Who Wants Sparkly Legs? I do! I do!

There are many secrets in the world.  My love of fancy stockings is not one of them.  Fishnets all summer, sweater tights all winter.  If they’re fun, fabulous and long enough to make it all the way up my legs, they’re mine.

If they’re fun, fabulous and too short for my legs, they probably belong to Munchkinhead.

When working on my purple sparkly gloves, I couldn’t help but think, “oh my gosh, I could make totally awesome fishnets like this!”  So I did.

Ok, they’re not quite totally awesome because when you’re holding them up next to each other, they look like two different sizes - A familiar problem – but Munchkinhead says you can’t tell when they’re on and she’s super picky about visual symmetry, so that’s good enough for me.

I began with a chain stitch about the length from my big toe to my pinky toe, the one that cries wah wah wah all the way home.  I did a single crochet stitch around the chain a couple times or three to make an oval, then did small lace loops of two or three chains linked back in for a round or two or three – you can see why these came out different sizes, no?  Then I moved into the 5 chain lace just like I used for the gloves.

When I got past the arch of the foot, I chained around the ankle, leaving a hole for the heel.  My thought was I’d fill it in like an afterthought heel in knitting.  Exactly how, I had no idea, and I’m not sure I can tell you know.  I sort of chained around and linked things until it was filled in with a cute little seam on the heel edge.

The whole leg is simply 5 chain lace all the way up.  I didn’t add any thing on the first stocking.  The second one was coming out a bit smaller, so at the top, I increased the chain lengths to six and then seven so my gigantic thighs will not be squished.  As I said, in the end, they came out close enough.  I’ve only warn them a couple times, but so far I’ve gotten lots of complements.

I love being sparkly!

yarn: Vanna’s Glamour by Lion Brand in Purple Topaz; listed for size 2; 96% acrylic and 4% metallic polyester

Crochet hook: little pocket sized thing one a key ring for picking up dropped knitting stiches

Purple Sparkly Gloves

Somehow, I’d wound up at JoAnn Fabrics with Munchkinhead and Mommy.  This always-dangerous event has been made more so by my now living with Munchkinhead and gaining access to her employee discount.

So, I’m tootling around the store, pretending I’m not going to buy anything, and then I see it, red discount tag enticing me, sparkly-ness calling out to me, “Pincess… Pincessss!  You can make something fabulous with me.”  Purple yarn with a strand of silver running through it, purple sparkly yarn on clearance plus with Munchkinhead’s discount… Into the basket, one, two, three, four, is that enough?  Shrug.  Munchkinhead, “what are you going to make with that?”  “I don’t know; something fabulous.”

Turns out, my answer should have been “somethings fabulous.”  My first fabulous item was a new pair of summer gloves.  Purple, sparkly, lace, summer gloves.  I crocheted them!

Mommy tried to teach me to crochet when I was a little girl.  I wound up with a lot of triangular Barbie blankets, always losing a stitch on each end.  But I had the chaining part down pat.  I’m not great at knitting lace patterns, so I thought I’d see what options there were for crocheting it instead.  I went on YouTube and found this fabulous video for crocheting a basic lace.  I watched it at least half a dozen times, got the basic lace pattern down and made some gloves.

I used what I remembered from knitting gloves to give me an idea of the basic structure and just sort of went at it.  They are not perfect, but they turned out pretty decent.  Had them both done in just a couple days.  The wrists were a bit loose, so I went through my button collection and found two similarly colored purple buttons.  They’re different sizes, but that just helps me keep straight which glove goes on which hand.  Perfectly princessly!

 

yarn: Vanna’s Glamour by Lion Brand in Purple Topaz; listed for size 2; 96% acrylic and 4% metallic polyester