Author: Rachele Carmona

Cottage Quilt: NEW Pattern

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See pattern in my Etsy Shop and on Ravelry Pattern includes: Motif and half-motif (flower hexagon) How to join hexagons using my method Striped corner Lace border Instructions to increase blanket size from 28×34″ to any dimensions I’ve always had a huge love for hexagons, but the Cottage Quilt pattern idea came about when three thought paths crossed each other in my mind.: 1) I started getting obsessed with making half-hexagon motifs. 2) Designing crochet blankets that resemble quilts was a big creative outlet for me. 3) The incredible @sewrayme (sewrayme.co.uk) Instagram feed made me fall in love with floral fabric paired with stripes. <3 So, this design was born! It took me about a year to finally put it all together and it went through a lot of back-to-the-drawing-board phases before I could really write the pattern. Now, all I want to do is add a striped corner on all my hex designs! This pattern will show you how to add a striped corner to any hexagon blanket if you make the “corner cutout” using …

California Dreaming: When the artist collaborates with her former self

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Fiber art is my passion. I have crocheted every day for years, but before I picked up the hook, I proudly wielded the knitting needles. In my second year of college, I became utterly inspired by Wendy Johnson of wendyknits.net to learn to knit. This was a time when young people still learned from books, so I mixed library visits with internet research to teach myself the craft. Dozens of cardigan sweaters, stripy socks, and several knitted blankets later, and somehow I made it through college to the other side. After college, life swept me up in its current, and I started a career, got married, and had a baby on the way within a year after graduation! But somewhere in the middle of all that craziness, I picked up a hook and discovered granny squares, baby booties, and scarves, and it was all over… I never, ever looked back to knitting, and that forward momentum left behind a serious amount of unfinished work in its wake. I didn’t have the time to go through …

Color and Your Mood

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Hello, crafter! Welcome to my color and mood post, inspired by the abundance of emerging crochet mood blankets. Enjoy this article full of color theory and the profound influence it has on our mood. Click here to sign up for my Creative Art Blanket Course! I discuss loads of color theory and how it relates to yarny endeavors. The Original Mood Predictor My interest in how color and mood are related began long ago when I put a quarter in a machine, turned the knob, and out popped the ring that would turn my finger green for weeks to come: the mood ring. So mysterious! So accurate! So… adjustable! Unfortunately, about the only thing the mood ring is good for is telling you if you’re hot or cold. A mood ring contains liquid crystals that change color depending on the temperature. Read more about your favorite 70s fad on wikipedia, at retroland.com, or buy a dozen for yourself and all your friends here! Color and Psychology Below, you can see my favorite online visual for colors and the …

No Fear: Fixing a Mistake

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How I performed surgery on a piece to fix a mistake. Crochet + Scissors = Faint. I see crochet and knit artists alike asking amongst themselves if it is better to leave an error be as if it were fate, or to frog back and fix it, for fear of being forever haunted by its presence. Sometimes you don’t have a choice. One time I was in such a hurry to experiment with a new border that I’d been wanting to try that I literally worked all of the perimeter motifs in a blanket just so I could jump ahead. BUT, I erroneously worked in two extra motifs on one of the sides, causing that side to be wider… I hacked it apart with scissors, natch. Here are the gruesome details in an excerpt from the original BabyLove Brand blog post in early 2013. * * * * * Cruising along – Everything is looking fabulous at this point but I started getting a serious itch to see how my squared edge and lace border would come …