25-26.9.12 Little Button Loafers #2 by Sylvia Schuchardt

There are some crocheters that I admire, like Sylvia Schuchardt (Silver designs / hook candy) who can make such pretty designs so perfectly crocheted!

To fit a 5.2”L on 2”W foot (Eshchar’s actual feet size), which is about the 6.5 American size, I used a doubled thread with a 4 mm hook following size 3 (9M) of the instructions and working IN THE ROUND (!). The notes from my last project were quiet helpful but not sufficient. 

This time as well, in order to make the shoe center well adjusted, I had to make some adaptations as follow: 

Round 3 - skip the 4 sc in the beginning of round and crochet 8 sc at the end. 

Round 4 - instead of 20 hdc at beginning of round, crochet 16 hdc and then 14 instead of 10 in the end of the round.

For the soles sl-st loop part, I used the 5 mm hook.

Each shoe took me about 2 to 2.5 hrs.

Other helpful notes, can be found here, such as the tip to crochet all the 4 soles at once.

22.9.12 Super Easy Cloche Hat by Tara Murray (Mamachee)

For the adult size of this beautiful cloche hat, I used a doubled thread of Malaga yarn, 8mm hook for Rnd 1-7, 10mm hook for Rnd 8 till the end. Rnd 15-17 was crocheted with Berroco comfort chunky doubled thread. Then I skipped to last Rnds with the smallest brim.

I am not happy with my main color choice. It makes me look pale. Will need to find a lucky new owner. Maybe my small sis.

12-20.9.12 Trim Brim Beanie by Amanda Tipton

 

Normally, one afternoon would be enough to make this adorable hat, but since I had 6 failure trials at least, it took much more. Not to say that even when I thought I had it right, the last rows were too tight for Eshchar’s head, so I had to unpick the brim and make it over with a 10mm hook instead of a 8mm hook. 

Thanks to the kind and speedy response of Amanda, I could overcome most of the troubles I had. 

My two main mistakes in the beginning were the gauge and hooks size which came out too small with the yarn I have used. I gradually used a bigger hook and doubled the thread, till I finally arrived to 8mm and 10mm size hooks! 

Another mistake is that in Row 3, there is apparently an error in the instructions, saying “in next ch2 space” (instead of “in the same ch2 space). This is why I didn’t get any increase for so many trials. 

Finally, with the yarn I used, for a 2-4Y size (maybe it is even 24M), I did as follow: 

8mm hook with 11 sts in rows 1-2. 

10mm hook with 22 sts in rows 4-8, 44 sts in row 9, 12sts in row 10 up to row 13. Then sl-st all the rest of the hat, excluding the brim.

23.6-14.9.12 Solomon Knot Earrings for Li-or Birthday

It's been long that I admire Maggie Meister's Solomon's Knot Bracelet. In her last book, Classical Elegance, she offers the instructions for the Solomon's Knot Pendant, on pp. 72-76.

Li-Or has already enjoyed paging Maggie's book. I asked her what she would like me to bead for her birthday present I wanted to give her and she said she would love the Solomon knot.

Obviously, I had in mind earrings and started beading following the pendant instructions.

While arrived to the first oval half, I just gave up. Too much time, too big, not able to accomplish timely. 

So I tried to make an oval with a different beading technique and it was still too big for an earring, especially that Li-or head is relatively small. So I moved on and draw on a paper the size that seems to me the most to fit and followed it to make the following earrings.
The project was on hold till came the Jewish new year and I was again motivated to accomplish this pair. I started all over again and ended up with this design after about 5 beading hrs. I may interpret it wrongly but when I gave it to Li-Or, I was a bit disappointed since it didn't seem to be an exciting present for her :-( Oh well...