New Issue of Crochet! Magazine

No - I don't have it yet! BUT - the pictures of the projects are here: Crochet!.
And the very first picture is my project - a bandanna bag.


I started crocheting with bandannas because my husband and I had a bunch of them from our days of hiking and canoeing and kayaking and camping. I even had some bandannas with my son's name on them - I guess he took them to camp. I found all of these one day when I was cleaning out a cabinet full of old clothes. The bandannas were soft and worn; we didn't need them anymore, but I didn't want to give them away. Too much history involved with them. So - I washed them, and cut them into strips, and started crocheting. I had many different colors, and I crocheted with them randomly. I made a great big basket - of course, as with any stashbuster project that's worth it's salt, I had to buy more bandannas to finish it! :-)

The bandanna bag that's in Crochet! is a new design - worked in bandannas of one color. New bandannas. :-)
By the way, one word of warning - crocheting with bandannas can be VERY addicting.

Sugar'n Cream - good old friend

Every once in a while, I have to go back to visit some old friends. When I was in San Diego, this past January, I did just that. I saw an old friend of mine. We met when we were in grammar school - we took ballet classes together. We stayed friends and kept in touch throughout high school and college. Then - marriage. She moved to the west coast. I moved to the east coast. But, I looked her up some years ago when I was going to San Diego, and since then, whenever I'm there, we try to get together. When we do, it's as if we never were apart! It's so much fun.
So what does this have to do with crochet? Some yarns are like old friends! And every once in a while, I just have to visit them again. That's what I did yesterday and today. I'm working on a project, and I needed to use Chain Store yarns. I wanted something sturdy, substantial, and in my stash already. I thought about Sugar'n Cream, and decided that it would be the perfect yarn for what I wanted to do. So I went "stash shopping". I looked through my stash in the family room, in the storage room, and in my studio. And I found some. I wasn't sure which color would be best, so I picked out a couple of colors that I would have enough of in one dye lot to do my project. I also realized that I had a couple of the gigantic skeins of Sugar'n Cream that are sold as Confectionary Colors - 14 ounces, approximately 710 yards. Yep - that would be enough for my project, AND (and this is a BIG PLUS) there would be no ends to weave in - except at the beginning and the end. (You DO know that I hate to weave in ends, don't you?)
I picked out one color that I had of this yarn - it's called Pistachio - it's a muted green - and I started crocheting. And I didn't want to stop! I loved working with it. The yarn seemed softer than what I remembered. The color was gorgeous. The stitch pattern that I developed worked well - the stitches were well defined, and easy to work. The yarn didn't split. It didn't untwist. It didn't do any bad stuff. It did just what I wanted it to do! I fell in love all over again with Sugar'n Cream.
Check out this sample: