Is it spring that’s giving me the attention span of a gnat? I’m not sure, but luckily, I’ve been finding projects to match. Rachel over at CraftZine posted a link yesterday to Kootoyoo’s blog-where Kirsty shows a very pretty granny square necklace made simply with embroidery thread. I kept thinking about it all day, how nice and simple it was; how I have lots of embroidery thread and how I have tiny steel hooks which I inherited from my grandmother and never use. Last night when it was way to late, I made one little square with some size 5 thread and hook.

It turned out about the size of Kirsty’s. I decided I wanted a smaller one, and dug up some size 8 thread I had bought when I thought I was going to teach myself needle tatting (I still will, someday). I used a size 8 steel hook and got a much smaller square which seemed more my size. In the dim light, the tiny stitches were a little hard on my eyes, but I think in daylight, that wouldn’t be a problem.

Here are the two squares together for scale:

Of course, I couldn’t get by with just using what was in my stash. I quickly realized that I needed some thinner and more interesting threads to play with. Today I went to The Net Loft and got 6 colors of hand-dyed Valdini Pearl Cotton Thread in size 8 and size 12, and I’m going to experiment a little with other motifs using Edie Eckman’s Beyond-the-Square Crochet Motifs book for inspiration.

I’m going to be travelling with Selma on Sunday to Tatitlek, a very tiny remote town up the coast from Cordova. They’re hosting a week of traditional arts and culture and they’ve opened it up to some students in the area. Selma was invited because she’s part of the Cordova native dance troop. I’m going as a chaperone. I’ll bring the thread projects with me because they’re small and portable. I’m looking foward to learning some new crafts while I’m there too.

Robyn alerted me to the fact that Detroit Public Television has episodes of Knit and Crochet Today streaming on their web site, including the episode where Drew Emborsky, The Crochet Dude, demonstrates how to crochet my toe-up sock design.

Drew does a great job of showing all the fun parts of sock-making. It was nice to see all of those darn step-outs I made put to use! And the pattern for the socks is still available for free from the Knit and Crochet Today web site.

Today I taught at The Net Loft but instead of working on a teddy varsity jacket like I intended, I felt compelled to create something valentiney. I’m giving myself the rest of the evening to work on it, and if I like the results, I may have a wee love-day gift for you all before the weekend is out.

Carol Ventura has a great post today about how she designed the Sunburst Bowl that’s in the current issue of Crochet Today (A must-have issue, by the way, that features top designers and great editors working within the strict constraints of using only one family of yarns–Red Heart–doing a fabulous job of creating home and fashion projects.) Carol is an amazing evangalist for tapestry crochet–she shares her immense knowledge with love and generosity and it shows. More and more people are trying out the technique as evidenced by the lively ravelry group on the subject.

I think that our house is kicking us out. Our phone has been intermittently going on the fritz, every time it rains, as a matter of fact. And last week our furnace broke. Someone came to fix it, but a few days later, it broke again. Oh, and all the rain we’ve been having flooded the basement (i.e. my studio), so rugs are piled on top of boxes and things that I had to move to allow the carpet to dry. Argh. We do have to be here at least another 6 weeks until the movers come, so the house and I are going to have to reach some sort of détante. Maybe a little feng shui is in order.

Meanwhile, I have a new hat design in the works… here’s a quick snapshot. I hope to be doing a photoshoot of this and a few other new projects this week that we’ll be debuting at TNNA in June. The yarn is a sock yarn from Pagewood Farm. It’s a hand-dye on a lovely sock base that is great to work with–this is part of a trio of knitting patterns I’m doing with Pagewood Farm that will include a scarf and a purse.

This weekend we had a break from many, many days of torrential rain on Saturday, and we took advantage of it by going to see the US Women’s soccer team beat Canada at RFK stadium in DC. We had front-row seats, and the kids really got to see the action. A few of the players were moms and their kids got to run out to the field and bring them flowers for mother’s day. Afterwards, some of the players came and signed autographs.

One of them, Kate Sobrero, who was carrying her son, Keegan, tossed Jay one of her signed Jerseys!

Of course, he had to put it on, right away.

If you’re a Heroes fan, you’ll appreciate this adorable Mohinder amigurumi doll created by Violet Anchovy. I love the sideburns.

She based it on Kim Werker’s Amigurumi Dude pattern at CrochetMe. Oh, and she’s made a Sylar one too!