Cat Mad Crochet

Crochet ideas and inspiration for the independent crafter

  • Patterns from my old blog

    Patterns from my old blog

    Estimated reading time: 4 minutes For various reasons, I am taking my old blog down. It was a good place to learn about blogging and how I want to present myself to the world, but it’s time to let it go. However, I wanted to preserve the patterns I had…

  • Weekly update: The doom scrolling won

    Weekly update: The doom scrolling won

    Estimated reading time: 2 minutes And another week of chaos has passed. I don’t know how to keep myself from doom scrolling for hours. It’s eating into my crochet time, but I keep thinking I will find a magical answer to how the chaos in the United States ends if…

  • Review of Knit the Sky

    Review of Knit the Sky

    Estimated reading time: 3 minutes Lea Redmond’s Knit the Sky, as the title says, it’s not a crochet book. It isn’t a traditional knitting book, either. It’s a book of project ideas open to personal interpretation. You could take one of Redmond’s ideas and craft it in many mediums. It’s…

  • A Peek at Strange Material

    A Peek at Strange Material

    Estimate reading time: 3 minutes I pulled Leanne Prain’s Strange Material to share as an inspiration book this week. It’s a book about textiles and art and storytelling. Some of the artists presented are quite overt and use words and photographic images in their pieces to tell a story while…

  • Weekly project update: The shawl grows and a mess of little circles develops

    Weekly project update: The shawl grows and a mess of little circles develops

    Estimated reading time: 3 minutes I think I only have crazy busy weeks now. I keep waiting for a calm week that will allow me to feel like I not only got a bunch of work done but also make me feel like I caught up a bit. I need…

  • A Peek at Fairy Tale Fashion

    A Peek at Fairy Tale Fashion

    Estimated reading time: 5 minutes This week’s inspiration book is Fairy Tale Fashion by Colleen Hill. I think some people would refer to this as a coffee table book because it meets the definition by being large and well-illustrated. What people forget in classing such things, though, is that many…

  • Weekly project updates: Shawl repairs, shawl progress, and a new project

    Weekly project updates: Shawl repairs, shawl progress, and a new project

    Estimated reading time: 2 minutes This last week has been a very harried week full of hours-long calls to insurance companies trying to work out stupid things that should not have been issues and, more seriously, a car accident. Not mine but a family member. Everyone is fine, but the…

  • Crochet in the first three episodes of Season 2 of DS9

    Crochet in the first three episodes of Season 2 of DS9

    Estimated reading time: 4 minutes In my ongoing television and film search for crochet, I am happy to report that season two of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine has significantly more crochet than season one. There is so much more that I am not going to do the whole season…

  • A Peek at Creature

    A Peek at Creature

    Estimated reading time: 1 minute Some books stay on my shelves because they are calming and happy and make me feel like being a creative on my own path is a fine thing to be. Creature by Shaun Tan is that book for me. It’s a retrospective look at Tan’s…

  • Weekly project update: The Mushroom is finished!

    Weekly project update: The Mushroom is finished!

    Estimated reading time: 2 minutes I finished my take on Critter Stitch’s Little Mushroom Guy! I am so happy to be done. I think she, mine is a girl, looks pretty good. I hate all of my amigurumi, so that’s really saying something. That my Little Mushroom Gal turned out…