The Frontier Shawl Collaboration with Furls Crochet

I am so excited to share that I have done another CAL with Furls Crochet! If you aren’t familiar with CAL’s, CAL is just a fancy abbreviated way of saying Crochet Along, in which a free pattern, rather than being posted in its entirety, has a section posted each week (for any number of weeks) and people can follow along with the pattern as it progresses. Cute right?

This time I created The Frontier Shawl, a simple and fun filet crochet project! I had never done filet crochet before this, but it is SO much fun and there is so much you can do with! I certainly can’t wait to do more projects with it!

The Elizabeth Shawl Crochet Pattern

Spring is finally here!!! Which means that I can finally start designing some lacy and breezy garments once more! I was having designers block for a few months, but i’m finally at the point where I am feeling inspired and motivated again!

Now i’m normally not one to make a Shawl, however, I have been watching a LOT of When Calls The Heart and they have the prettiest shawls (and clothing in general) and i finally was inspired to make one!

A Dream Is a Wish Your Hat Makes Beanie Crochet Pattern

Although I wasn’t expecting to make a Valentine’s Day design this year, I am super excited to share the pattern for the A Dream Is a Wish Your Hat Makes Beanie! (Get it??)

The Toasted Marshmallow Poncho Crochet Pattern

Like many people, I absolutely love everything about Fall. However, the one thing that I don’t love is that, every year, sometime around the transition from Summer to Fall, I tend to get a little unmotivated and uninspired. In a lot of ways I think it makes sense, the “excitement” of summer starts to dwindle and the sun goes down earlier, my surroundings change, so my mood usually changes with it.

Since this is the first year that I have been creating my own designs, the hardest part about the season transition was that my designs had to transition with it, which threw me into a complete whirlwind. I had gotten so used to designing lacy tops and skirts, that when I realized that I had to shift mindsets and start working on sweaters and other warm garments, I just didn’t know what to do. My mind went completely blank on how to make my design style work with thicker yarns and heavier garments, long story short, it has not been a fun time.

If there is anything that I have learned about myself over the past few years it is that I pretty much need a creative outlet at all times to stay truly happy. With this being said, I kinda of disappeared for a little bit in order to give myself a little bit of a break, but I have been trying to push through it, so I’m finally back with a new cozy pattern to share! The Toasted Marshmallow Poncho!

Fall Favorites

As fiber artists I think we are pretty much required to love Fall. Don’t get me wrong, I really love making lacy summer garments, but there will always be a special place in my heart for chunky sweaters and fluffy blankets. Personally, I think I love fall because it brings back a lot of fond memories from when I was a kid and somehow makes me feel more comfortable and secure than other seasons.

It is also the time of year when all the best holidays start to roll around, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas are by far my favorite holidays of the entire year. So with all of that being said, I am super excited for Fall to start! I’m still brewing up design ideas and trying to make my brain make the transition to come up with warm patterns rather than ones that help you not melt during the summer.

Ocean Breeze Desk Mat Crochet Pattern

I have come to the realization that I never let myself do any “simple” projects. In my mind, creating things that aren’t elaborate feels like a waste of time, which of course isn’t true. I stress myself out a lot over projects not being “good enough” or “unique enough”, when the truth is what I really shouldn’t wast my time on, is worrying about things not being perfect all of the time. It is an idea that I am trying to get used to, so I really want to  let myself feel more comfortable writing more simple patterns that don’t take weeks to design and are just easy, fun, and cute. So the first pattern that I came up with on this new journey is The Ocean Breeze Desk Mat!

The Lemon Drop Apron Crochet Pattern

As you may or may not know, my day job is being an assistant manager at an Italian Restaurant, which is interesting for a lot of reasons, but also not what I want to do for the rest of my life for a lot of reasons. By the end of this post, the fact that I work in a restaurant will be relevant to the pattern, but for now my actual intention of bringing it up is not so direct. Working in a restaurant, you are very aware of annual events. For example, you learn not to work on Mothers Day because it will be the most crowded and dramatic day of the year, and you learn not to work Super Bowl Sunday because there will not be a single person in the restaurant, but you will have a bunch of guys ordering large quantities on pizza and only tip depending on how their team is doing. Moving this along to the point haha, we are currently in Graduation season which has led me to be wildly aware of the fact that I graduated high school a whopping 7 years ago. SEVEN YEARS. SO much has changed in the past seven years, my life is almost completely different than it was 7 years ago, and one thing that is incredibly different is my fashion sense. Things have a come a long way from have absolutely zero interest/competence where fashion in involved. I think by the last few months of senior year I was finally considering wearing dresses without jeans underneath, but I had not yet accomplished this. Once I started college I started taking it more seriously and I’m not going to even try to lie, it was partially because I was taking trying to get a boyfriend more seriously haha. Fast forward 3 years, I finally accomplished finding a boyfriend and suddenly I realized that what I chose to wear felt like it was now just for me and not to impress anyone. This shift in mentality really changed the whole idea of fashion for me, which is probably what lead to this entire crochet clothing adventure.

Waistcoat Cowl and Beanie Set Crochet Pattern

As someone who primarily crochets, I don’t think I am alone when I say that I am always jealous of people who can knit. I have tried serval times to learn and while I got fairly decent at purl stitch, trying to learn anything else just completely went over my head. I don’t know if it is just me, but I think knitting is so much harder on my hands for some reason, they get tired and sore quickly and I just end up giving up. So, when I found out about the crochet waistcoat stitch I was so excited! It is a stitch that pretty sufficiently mimics a knit stitch, so you can get the knit look with crochet! Granted, it isn’t exactly the same, but it is good enough for me!