cross-stitch ghans

I finished two afghans made with the squares I think I posted a photo of a while back. These are going to relatives.

Over the past years I've concentrated my efforts on charity crocheting and many of my nieces and nephews were left out of the ghan loop, so I'm playing catch up. This year my "plan" is to work on ghans for those who don't have one (and want one) and to do some Doctor Who things just for fun. Of course I will continue to support charity efforts, just not to the exclusion of other things.

I've noted the colors used as I remember them. I don't have the labels any more so I can't be positive. I had a bit of the rose leftover, but the white and pink were pretty much used up. I ran out of red - two skeins makes 3 squares. I was unable to get more of the red. When I went to Michael's they had skeins marked "scarlet" but the color was clearly not red. It was more like their rust.

Vanna's Choice white, Red Heart pink, and I Love This Yarn rose

Vanna's Choice white, navy, scarlet, and colonial blue

Both afghans were with nine-round cross-stitch squares. The edging was worked in a continuous join-as-you-go using the cross-stitch. I found it to be a very good, sturdy join.

I hope the first projects of the new year are going well for you all.

Happy crocheting!
Sandie

stats for 2011

The end of the year has come and as is my habit I trotted over to Site 5 to see what happened at Crochet Cabana this year. I love statistics. :-)

Here are the general stats which I put at Crochet Cabana (on the bottom of the page) every year.

Here's what happened at the Cabana in 2011
Unique visitors   667,950
Number of visits  831,631
Pages  1,409,540
Hits  40,270,747
Bandwidth  295.13 GB

The top 25 countries to visit (in order of how many page visits) were
U.S.
Canada
Great Britain
Australia
India
Netherlands
Germany
Spain
Romania
France

European country
Philippines
Norway
Italy
Israel
Bulgaria
South Africa
Egypt
Malaysia
China

Sweden
Russian Federation
Turkey
New Zealand
Indonesia


I always wonder when I look at the stats - who were those people in Zimbabwe who looked at 2 pages. There were 61 hits on those 2 pages. Was it the same person visiting 61 times or 61 people visiting once? What pages did they find interesting? Curious.


The smallest number of hits was 14 and it was in Mauritania.

I was crawled thousands of times by spiders. Doesn't that just make your skin crawl. :-)

426 people spent more than an hour on the site at a time. I am blessed by each visit, no matter the duration, but wow. 

For the curious here's how it laid out.
0s-30s    72,003    82.9 %
30s-2mn    4,589    5.2 %
2mn-5mn    3,300    3.8 %
5mn-15mn    3,415    3.9 %
15mn-30mn    1,723    1.9 %
30mn-1h    1,357    1.5 %
1h+    426    0.4 %



Most people accessed the site through various versions of Windows, Mac or Linus operating systems, but there were a few people who use the Wii, Sony Playstation (didn't even know that was possible!), WebTV or their Blackberry. There were others that I am not familiar with too.


The top browsers used to access the site were
MS Internet Explorer   
    Firefox   
    Safari
    Google Chrome   
    Android browser
    Opera   
    Mozilla
    IPhone
    BlackBerry


I personally use Firefox.


Those using a search engine most often used Google, Yahoo, or Bing with the granny square topping the list of what you were looking for.


The  top pages visited were
http://crochetcabana.com/tutorials/granny_square.htm
http://crochetcabana.com/    (home page)
http://crochetcabana.com/specialty/tunisian.htm  
http://crochetcabana.com/tutorials/join-new-yarn.htm
http://crochetcabana.com/stitches/stitches-fpdc-bpdc.htm
http://crochetcabana.com/crochet.htm  
http://crochetcabana.com/tutorials/ripple.htm
http://crochetcabana.com/stitches/diag-box-st.htm
http://crochetcabana.com/stitches/index.htm  
http://crochetcabana.com/tutorials/index.htm  
http://crochetcabana.com/tutorials/joining_squares.htm


I clicked on a few of the links that had only one visit and some of them were pages I didn't even know existed - like a listing of all the images on the site. Who knew? LOL Someone obviously did since they accessed it.

There were a number of errors (the 404 thing you get when you hit a page that doesn't work). That makes me sad. I would love it if you receive that kind of error you would let me know so I can fix it.

Well, that's probably a lot more information than you wanted to know unless you're a statistics fanatic like me. LOL


Happy crocheting!
Sandie

Happy New Year

I just sent out a bunch of things yesterday, but did I remember to take photos? You guessed it. Nope. My house was rearranged to make room for the Christmas tree, then when I took the tree down everything was in a mess while furniture was returned to its original place. It never fails but that I miss a few ornaments and I end up finding them on the floor after everything has been packed away. LOL

In any case, I digress with all my excuses. I sent out some hats and a scarf and the fingerless gloves. I am also working on a pink and white afghan but not quite finished it. Then I have blue and white squares that need to be joined. I will have photos of those soon as they're done.

While waiting on my slow fingers and photos, I thought I'd share a few links with you.

Firstly, this morning I saw a video from Red Heart on sewing in tails which I thought was quite good. If this is something you struggle with, you might enjoy it. I know even though I've been crocheting for many, many years, I still worry that my tails will come out and the recipient will have a problem.

I also wanted to remind you that there are still states needing scarves over at Special Olympics. Louisiana needs quite a number and the deadline is not until March so plenty of time to work up a few for them if this cause touches you.

Yesterday I ran across this page of patterns which I thought you might enjoy. I particularly liked the way she did the ribbon. I must try that.

A visitor to my YouTube channel asked about making a slouchy hat. There are lots of ways to make such a hat. If you google you will see many pages as well as YT videos on the process, using different methods. I found this one at Crochet spot which seems pretty straight forward and simple. It follows the basic hat pattern I use in my video for the first rows. Then she works a few decrease rows to get the fit around the forehead. Nice pattern.

I think I already shared this, but I decided to buy it so I'm mentioning it again. It is a program to make crochet chart symbols. I haven't done much with it yet, but intend to attempt to add symbols to my patterns in future. The program is called Stitch Works and it is a download that you purchase.

I also ran across just this morning a video on the flat braid join. I don't know if this is the same join that Priscilla Hewitt originated, but it is called flat braid as hers is. I learn better with videos so I was happy to see it.


Lion Brand recently visited Vanna White (at her home I think) and did a series of brief video clips. I enjoyed "talking" with Vanna. Perhaps you would too. 

Isn't this a beautiful afghan? It is on my want-to-do list. :-)

If you are one of those who, like me, is always looking for coordinating yarns, you might like to have a look at Red Heart's list. Go to this page and click on Multicolor Coordinate list. It's a pdf file you can save to your computer or print out.

That's all for now. May you and your family have a safe and happy New Year!

Happy crocheting!
Sandie

making a hat video

I'm still working on the new project. What is taking so long is not the pattern design, but I am making a video to go along with the pattern. I hope it will be worth the wait.

Besides the new pattern, I have also been working on squares and hats.

I've made more of the pink 9-round squares and some blue ones as well. I am using my grey Inox  H hook to make these. The finished size is around 10 1/4 to 10 1/2".

I also made two hats while reworking the video on making a simple double crochet hat. One of the first videos I made was on working in the round, making a hat. The complaint is that I went too fast and in watching it now I agree. The problem was not in the making but in the editing. I am much better at making videos now, though I think I still have a long way to go. I hope this new video is better.

In any case, I made two hats. :-)

The first is the one I made while making the video. The second I made afterward to show a different way of completing the hat. The first uses front post double crochet and the second uses popcorn stitches. I can write up that pattern if there's a need for it.

And here is Part 1 of the video on making a simple hat. Enjoy!



Happy crocheting!
Sandie

hats and squares and scarves

Busy fingers and busy hooks. This week I made a few hats. I know these two look the same but they are not. One is a dark blue and the other is purple. :-) I have a small head as does my sweet model here. I think they would easily fit children or a small woman's head.

I also made a smaller variegated green hat.

I think that one would fit a younger child.

Besides the hats, I've been making squares. I started out envisioning 12" but after 9 rounds I couldn't envision it anymore and decided that was a great size! I have 3 finished and another begun. I also have a second partial skein in the same color to work more up. It's funny how as time goes I get impatient and want to be done with it even though I love this pattern, one of my favorites.

I am also still working on the pattern for the shop. I have completed a sample scarf using one of the edgings. The pattern will have many options and additional information. I always try to include as much as I can in a pattern that someone is kind enough to purchase.

I think that is all that's been completed this week. I've emptied out a bin to put my finished projects in until they're sent out. That will save me multiple trips to the post office.

Happy crocheting!
Sandie