crocheters / knitters would agree that the worst part of any project is weaving in the ends. If you are unfamiliar with what that means, it’s basically weaving the ends of the yarn into your finished project. This is especially the worst when you create something with multiple yarn colors, like granny squares!

So, I was excited when I saw that Red Heart created a yarn that would minimize ends with granny squares with their new Red Heart All in One Granny Square Yarn. The yarn also takes the guesswork out of selecting colors for the granny squares, although I wasn’t all that thrilled with the color selections. I did find one that I liked, I just had to get my eyes used to crocheting with black yarn. There is a funny saying that goes “If someone makes you something out of yarn, they like you. If they make it out of black yarn, they love you.” Not sure who said it, but there is a lot of truth in it. My mom used to crochet, and she would avoid dark colors (if possible) when working on a project. Working with darker colors requires ample lighting to reduce the strain on your eyes as you work so you don’t miss any stitches. Which can slow your progress down as well. For me personally I can crochet much quicker (and with less mistakes) when working with lighter colors.

Now, while most patterns for granny squares are the same with just a few tweaks here and there, I opted to follow the pattern that came with the yarn as opposed to the one I normally use just to be sure that my granny squares would work up “properly.” Well, right off the bat I realized that it wasn’t going to be as easy as it seemed. I was constantly frogging (ripping out the yarn) and adjusting my tension to get the colors to line up for the different rounds of the square. There was always a round or two that was off which meant I would have to start the round again. I decided to read the reviews for the yarn on their website to see if there were any tricks or suggestions and what I found was a bunch of negative reviews. I was determined though. Ultimately, I ended up with 15 granny squares that required a lot of patience!

So, what to do with the 15 squares? For a moment I thought of buying a few more skeins of the yarn to make a throw, but I quickly tossed that idea out. I really didn’t feel like working with the yarn again to make more granny squares after all the trouble it was to create the initial 15. I decided on a tote bag instead. I had recently finished another granny square tote bag so why not make another. One thing though, I was going to need more granny squares. I needed a total of 19 granny squares for the basic design I was thinking of. So, I ended up crocheting 7 granny squares in black yarn – straining my eyes once more.

As I mentioned this tote bag was my second granny square bag. After crocheting and stitching together the squares for the first one I decided to add a liner to the bag to give it more structure and to prevent it from stretching when carrying anything in it. This was a daunting task. While I own a sewing machine, I had no clue how to use it for the longest time. I tried once and it was a complete failure. So, to add the liner to the bag I did it completely by hand. Overall, it didn’t come out too bad, but it’s definitely not stitched into the bag completely straight.

Well, for this new bag I learned how to use my sewing machine. My local library had a “class” where you could bring in your machine and an instructor would show you how to use it. Woo-Hoo! Well, almost! My first attempt at stitching the liner into the new bag was a fail! I practiced with scraps of fabric but then when I got to working on the bag it just wasn’t working out. I sewed the liner in, but it was atrocious! Not one to give up though, I watched a few YouTube videos (which I probably should have done in the first place) to get some tips and decided to rip the liner out of the bag and try again. And my second attempt was much better. I did end up stitching the liner into the bag by hand, but it was much neater this time.

I also ended up making this cute pouch with 2 remaining squares. I even added a zipper to the top!

So, would I use this yarn again? Probably not to make granny squares that’s for sure. While the yarn does cut down on the amount of ends to weave in, I am not all that inspired by the color choices. And I find that lining the colors up for each round is too time consuming and requires me to crochet with a much looser tension than I am accustomed to which I didn’t like. I ended up the squares that were limp and loose.

Where are the Beads & Yarn?

While as of late most of posts have been about baking (i.e. the Spatula) I have been working on some yarn and bead projects and today I would like to share with you some of the yarn projects.

I recently completed three scarves…

A button-through cowl I made with Lion Brand Wool-Ease Thick & Quick yarn in Barley. This was a quick cowl to crochet thanks to the nature of the yarn (hence the name of the yarn) and the easy pattern working with double crochets. I believe I was done with this in less than three hours!

Next I completed another cowl using another Lion Brand yarn, their Landscapes yarn in Desert Spring. It’s a beautiful self-striping roving yarn that’s also great to work with. Well, it was great yarn to work with once I wound it up into a ball as opposed to pulling it out from the skein. I did that during my first go at making this scarf and the yarn began to fray which affected the outcome of the cowl. Thankfully I bought 2 skeins of the yarn – even though the pattern only required one – so I was able to start over with much better results. One other thing, the pattern called for the cowl to be knitted in the round but I opted to add a few extra stitches and just sewed the ends together.

And finally using Red Heart With Love yarn I crocheted a puff stitch scarf. I had a slight mishap while making this scarf. I knew that it was looking a little funny while working on it but it wasn’t until I finished and needed to add the border around the scarf that I knew for sure what I had done wrong. I didn’t end one of the rows on the right stitch so every few rows the last stitch was sticking out which prevented me from adding the border. So, I had to take the scarf apart and crochet it again. Thankfully it was a quick pattern to stitch up so I was done in no time and done correctly

And currently on my crochet needle is a toddler blanket for a friend’s daughter – I actually made a smaller version of this blanket last year as a baby gift for another friend. I’m about half-way done and just about to start working with another skein of Lion Brand’s Pound of Love yarn in Honey Bee. As with the button-through cowl, this blanket is just a series of double-crochets.

Two Ruffles And A Cowl

While at Jo-Ann’s a while back I came across one of Red Heart’s new ruffle yarns, the Boutique Filigree Yarn, which is quite similar to their Boutique Sashay Yarn I used to create ruffle scarves last year. The main difference between the two is that the Filigree yarn is described as a woven fabric strip while the Sashay yarn is flat out called a yarn. After working with both yarns I can honestly say that I prefer working with the Filigree yarn since I didn’t have to stretch it open to use it like I did with the Sashay yarn. What caught my eye about the yarn was a nice shade of purple – called Imperial – that I thought would be the perfect color for a scarf for a friend who would be celebrating a birthday soon.

Using the Halley’s Comet Scarf pattern – which was included on the inside of the yarn wrapper – I created this scarf in less than 2 hours.

I liked it so much – thankfully my friend like hers as well – that I went ahead and knitted one for myself in a shade of blue called Tealy.

And since I was on a roll with knitting I decided to knit up a cowl that I have been wanting to make for quite some time. To create it I followed a pattern that I came across on Ravelry called the Drop Stitch Cowl and used Lion Brand yarn’s Hometown USA in Little Rock Granite. I initially made the cowl following the directions of casting on 47 stitches but once I finished it it was too big so I decided to start over and casted on 33 stitches. While the final product is a tad bit snug to get over my head, I am hoping that it will stretch out over time.

Knitted Flower Headband

I’ve seen knitted headbands practically everywhere this season that I got inspired to make one.

While I do have a decent stash of leftover yarn from previous projects that would have sufficed for this small one, I ended up buying a new skein of yarn after coming across it on sale at my local Michaels store. I am partial to most shades of blue and this basic navy blue yarn from Loops & Threads Charisma caught my eye. The one downfall about this yarn is that it fuzzes a great deal so I doubt I’ll be using it again.

I opted to semi-follow the Seed Stitch Headband pattern from Lion Brand modifying it a bit to get my desired length and width. Using size 9 knitting needles I casted on 13 stitches (which gave me a width of 4 1/4 inches) and then simply followed a pattern of Slip 1, *P1, K1 (repeat from * to end of row) and continuing it for each row until I reached a length of 20 inches.

I decided I wanted to spruce up this basic headband so I crocheted a simple flower to attach to it. Once again I followed a Lion Brand Yarn pattern – the Six-Petal Flower Motif – using Red Heart yarn that I had leftover from my Easy Slouchy Beret Hat. This actually wasn’t my first yarn choice to make the flower. I wanted to incorporate a sparkle yarn with the navy blue yarn but unfortunately the navy yarn was just too thick to work with.

Now that I had all of my pieces it was time to put this headband together.

I first stitched the two ends of the headband together and then attached the flower and was quite pleased with the final product. I’m sure I’ll make a few more of these, if anything, just for fun.

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