Thursday, May 04, 2006

Suddenly, after a long silence...

... a sea star! I adore this little starfish amigurumi, made by me, with a crochet hook. Are you surprised by the sudden appearance of crochet here in the knitosphere? I sure am! This sea star is the first finished object of crochet in my Entire Life. The amigurumi craze has opened the door to another fiber art. Hurray?

So, uh, hi knit fans! Apparently I haven't had much to say lately, but the knitting continues. This past weekend, I was at the knitting retreat put on by Knitting Arts of Saratoga, CA. The spouse-o and I had a wonderful weekend. We birded our way south along Summit Road, Loma Prieta ridge, and Mt. Madonna on Friday. Saturday and Sunday, Knitting Arts took care of all the logistics of room & board & knitting classes. I worked on designing a sweater with a possibly insufficient amount of Koigu KPPPM at Saturday's design class with Jan & Maggie. Sunday I took a class from Jennifer on how to crochet amigurumi, or little stuffed dolls, which are very popular with the crochet crowd just now.

I think you can see from the photo that the sea star is made in a spiral of single crochet stitches. Jen gave us a glossary of crochet stitches and taught us how to read an amigurmi pattern book in Japanese, so we can now join the wave of crocheters snapping up these amigurumi books on eBay.

I had a great time at the retreat, even though none of my knit pals were along for the weekend. I met lots of nice knitters and crocheters and only bought $60 worth of yarn, which seemed very restrained.

Oh, and I showed everyone my latest eBay crafty kitsch purchase: Crocheted Wrought Iron. This is a 1954 leaflet featuring crocheted items designed to look & behave like wrought iron. Just imagine the trougle I could getinto t Check it out:
Wrought Iron Crochet

8 Comments:

Blogger Craft Kitten said...

Your seastar looks GREAT! Im so proud =)

May 04, 2006 9:24 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yay! It's so cute with all it's legs on. :) I might have to pester Craft Kitten to teach me that pattern in Tahoe this 4th of July.

May 04, 2006 10:43 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Your sea star is so cute! Oh! And welcome back to blogdom! :-)

your Swap Pal

May 04, 2006 8:05 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Nice sea star. I'm startled at the idea of crocheted wrought iron. What will be thought of next?! I'm assuming it was during the same crafty time as the macrame owls. Mom

May 05, 2006 10:41 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Very cute sea star! I'm jealous of your getting to that retreat - sounds lovely. We've been missing you at San Mateo Knitters!

May 05, 2006 10:43 AM  
Blogger spinnity said...

Oh, no. Crocheted wrought iron is MUCH earlier -- 1954! It's so hokey, you will not believe it. I absolutely adore it!

May 05, 2006 11:17 AM  
Blogger Abigail said...

That sea star is too cute for words!

May 05, 2006 9:13 PM  
Blogger Wiz Knitter said...

I completely love the starfish. I want to make one!

May 19, 2006 12:38 PM  

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