A NewThing I Made

Last weekend, in between coughs, sniffles and whines, I finished the sweater that I started about a year ago. I looked back through my non-searchable hand-written journal and couldn't find the exact date that I started, but I only write three sentences a day, so perhaps if it was the fourth most significant thing that happened that day. Some of you will remember that I bought a bunch of yarn at the Hillsborough Yarn Shop. I chose to use the Crystal Palace Panda Silk in "denim tones" for my first article of clothing (non-scarf, non-hat).

I have become quite enamored with the crochet designs of Doris Chan, who has written three books, Amazing Crochet Lace, Everyday Crochet, and, just released, Crochet Lace Innovations. She has a blog, also titled Everyday Crochet and she is on Ravelry.com, a social networking site for people who knit and crochet. I find Ravelry particularly useful, because you can see what challenges other people have faced while crocheting the same pattern you've chosen, see what alterations and what yarn substitutions they've made.

I chose to make the Anisette Vest from her first book, because I'd realized that I had absolutely nothing formal to wear. Doris Chan specializes in "exlpoded lace", designs that are larger interpretations of lace doilies and other finery. In addition, while the stitch pattern is way more complicated than anything else I'd ever attempted, the construction of the entire garment was an extremely simple vest.

In the top photo, you can see the fabric immediately after I'd fastened off and woven in the yarn ends. Crochet lace fabric needs to be blocked, or dampened and stretched, in order to actually make lace. This involves briefly soaking the fabric in lukewarm water, spilling the entire amount of water in the floor, draping the fabric over a towel, rolling up the towel, squeezing it as much as possible, and then pinning it to a foam blocking board in the dimensions specified by the pattern. Knitpicks has an excellent blocking video tutorial, which leaves out the spilling step, but otherwise is very instructive.


Here's a close-up view of the stitch pattern. It's pretty much single-crochet and chain stitches. Since I would go for months without working on it, the most challenging part was always just remembering where I'd left off. When I started using stitch markers every six rows, to indicate a pattern repetition, that helped tremendously.

Here I am actually wearing it. I probably won't have an occasion to wear it for years, but at least I'll be prepared.

Hillsborough Yarn Shop

Some of you may be aware that in the last six months I have, at times, been crocheting quite a bit. Since January, I've made a very long alpaca scarf, three baby hats (one of which only fit a stuffed rabbit) and half of a pretty purple sock that I have since decided should be an iPod holder or something.

A couple of weeks ago a friend and I decided to venture off into the wilds of Cary to Shuttles, Hooks and Needles, which is a yarn store that was highly recommended by my dental hygienist. Unfortunately, it was by no means wheelchair accessible, so we had to abort the mission. I'm still extremely glad she recommended it, because it was the excuse I had for going to Udupi!

I'm also kind of glad that it was inaccessible, because that meant that we headed off to the Hillsborough Yarn Shop sooner rather than later. The Hillsborough Yarn Shop is quite wonderful, indeed.


The owner, Anne, explains to all customers as they come in the door that it operates similarly to a shoe store. There are individual skeins of yarn in the front and you can request that she bring out the number of skeins that you would like (need) from the back. This enables her to offer a huge selection of yarns, all from natural fibers, in a relatively small space. There is one more room, in addition to the one that I've depicted in the photographs above. You can easily spend hours looking at and feeling of all of the gorgeous yarns. I did.

Of course I just looked. I have amazing willpower. I've never seen the green leather ottoman that the yarn is sitting on before in my life. I do have to say that if you fill up a frequent buyer's card on your first visit to a store, it definitely makes you feel welcome.

Hillsborough continues to be the hip-happening place to go to spend an afternoon. You can go to any number of places to eat, go to Matthew's Chocolates for dessert and then shop to your heart's content. Now, more than any other time in the almost 20 years that I've lived here, it's not just a place to stop for just one thing. Downtown Hillsborough, as a whole, is a destination.