How to keep sweaty cold drinks in your bag

One of the great things about summer in Montreal is that people distribute free drinks on the street. I love getting freebies, even though I normally don't drink sweet drinks. One thing that bothers me about a cold drink, though, is that I never finish it at once, and I don't know what to do with the sweaty cold bottle. I can't just wipe it; it keeps sweating until it is no longer cold and I don't want get things in my bag (or my bag) wet. I usually end up holding it in my hand and that is rather annoying.

So I crocheted myself a cold bottle holder. 100% cotton to absorb the sweat. Now I can keep my hands free without getting my bag wet!

Mesh hat for a student

I like teaching. I have taught at universities before and after I left academia, I taught crocheting lessons so that I can continue teaching. Teaching a skill is a bit different from teaching ideas and concepts alone. It's a new challenge and I love it.

I advertise my crocheting classes on www.Skillbuddies.com, and that got me a student who asked me to show her how to crochet a hat. I was so thrilled. I hadn't taught a class in a couple of months and I had really missed the process. It was late spring, so no one else had shown much interest in craft activities.

It happened that she wasn't a real beginner and she was very dexterous. I showed her double crocheting stitches and how to increase, so that she could make a real hat. I was impressed to she her "get it" so quickly. Interestingly, she finds it rather difficult to adjust the pattern to get the right fit. Interesting because that is the part I find easiest - I struggle to stay with the pattern as I get imaginative while crocheting and start to modify it as I like. I suspect that it may be me that made the adjustment process harder for my student to understand - it is harder to teach something you do by feeling; I wasn't using any objective measurement (like counting stitches) to determine when I needed to adjust. Next time I crochet out of pattern, I should pay more attention to what I do so that I can teach better than the Let-your-inspiration-guide-you! step....

Anyway, a couple weeks after that class, she asked me if I could teach her how to make a mesh hat. I had never crocheted mesh patterns, so I consulted my Crocheting Bible book, got the mesh pattern, calculated the increase and voila! I had my mesh cap.
Well, teaching that wasn't so easy. Modifying a mesh pattern, from what I figured, involves changing the stitch numbers of every mesh; a single change has a global consequence. So making any adjustments involves a lot of planing ahead. I did a lot of calculation, and still had to adjust here and there as I went. When I was teaching this process to my student, I realized that it is a lot of brain work - possibly too much - for someone who is still learning the new stitches and the basis patters to pay attention to all the possible alternatives while crocheting. So I learned something: when I teach a new pattern/new stitch, I should use a fixed pattern that does not require on-the-go adjustments. It should make the learning process easier.

A hat with bobbles

"Experimental" is how I would describe my crochet style. I often crochet without consulting a pattern and just follow my intuitions. However, a lot of my intuitions are probably guided by the patterns I saw somewhere on the web. A lot of patterns I look at are listed in Crochet Pattern Central.

I like special stitches. They break the monotony of doing the same stitches all around. So I enjoyed making this hat, which has bobbles spread at every 10 stitches in every second row. I thought I was going to be clever so the bobble happens at the 10th stitch first round, then at the 5th, to spread them in an "interesting" way.

The result? I am not sure. It looks kind of bumpy.

Amigurumi

My grand mother had a big crocheted dragon in her living room. I never asked her how she made it. I just assumed that it would have taken a lot of time and skills. I now know that it would take a lot of time, as it was a big dragon, but it probably wouldn't be so difficult.

I tried a few amigurumi projects and I have mixed feelings about it - I like how it crochets up quickly, but I don't like the amount of materials and tools I need. See, I often crochet on the go, so more tools a project takes, more stuff I have to carry. I also haven't found the best weight to put at the bottom, so my crocheted birds would lie on their side. I was really not happy about it because I felt like I was surrounded by dead bird amigurumis. Then I saw this amigurumi elephant pattern (sorry, Lion Brands requires registration). It has four legs. That means stability, without the need for weight! It doesn't solve the too-many-materials problem, but I am much happier with the creation now. When I have time to crochet in one place, I might try to make one again.

BYOB bag - crochet

I am normally a bit hesitant about crocheting a bag. In order to make it heavy-duty (and I don't see how I can survive with non-heavy-duty bags), I would need to make a lining. I will try it one day, but so far, the prospect of crocheting a bag, making a lining, and putting them together overwhelms me.

A bag for just one bottle, though, doesn't have to be lined! I was a bit nervous the first time I used it, as I kept imagining the bag falling apart and the bottle of rum falling and breaking on the street and covering me in glass shards and rum.... Well, the bag survived and now I am more comfortable using it.

Multi-colored yarn is the best way to make a simple project look so much more complicated. This one is crocheted in non-continuous rounds. Once the body of the bag was long enough, I continued crocheting to make the handle and stitched up the end to complete it. Using double or treble stitches make this kind of project really quick!

I found this cotton yarn in Mouliné Fils De Qualité.

My favorite crochet project - hats

My mom taught me very basic crocheting stitches when I was a child. So I knew how to make chain, single and slip stitches. The problem then was, however, I didn't know about turing chains or increases/decreases. I tried to make squares and they all came out some sort of quadrilateral. I was puzzled, and then lost interest when I got a pile of quadrilateral pieces that I couldn't find any use for. I wasn't really experimental back then. So it was only when my friend (the same one that showed me how to knit - Goodness bless her!) showed me her crochet works that I appreciated the possibilities of crocheting. She also taught me doubles, half doubles, and the way to increase and decrease stitches. Sooo many possibilities opened all the sudden!

I think I made this hat in two evenings. I put a pom-pom on the side. I am very happy with this hat - I still wear it.