Working with alternative materials

I've already told you about my old t-shirt rug. This is how far I've gotten on that project:

 

Sadly, the project has reached a halt, because there is no flea markets in Oslo during the summer. And it is okay, really, because when it is this hot, you don't really need a rug anyways, do you? It feels really good under foot though, can't wait 'till it's done.

This is my second project of alternative materials:

A small basket made of silver copper thread (a bit contradictory, I know). The pattern is the traditional granny square, with "even" rounds to make it stand up. I know I told you how I had to learn to hold the hook differently when working on the rug. Well, this one was even harder to do. No technique I've ever seen used would do the trick. It was hard, having to constantly change grip, and even the hook took some damage; some of the paint got scraped off. But, hey, the result isn't to bad, is it? (I haven't finished it off yet, because I'm not entirely sure how to. And I've been to lazy to find out.)

Third and last  of my alternative materials projects is a grocery bag net. Made out of plastic grocery bags. I'm not done with it yet, though. I ran out of plastic bags, because I'm to environmentally friendly always bringing fabric shopping nets. But anyways. I got the inspiration to do this by combining this pattern, with a tutorial I saw about making plarn.(Plastic yarn) 

As you can see the original idea is to use VHS tape for the net. But I don't think I have the heart to destroy a video cassette. I didn't have one handy either. And what sweet irony to make the net out of what is to fill it later. I did use the idea of the hair elastic in the opening. I did learn that I should have cut the bags in narrower strips when using the kind of bags that I used, as they seem to be a bit thicker than in the example.

 I'll make it a little taller.

And now you've also seen how RED my sofa is. I'll edit the pictures if I ever use it as a backdrop again. It's almost painful to look at! :P

Earrings, again.

Now I can blog about my fathers birthday gift: potholders! I used a pattern that I think is copied from a book. (I borrowed it from a friend, so I'm not really sure.) I used a lot thicker yarn, so they came out a lot thicker than the original, but they are at least very isolating! As you can see they are made using two threads of two different colors. It starts up by the ring, working back and forth in the back loops only. Because I used thicker yarn and doubled it I used twice as much yarn as the pattern said. But I think they are lovely, and I'm most likely going to make a pair for my self in black and purple. Or maybe hot pink and black? We'll see.

Yesterday I felt a little better, so I decided to make some earrings of the yarn I bought last week. Using this pattern(It is basically the granny square.) I made a pair of each color.

I also took pictures of some of the other earrings I've made. The paw print earrings I've been talking about. And heart earrings from this pattern. As you can see they are meant to be a lot smaller, but I didn't have thin enough yarn. Yarn is expensive, so I tend to use what I've got. The black heart earrings are some of the first things I've made in a good while, where I've used cotton yarn in stead of wool. The paw prints I've also made in hot pink and gray. The pink I gave away to my mother and the gray is around here somewhere, I'm just not sure where. I also found a picture of some earrings similar to the first earrings I posted, just different colors, obviously. The green themed one I made for my mother, and the black and pink is mine.
Also yesterday, as I was so full of energy, I laid out all the crochet pattern books I have on the table and took a picture of them.

And I would like to point out that the pictures are horrible, huge and way off in just about any way possible in this post because I beat my mac asunder and in a last shot at saving it I formated it. It did in fact work, but I lost all of my applications, that included photoshop. After trying two of the free photoediting apps available I wanted to kill my self, and therefore I will not edit any pictures until I get my photoshop back.