Crochet Rewind: Hats, Scarves & Blankets!

Remember how last year I shared the crocheted pouch for my external hard drive and mentioned that it would be my only crochet rewind?  Well, I have a little bit of a surprise for you!  I was thinking about how I have a definite lack of crafts on my blog, compared to the amount of recipes and food posts, so I wanted to share this all with you today!

I started crocheting my freshman year of college and thought it was really fun!  I have given it up in favor of sewing recently, only because I have more than enough warm items to wear, as you can see below, and I do live in California!  However, I realized after meeting Kate of Small & Great, there are so many other items to crochet and I am inspired to take it up again soon!

By the way, these are items that I had on hand to photograph, and you might have seen a couple of these in my Closet Clean-Out post already.  Let's take a peek!

Beanies

I actually have two of these identically ones because I had enough yarn in the skein to make a couple.  Although I only have two here, I actually once made about 80 of them one holiday season for our entire student government staff!  It was ridiculous!

I use these whenever it gets cold inside the house to avoid turning on the heater.  :)

Beret

I decided to experiment with some extra green yarn and make a beret!  I also aded a little button flower, just for a bit of a cute factor.

Here is the underside.  Neat!

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Handmade Gift Feature & GIVEAWAY with Small and Great!

Today's feature is one of my favorites!  I looove everything that Kate makes for Small and Great.  At Patchwork, we chatted about how math comes in handy in coming up with crochet patterns, which I never knew!  I took my time photographing practically every piece, because they're just so darn cute!  In addition to her adorable crochet creations, she hand-dyes her yarn for hats and scarves.  Totally multi-talented!

And lucky you, Kate is giving you the chance to win one of her cute creations.  I'm super jealous...  You will get the chance to choose your favorite prize, so scroll down to enter the giveaway!

Before that, you should definitely check out my interview with Kate, and not just because she's a wordy gal like me!  I love the inspiration for her shop name, as well as the story of how she started making these amigurumi.  Oh, and find out what amigurumi are!

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Tell me a little bit about yourself!

I've been doing arts and crafts my entire life. My father is an artist (oil painting, he's a graphic designer by trade), and my mother has always been a handmade enthusiast (mainly knitting, but when I was growing up she did a lot of quilting and now is into furniture reupholstery, rehabilitating her "roadside treasures"). So as a child I was always around plenty of art supplies. I liked drawing best, but I did everything from painting to pottery. I always took art classes in and outside of school, up through AP art in high school.

I started crocheting only after a long dormant period of creating. I had gone to college thinking I'd major in studio art, and wound up taking not even one class in it (getting a low score in AP art was a major setback for me, and I really regret that I took it so hard!). Instead, I majored in sociology with a focus in media studies. I went on to work as a magazine editor in New York City, and later moved to California to pursue a graduate degree in sociology. Near the end of my graduate career (I made it almost all the way to a PhD and coauthored an academic book along the way), my mom taught me the basic crochet stitches while I was on a trip home back east in spring of 2011. It had always bothered me that I had never gotten the hang of knitting -- my mom is a great knitter, and her mother, whom I was very close to, was an amazing knitter -- but crochet came miraculously easily. Before that weekend was out, I'd taught myself granny squares, and within weeks I'd made an afghan!

I found lots of inspiration and kindred spirits on Ravelry.com -- I had no idea so many people were into crochet, and that there were so many things you could do with it. My first amigurumi (Japanese for, more or less, soft knitted toy) was a very simple owl made for my husband, but after that, I took off. Between books and the internet, I taught myself all kinds of crochet techniques (Tunisian crochet, tapestry crochet, intarsia), and I soon started designing my own patterns for amigurumi.

Making amigurumi really turned a corner for me -- it reawakened this part of me that had been dormant for years. For the first time since high school, I find myself drawing all the time, and my patterns are born from these sketches. (I've also had to relearn some basic math and geometry that my high school self thought I'd never need to know later!) I was crocheting every day, and creating new things all the time, and pretty soon my friends' and families' homes (not to mention my apartment) were overflowing with the stuff.

When people I made things for would show my crochet to their friends (in particular, new moms -- I'm at the age where I make a lot of people baby gifts), they'd inevitably ask, "Is she on Etsy?" I only had a fuzzy awareness of Etsy at the time. But by last winter, disillusioned with academia and starting a new 9-to-5 job (I work for an internet startup), I started looking into it more seriously. I bought every book I could find on starting a handmade business, and on Groundhog Day (see, more animals!) Small and Great Crochet was born. It's funny, because it often feels to me that this is the last thing I would have wound up doing, but people who've known me the longest always say it absolutely makes sense.

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Patchwork Show Wrap-Up & "25 Days of Handmade Gifts" Series!

Last week, I posted about how excited I was to attend the Patchwork Show in Long Beach!  I gave you guys a little preview and had the chance to ask Nicole & Delilah (the awesome founders/organizers of Patchwork) a few questions too.

Today, I'll share as much of the show as I had the chance to photograph.  It was really huge this year!  I had a chance to speak with a bunch of really talented and creative folks and peruse their wonderful handmade goods.  In fact, it was so amazing that I have more than enough folks to cover my next series just in time for the holidays...

25 Days of Handmade Gifts!

For all of the details on the amazing shops involved, interviews with the creators, and giveaways, read on.  But first, on with the (Patchwork) Show!

First of all, can I make you guys jealous?  The walk up to the festival is along the beach, which was only made better by the perfect weather we had!

About ready to enter the show, there were tons of people shopping and more than enough handmade goods to go around!

Located at different spots were all kinds of fun things.  I totally missed the kids DIY, but I'm sure I didn't meet the age requirement.  :)

Here's one of the music tents with an awesome band that had the crowd rocking out.

The ukulele group was so cute!

As for the food, I did a terrible job of documenting what I ate that day.  I had an Avocado Taco from the vegan Seabirds Truck and more tacos from Piaggio on Wheels!  It's the perfect street food.  :)  I was tempted to get a potato from Tornado Potato, but I had some shopping to do!

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Mini-Disclaimer Time: There were sooo many awesome vendors and it was impossible to visit all of the booths.  I made my way through almost the entire space and these are the ones that I handpicked to share with you.  They're not giving me anything in return for the features, I just really wanted to promote the handmade movement with some amazing shops where you can get a unique and creative gift.  Show them some love by visiting their stores and stay tuned for the "25 Days of Handmade Gifts" series for posts dedicated to my favorites plus some extras for y'all!

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Besides the food trucks along the side offering delicious treats, there were plenty of food artisans with delicious items for sale.  Lucky for me, there were samples of everything and I put together a few of my favorite items to share with you!


Want to give a deliciously perfect gift?

Pernicious Pickling Co:  Have you tried Sour Garlic pickles?  How about Pickled Cauliflower or Pickled Red Onion?  No?  You have to try them!  These guys had so many varieties of pickles to try that I was in heaven.  :)  *Feature & promo here!*

Peppered Up Foods: Griselda introduced me to Peppered Up Foods' entire line of sauces and seasonings.  These sauces, some of them straight from her grandmother, are so awesome that she uses them at her restaurant Sliced and Diced.  *Feature and giveaway here!*

P.O.P. Candy Co.: Maybe this is a little unfair, but I bought this candy at one of my first Patchwork Shows and have been buying it ever since.  I knew this was one of my features before I even arrived!  They have so many great flavors from Pecan to Rosemary Almond and even had two new ones this time: Hot Curry and Carrot Cake.  Yum!  *Feature and giveaway here!*

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Crochet Rewind!

You're probably thinking, where did the crochet rewind come from?  Isn't this a sewing rewind series?  Don't worry, this will be the one and only of its kind, because I don't crochet much anymore and nobody wants to see a bunch of boring scarves that I made back in college!

Well, as you know, I shared with you my technology woes, and found myself in need of a good old-fashioned computer back-up from scratch.  That meant digging out my trusty external hard drive and firing up Time Machine to back up all my data since last time in...  September 2011!  Eep!

Anyways, I decided to snap a few pictures during the hours that my computer was backing up to share this with you!

Well, what is it?

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