Squares Update

Hello there.

Big thanks to Chelle, Julie, Jayme (your blog freeze my computer..??...hmm...) and Donna for the wonderful comments and suggestions on my squares. I really liked the idea of a possible wall hanging, but I wouldn't know where to start and I don't know if I'm really that creative. But it's sparked my interest enough that I'm dreaming up a future project. Everyone seemed to like the colors and thought that leaving them as is was a good idea, but I couldn't get my head wrapped around it. I know Donna thought that adding a neutral border would tone things down, but I thought they needed it a bit. Plus I really wanted these squares bigger so I'd get a decent sized ghan out of this. Adding more color seemed to me would make the finished product too busy and hard on the eyes. But that's probably just me. So here is what I finally came up with. This is three of the four flower color combinations I have. On the fourth color combination the flower petals are a split between the orange and pink...sort of a dark orange-red - but still bright like the other colors. Oh and I also finally got around to counting all the squares and I have 36 total. That should be more than enough for a good sized ghan. Maybe even leave a few extra for a pillow maybe... Ok - the pics...





(I know these look out of shape, but it's because I was using a throw pillow as the background. I wanted the dark color and that's all I could find. Oh - and they are sort of out of focus because I wasn't using the flash so the shutter was open longer and since I can't be perfectly still even for a few seconds...lol..the pics are slightly blurry.)

The mystery item is almost complete. All I have left is the sewing part. Wish me luck this weekend. This will be the first time I've ever put a zipper on a crocheted item. I hear it can be a bear to do. Look forward to seeing a picture on Tuesday of the finished item! :D:D I can't wait to show y'all. :D:D It's quite silly but something I just *had* to try.

That's all for now! I hope everyone has a great and safe holiday!

just some ramblings

awww...I thought this was sweet


You are Psalms.


Which book of the Bible are you?
brought to you by Quizilla


Other than playing around online, I've caught up on my exchange squares...well, all accept one...hehehe...

I've started working on the mystery item again. I want to finish it by this weekend. Also I pledged to donate a "crochet prize pack" to one of my groups this month so I'm going through and trying to find some nice stuff for that. I may do some dishcloths or coasters with the leftover yarn from MIL's gifts to toss in too.

Got sunburned at the spa this weekend...was just so happy to have a day of R&R that I didn't think to put any sunblock on. DH "forgot" to mail the cat pillows in time so all by rushing was kind of pointless...lol. Ummm...not much else accept that Monster Toddler Girl learned a new word. "Funny" said more like "fundy" LOL - she's too cute sometimes...

Later...

Need Input....

Ok - here is the yarn I bought to use with the flowers I found at the thrift store




And here are two squares I did last night.....




One - I want to make these squares bigger but no sure about the colors...should I go with something neutral to sort of "frame" the colors or should I keep the bright colors.

Two - Is the green to "open" of a pattern? I was really winging this, and I'm not sure I like the look.

Three - In the first picture you can see that I bought some purple. I was shooting for something with some contrast, but now I'm thinking it's too dark and may not use it.

UGH! This is driving me nuts...Ideas, thoughts, suggestions...all welcome and needed!!!

Oh and this is going to be for a girls room that is decorated with bright pinks, yellows, and oranges so that's why these colors are being used. I want the finished ghan to be bright and lively but not so busy and bright that it hurts your eyes to look at. I still can't help but think I should tone things down a bit with some neutral colors...hmmm.....

Ugh....my brain hurts.

MeeeOw!

TAAA DAAAA...my very first graphed cat pillows!



:D:D I'm quite pleased with how they turned out. (pssst...don't notice that they pull and bunch in various spots because the front and back squares didn't line up exactly all the way around) I had a graphed pattern for the cat square but the rest I sort of winged it. lol. I did opt to just sew the covers on to the store bought pillow instead of making a flap like a lovely reader suggested (for ease of washing). I'm banking on my sister in laws lack of children to keep the pillows moderately clean for awhile. LOL. If not then I figure the whole pillow can be tossed into the washer since I bought pillows that can we washed that way.

My other item of note is my first attempt at designing my own square. Now this is the first draft so keep that in mind. I'm half way through the second draft and I've already "fixed" a few things I didn't like with the first one. So bare with me a bit longer. In the mean time I thought I'd show you the preview.



On the home front, Moster Toddler Girl is currently Crazy Fussy MTG since I think she is coming down with something. I also have a Saturday date with a girlfriend to go to the day spa. (aaaahhhhhh - is that over due or what) I'm going to soak my cares away...for a few hours at least. Other than that just the usual - working like crazy and trying to find time to crochet.

Toodles...

Cat Pillows, new trick, & HMB

Hi Everyone...

I've been working like mad on the cat pillows for my SIL's b-day. I need to stop with the last minute gift ideas...lol...but on the flip side DH is being extra sweet cause I'm making something for his sister. The pillows are pretty easy, but time consuming. Everything is sc so it seems to take forever. I have one pillow completely finished and the other one about 75% done. I can't wait to move on from these...

On a funny note...I realized that I can crochet with my eyes closed...hehehe...Ok - so it was only sc's but I did it none the less. It started when I was crocheting while DH had the Laker game on. I was sooo into the game that I realized I was crocheting while looking at the TV and not at my hands. Then I decided to see if I could repeat the trick. So last night while crocheting I decided to give my tired eyes a rest and close them. I counted 6 stitches before I had to open my eyes to see if I did it right...hehehe...and taaa daaa...6 perfect little sc's all in a row. Now if I can manage to crochet in my sleep I'll be a happy woman! LOL!!!

I officially joined HMB vs just contributing to them occassionally. I was moved to join because I head of a comforghan they were making for Nick Berg's parents. I just *had* to contribute to that and decided that I wanted to be more involved in this group. I'm hoping to get in touch with the owner/moderators so I can have permission to create a button out of one of their graphics and post that here. I'll let you all know when it's up.

I'll post more pics when I get something finished...lol

Catch Up

Where to start....hmmm.... I feel like I'm going in a hundred driections with all the projects I've got going or want to start. In an attempt to get a "handle" on things I dug out some old projects this weekend so I could work on getting them done. A few months back I found some squares I made about 8 years ago. I originally thought I'd donate them to HMB but realized that 8 years ago I didn't know much about changing colors or weaving in ends. Sadly most of the squares had about an inch long tail that had just been "pulled through". There was no way I was going to donate squares that were likely to fall apart after their first washing. I've been debating on what to do with these things...in the end I decided to put them together, weave in the ends the best I could and just use the resulting blanket as a car seat cover. Monster Toddler Girl loves to have a blanket in the car and DH is always leaving our nice ones in there and they eventually get trashed. So I told him that this one was especially for the car, because I didn't care if it got trashed.



On the topic of my buying spree of late. DH dragged me kicking and screaming to another thrift store this weekend. Ok it was the same one we keep going to and I only murmured my objections. Seems that this thrift store is going out of business so they keep reducing their prices to get the stuff out the door. I bought a handfull of sweaters to unravel - I now have a stash of sweaters and a growing case of SAS - Sweater Acquision Syndrome - LOL!!!! I also found a bag of crocheted flowers. There's about a dozen of each of these colors:



I have no idea what I am going to do with them, but at 40 cents I couldn't pass it up. I'm debating on if I should put them together or use them in some other manner. I was half thinking that they would look cute as an embelishment sewn onto something, but drawing a blank as to what....anyone have any ideas for these...they are made with a bulky acrylic yarn. Some of the same colors, minus the black, came in the same bag, but not enough to assemble all of them, so I'd have to use a different yarn.

Other things I started this weekend was a Triangle Babushka. I wanted to use up some of the small balls of black and grey chenille from the sweater I unraveled last week. I have it about half done, but no pics. I will probably give it to my eldest daughter. She really likes the ones I made for her last Christmas.

The one last project that has my over filled brain reeling, is a pair of cat pillows for DH's sister. I found this afghan square pattern online and got this much done



On a good note I'm using up some of my stash...but I don't like how the grey looks running under the white in some spots. This is my first attemp at a "graphed" square so I might pull it all out and try again. Also I've never crocheted a pillow so I'm not really sure how it all works. Do you just crochet a solid back then stuff and stitch all the sides together? Or should I make some sort of flap so the pillow can be taken out and the cover washed? hmmm....maybe I'll post my question on CL. They always have such great answers....

Well, that's where I am - crazy with projects. Oh - and I'm finally getting this button thing worked out and put a few up. I have a whole list of more I'm going to do, but still working out the kinks.

Ok - off to do some reading....

Things I've Learned - Part 2

1 - not all sweaters are created equal
2 - toddler toys left in the bed are more lethal than spiders
3 - back ups are a good thing

Since I seem to be in a sweater ripping frenzy, I picked up two last night. The first one I put back down when I realized that the seems were all "bad" seems and two that the knit was actually quite small, so I would end up with more of a thread than a yarn. The second one I separated all the peices, arms, front back, neck ribbing, etc. Then when it went to get down to the actual unraveling process...I was stumped again. This sweater seems to have been made by cutting from a knit fabric because every time I tried to pull an end to unravel it, I would only get across one row then the yarn would be cut. So I hade about 5 sections of yarn of equal lengths before I realized the whole sweater was going to be like this. So I dumped the whole thing in the trash. I know, I know - it might have been salvagable, but I was to frustrated to care at that point. Ok - so lesson learned in what to look for when actually buying the sweaters at the thrift store.

On number two - I have a silver dollar sized bruise on my hip from rolling over onto a hard plastic toy in bed last night. Yes I bruise easily, but I also just managed to roll on to one of the few boney parts of my body. I'm sure if I had hit it with one of my many flabby areas I wouldn't be bruised. (I can hear y'all wondering about the complete mess my house must be for me not to notice a toy prior to getting in bed, but Moster Toddler Girl joined us in bed at some point durring the night and brought a friend.)

Number three is work related...I'm sooooo glad we back up everynight. Our accounting software has a "terminal error" so we are restoring from lastnight's back up. ~sigh~ And it happens on a Friday of course, when we are trying to wrap up the week so we can go home. Well, at least it didn't happen at the month end. {shudders}

On a strictly crochet note, I'm feeling like I'm in no man's land...sort of stranded in the middle of projects and don't seem to be making any progress on them. So I'm thinking that this weekend I will leave the sweaters alone and just crochet. I can here my WIP's calling out to me...."we miss you...come back...forget those sweaters...remember us.....Come back.... Come baaaaaack..."

Things I've Learned....

....in the last 24 hours.

1 - the first sweater you pick to unravel should not have a color change every 5 stitches and definitely shouldn't be made with yarn that has metalic thread running through it. (or whatever that tinsle looking stuff is called)

2 - no matter how many times you shake out your sheets, it's impossible to get a good nights sleep after you've seen a spider in your bed.

Last night I tackled the front of the sweater I was unraveling. Good Lord! All those color changes then some of the grey had that metalic thread that kept separating from the yarn and tangeling everything up. I even enlisted the help of Pre-Teen Daughter, but even with help it was an almost impossible task. Especially with Monster Toddler Girl climbing all over me and doing her best to tangle my yarn up even more so than it already was. At one point we enlisted Big Brother to distract Monster Toddler Girl so we could make some headway on the sweater. Eventually we just had to pack it all up. On a good note Moster Toddler Girl was a gem at helping clean up. She just loved crawling around picking up little black peices of thread off the carpet.

The spider thing...ugh...I was laying in bed watching TV and I see a spider drop from the ceiling and land at the foot of the bed. I jumped up so fast you would have thought someone had branded me. Despite all my efforts I never found the spider and spent my whole night itchin' and twichin' at every little feeling, real or imagined. UGH.

I finally got some crochet time in today. Feels like it's been forever. LOL. Between the sweater, my work schedule and my boss treating us to lunch I haven't done any crocheting for almost two whole days. Sad I know...I feel like I've been without my down time. You just don't realize how relaxing it is till you stop for a few days.

Next thing you know I'll be spinnin'.

Well, I've been browsing a bunch of the crochet blogs and you guys are killin' me. I was reading Yaricopia's blog and that led me back to Yarntomato's blog talking about unraveling sweaters for yarn. I was so inspired that I stopped at a thrift store on my way home from work and they had sweaters on sale for $1 each. I walked out with 8 Chenille and 2 wool blend sweaters. So last night instead of crocheting, I was cutting and unraveling a black sweater and dreaming of what I could make with this yarn. One thing I didn't do though was wet the yarn and weight-out the kinks. I just rolled it into a tight pull skein ball. I had a hard enough time with the unraveling and rolling parts with my 2 year old climbing all over me that I decided to skip that step. I read somewhere once though that you can wash a ball of yarn by sticking it in some nylons and knotting it on both sides of the ball, then tossing it in the washing machine. But this is just a vague memory and I don't know if you could throw it in the dryer or not...maybe depending on the yarn. Seems to me though the inside of the ball wouldn't get dry and might get moldy befor you used it. Maybe what I was reading was referring to skeins and not balls? hmmm....anyone out there see or read what I'm trying to recall?

Anyway - here are the pictures. First is the sweater before I started cutting. I think it was a plus size or man's sweater though, because it was quite big. Second is how far I got before "Monster Toddler Girl" needed all my attention and needed to be put to bed.



Also - I've started a project totally unrelated to any of my "goals". LOL - it was just so darned cute and interesting that I had to give it a try. I'm not going to name it just yet, but will show a pic when I get it done. I should be working on some exchange squares, but enjoying my little side track project so much, that I haven't been. But fear not my exchange partners. It's a quick project and I will fullfill my commitments on time. :D

That's all for now!

Misty Eyed and some pictures

I bought a magazine at a local used book store called Ideals about Mother's Day. I don't know if any of you have ever seen this magazine, but it's new to me and I'm really enjoying it. I've never been much of a poetry person, but some of the poems in this book are so wonderful. I've been misty eyed all day from reading them. Here's one I've really enjoyed:

God Gave To Me A Child
by James B. Singleton

God gave to me a child - and then I knew
The precious gift of life, the beating heart,
The little hand that clings in childest trust,
The shining eyes that are so much a part
Of every moment in a parent's day;
A language that no words could ever say.

God gave to me a child - and then I knew
The joy of love fulfilled, the quiet peace
Of home and fireside where, with strife denied,
The heart can calmly rest in love's release,
Can gain strength in knowing angels stand
Around little ones with guarding hand.

God gave to me a child - and then I knew
The parenthood of God, the eternal care
Of he who keeps the night watch and never sleeps,
Who, when his children need him, is always there.
I sought his kingdom for so long a while,
And then I found it in my little baby's smile.

~sniff, sniff~ what a sap I'm turning into with age. {SIGH}

OK - on to the pics I mentioned yesterday. Here are a couple of the completed kitchen set for my MIL. I'm not totally happy with the blues not matching up that well, but I don't have time to re-do it. Hopefully she'll be happy with the thought and effort put into it and not so much with how it looks. The first pic is of a hot pad at the top, then two pot holders, then two dishcloths. The second pic is of the three towels. Two with crocheted tops, and one in a towel ring holder. Fairly basic set and I'm pleased with everything but the the blues not matching as well as I was hoping.


Here's a pic of my other weekend project. Two of the three dresses I made for my two year old dd. I know...it's not crochet, but they turned out so cute I had to share. :D

'Nuther Busy Weekend

'Cept I didn't do a lot of crocheting. :P A good friend of mine got a new sewing machine so she came over to show it to me and we sat down and had us a sewing fest. I made three dresses for my youngest daughter who is two. The are fairly simple little things, but cute none the less. Sadly I don't have any pictures today, because I forgot to bring the cable that connects my camera to my computer with me. :( So pics will have to wait till tomorrow.

I did complete my MIL's Mother's Day gifts though so that was nice. I ended up with two washclothes, two pot holders, two towel toppers, one towel holder, and one hot pad. Not bad for one week, eh? I should be putting them in the mail tomorrow or Wednesday. Depends on if DH printed the pictures today or not.

I haven't worked on Jeremy's afghan for a few weeks. I'm in Los Angeles California and we are in the midst of a heat wave. The last thing I want is that heavy warm blanket on me. Other than my exchange squares, I'm sort of between projects now so last night I spent some time browsing some pattern booklets I picked up at a thrift store. I found a couple that have my interest so I might try them out just for fun. Of course there is a voice in the back of my head telling me I should get out my list of WIM's instead of starting something new and totally unrelated to my longer term goals. LOL. Gosh I have such a short term attention span when it comes to this stuff. I jump around like crazy. I guess it's just because I crochet for fun so my next project is usually decided based on how fun it looks. Like I know that I could use some potholders for my own kitchen and I have leftover cotton yarn from making stuff for my MIL - and it would just be common sense to make a few for me, but instead I'm eyeing something totally unrelated. LOL.

Ok - nuff - babbling. I'll get some pics up tomorrow.