Do It Yourself

While possibly misconstrued as sass, this phrase resonates in me as something I desperately want to apply to my own life.  I'm a huge fan of up-cycling, refurbishing, making something awesome out of whatever's on hand, or building something you need yourself.  All I lack is the opportunity.

I read these blogs and see these websites about people who do amazing things with seemingly simple tools, and I think... I could do that!  There's just really no room or need in my life at the moment.  I can't tell you how much I want kids so I can create things (items of clothing, amigurumi, chalkboard-painted walls, toys, etc) for them and join in their fun.

I want to learn how to fix stuff in my home, how to wield power tools for the greater good.  I'd love to have a garden for herbs and veggies, as well as some fruit trees.  It would be incredible to go outside and gather my own eggs, honey, and milk.  And I can't gush enough about something I find incredible and am starting to work for-- a zero-waste home.

Something I adore about Perry is that he shares this dream with me- a sustainable lifestyle.  But right now, that's not really in the cards.  We're barely starting out.  He's still in school, and we live in the middle of Houston in a rented house.  A tiny rented house, with no room for any crafty ideas that might fling themselves at me.  I have to shove them into a folder for the future.  And while I could knit or crochet to my heart's content, this is HOUSTON for cripes' sake.  Hot and humid with little to no need for thick, warm scarves or hats or gloves or sweaters... You get the idea.

So I think I should find an outlet.  Make a hundred hats and donate them to cancer patients or the homeless shelter?  Stock up now on all the baby clothes I could ever want?  I'd love to make some money off of it, since yarn isn't free, but I'm a little afraid of trying something like that.  I'm worried there won't be a need, or that I wouldn't be able to keep up if there were.  Also, I would really like to be able to afford more quality yarns, which are pricier, but better for the environment (not to mention better quality).

I've discovered a new desire recently-- hand-spinning and hand-dyeing my own yarn.  I'm not going to get started on that topic here, but let's just say it would be very cool to be able to do that.  For the moment, I'm going to content myself with watching 101 Dalmations with Perry and an almost-new-mother Nora (seriously, hours away!).

Tunisian Crochet

So I was looking at a blog one day on making crocodile stitches for a hat and/or scarf (I have made both for 2 different people now, and they went over really well!).  While browsing the lady's other posts, I saw one mentioning Tunisian Crochet.  It was the first time I'd ever heard of it, and I was bumfuzzled.  I knew about knitting, and I knew about crochet.  Now, I am not naive enough to think those are the only 2 things you can do with yarn (weaving, anyone?), but I had certainly never heard of this kind of crossbreed knichet (my own word).  It's like knitting, but with a crochet hook.  You use a double-ended hook, or a hook with a stopper at the end to keep the yarn loops from sliding off.  There is even a specially-made set that can be used for regular or Tunisian crochet (made by Denise, available on amazon.com).  I really liked the look of the project made using this form (here's the post!), but with Christmas looming and gifts to make for 5 people in a month's time, exploring this new-found method took a back burner.
I finally decided last night to check around and see what I could sniff out about it.  I didn't go to sleep until 8:30 this morning.  I found a "starter collection" of Tunisian Crochet stitches on youtube.  Apparently there are well over 100 stitch types just for Tunisian crocheting.  Idk how many there are for regular crocheting (an awful lot!), but this is an entirely different ballpark.  There's the simple stitch, knit stitch, purl stitch, gobelin stitch (no, that's not supposed to be goblin, which was my first thought and made me chortle to myself... it's apparently French)... arrowhead stitch, honeycomb stitch, and so on.  You can even crochet using two different colors separately so that when you look at it from one side, it's primarily one color, but when you look at it from the other side, the second color is more prominent.
I'm really glad I finally decided to check it out, but now I am very anxious to get myself a set of those interchangeable hooks and go to town.  I'm trying really hard to wait until the end of the month because I'll be getting $20 in gift cards to amazon from SwagBucks.com (which I love!! free money!!).  The amazon price is $40, and I'll have saved up $30 in gift cards, so... $10 for this set is a REALLY good deal.
Anyway, I have tried my hand at a few of the stitches, and they look amazing.  It's really hard to do them with the hooks I have though, because the shaft widens in the middle, whereas ideally the entire hook is straight.  I even already have a first project in mind- a two-color tote (pattern courtesy of Lion Brand yarn).  Very eager and excited to try this out!