Working On A Few Things

I seem to have set my WIP's off to the side for a bit....there is one or two that I need to get finished but I'm finding that there are a few more things that hold more importance right now.  Like The Love Squared Project, there are some lovely ladies who have yarn businesses in Kentucky who started this project, asking that folks send in 7x9 squares.  They put the squares together and make afghans, once the afghans are finished they will be donating them to those who have been effected by the devistating tornado's that have recently hit Kentucky, Indiana, and Tennessee.  Recently I wrote about a gentleman from our town that took up donations and drove them to Indiana, I had sent a few things along with him including a crochet baby afghan and it left me with a feeling of wanting to do so much more.  But I'm only one person and knew that I'd never be able to make enough afghans.  I was so thrilled when I came across these ladies.  Below I am including information if anyone who reads this would like to donate to this wonderful cause.



Description
Not sure if you have heard or not, but A Tangled Yarn of Nicholasville, KY has teamed up with Sarabees Little Yarn Shop of Winchester, KY to knit blocks for afghans that will then be given to those who were affected by the tornados in Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee. The plan is to start with West Liberty and radiate the warmth from there:)


Can you help us?


We need squares/blocks that are 7” x 9” with properly woven in tails. If you are not sure about how to weave in the tails, leave a 6” length to the tail and we will be more than happy to do this for you:) Squares must be made from acrylic as it is machine washable and dry-able. 


PDF patterns for squares are available: Crochet . Knit


The squares/blocks can be brought in or mailed to: 


A Tangled Yarn 
605 N Main St 
Nicholasville, KY 40356


or 


Sarabee's Little Yarn Shop
74 S. Main Street
Winchester, KY 40391


Don’t know how to knit or crochet? Why not donate a ball of yarn for someone to make one for you.


We will be posting updates and pictures here as we progress and receive squares;)
https://www.facebook.com/squaredblocks?ref=ts


Recently in our little town a close friend of ours lost his sister in a house fire.  Not only did siblings lose a sister a mother lost her daughter and children lost their mother.  It breaks my heart that this family is going through all of this.  My husband has been inspired to get together a charity car show/ donation drive to help ease the burden of costs that the family is now going through.  He's planning on doing the event in June, so I'm trying to gather ideas on what I can do.  I'm planning on making two afghans to raffle off and maybe a few smaller things.  


This past week i've worked on making a few cotton dish cloths for around the house.  Handmade cotton dish cloths have to be the best thing ever.  Not only do that last forever but they do a way better job than the store bought dish cloths.

I also received my package from amazon.  I have been seeing a lot of Bavarian stitch afghans being made and I love love love the stitch so I ordered a book along with some Susan Bates glow in the dark hooks.  I've never used plastic hooks so it's going to be something new for me.  I'm crossing my fingers that I like them, i've yet to get them out and give them a try.

Our little one has made it almost impossible lately to actually sit down and designate one full day to crochet.  I'm now crocheting on the fly...lol.  A stitch here a stitch there while getting him off the stairs, furniture, and such.  He's become an outdoors baby as well so we've been spending most of our time outside when the sun is shinning and it's warm.


That pretty much sums up the past week for me.  I hope everyone has a good weekend and Happy Crocheting.  

Mermaid Tears Purse #2

 I finished my 2nd Mermaid Tears Purse, we'll almost, I still have to put a lining in it.  But it turned out pretty good.  I just did this one just for fun and was planning on keeping it but my husband's aunt liked it so it will have a new home.

One things for sure it's colorful...lol.

Here is a close up of the flower.  

I used Caron Simply Soft yarn for this project.  I love the Simply soft yarn it's so easy to work with but I rain out of the multi-color and had to go get an extra roll and was rather disappointed.  I don't know why it was so different.  The colors we're darker and the yarn felt thinner.  Luckily it blended in well and I only had to use it for a couple rows.  It could also be because the first roll that I had was older, I bought it about a year ago to do a baby blanket for our little one.  It's hard to believe that it would change that much in a year.  I have about 3 to 4 more of these to make in a couple different colors, I can't wait to see how they turn out.

I hope everyone had a Happy Saturday....Happy Crocheting:)

Slacking this Week

Boy have I been slacking on my crochet this week.  We've had such beautiful weather that we've spent most of the week outside.  It's been so much fun because everything is new and exciting to our 1 year old.  It's amazing how much you take the same ol same ol for granted, this week I've gotten to look at things through fresh little eyes.  It's really funny how he loves going outside barefoot but he stays on the sidewalk not wanting to touch the grass with his feet.  He pulls it up with his hands and throws it at you but he absolutely doesn't want his feet to touch it.  He's learned new words this week too.  When the dogs are outside he tells them to "git"...lol, and if the ball rolls in the grass he says "git it".  It's so relaxing watching how care free they are exploring their little piece of the world.


While walking around on our back patio barefoot yesterday I got a shock, just as I started to step down I saw this out of the corner of my eye.

Yes I know it's no bigger than a night crawler, do I care? "NO!!"  It's still a snake and I hate snakes.  I don't care if it was harmless it's still a snake.  My older brother told me to stop acting like a big ol girl.  Well I am a girl, I screamed like a girl, and then I grabbed my camera....lol.


Today looks like it's going to be a gloomy day, dark with storm clouds lingering around.  Hopefully we'll get  a bit of outdoor play in before the storms roll in.  Then it's back to the crochet hooks so I can get a few things finished then I can concentrate on some projects that I want to do just for me.
Hope everyone has a good day....and Happy Crocheting:)

Spring Has Sprung!!

Today is the official first day of Spring, although we have been having Spring like temps for a couple weeks now.  Today will be in the 80's, not really such odd weather for Ohio.  Like they always say here in the good ol buckeye state, if you don't like the weather wait 5 minutes and it will change.   The kids will soon be on Spring break from school.  They get an extra long one this year. Lord knows they didn't have to use any of their calamity days for snow...lol.


I've started on another Mermaid Tears Purse, (yes this pattern is going to be a new addiction).  I'm doing this one in multi-color yarn just for fun.  I wanted to see what the different color yarn would look like in this stitch.  I see a baby afghan done in this stitch in the near future.

The kids say it looks like an Easter bag.  I'm going to have to see if I have some fabric and try to line this one.  When this is finished I really do need to get back to finishing up a couple afghans.  I'm so close to having my round ripple finished, I don't know why I don't just sit down and finish it.

A Little Bit of Life

Here are a few little bits and pieces of my life.  We had another beautiful day today, sun shining, birds chirping, well they we're until the cat got out.  Ahhhh yes my lovely little monster cat got out and snagged him a bird today.  Needless to say Mama wasn't a happy camper when he came slinking in the house with his prize.  I know he was just doing what cats do but it still doesn't make me happy.  He was shooed from the house until he got rid of it.

I really hate that he killed a bird, I really love having the bird feeder outside the living room window, it's so much fun watching the birds in the mornings, but it looks like i'm going to have to find another place to put it.  I somehow feel like I was an accessory to murder.


It won't be long now before the trees are full of leaves and we will no longer have a good view of the ponds from our backyard.  It's so hard living so close on a day like today.  It makes you want to grab a can of worms, a fishing pole and take off walking whistling the Andy Griffith tune.

I love this time of year because when we have evening thunderstorms I like to open up our big garage door, dig out a lawn chair, prop my feet up and just watch the lighting show.  

There we're some pretty bad storms in and around Columbus today, we got a few clouds and a few distant rumbles of thunders but the sun stayed strong and scared the storms away.


I hope everyone had a beautiful day as well and Happy Crocheting.

Mermaid Tears

I have really found a pattern that I fell in love with.  Bernat has a free pattern for a Mermaid Tears Purse done in the Crocodile stitch also known as the Tears stitch, Dragon Tears stitch and many other names.  No matter what it's called it's a beautiful stitch.
I finished up my very first Mermaid Tears Purse today.  Now my list is growing with people who want them.  But their gonna have to wait because I have a couple afghans that I desperately need to get finished.

Since my 12 year old daughter claimed this while it was in the making I decided to do a different kind of flower.  The one that came with the pattern just didn't seem to fit her personality.  She's excited that she has something to carry her touch screen tablet in.  Now maybe she'll hush about a sleeve for it....lol.

On a non crochet note, since putting out our bird feeder a couple months ago we've been getting  quite the selection of birds.  This beauty was sitting on our fence this morning waiting to have his/her picture taken.  Living so close to 3 ponds and woods is really nice.  We've seen a selection of wildlife the kids love watching the rabbits hop around the empty field behind out house.  Spring is definitely in the air here in Ohio.  Our grass in our backyard already needs mowed, how crazy is that.  But i'm loving every minute of it. 

Happy Dance Time

I'm doing a happy dance, the quilt'ghan is finally finished.  After a few headaches, a few curse words and threatening to throw it in the trash it's done.  I only used the pattern to figure out how to make the diamond shapes and the graph for placement.  The rest was all me...lol.  It's not perfect but I really don't like afghans that have big gaps in them and if I would have followed the patter exactly that is what would have happened.  So I made sure I made notes on what worked, what I could change and what wouldn't work, so "IF" I ever make another one i'll know what to do.

I have quilt'ghan #2 planned using a totally different pattern, but I have a couple other requested projects to finish first.
Until next time Happy Crocheting:)

Changing it up

I started putting the finishing on my quilt'ghan and decided after stretching it out on the floor I just didn't like the way it looked.  I've already altered the pattern to work for me so I figured why not change what I didn't like.  It's a little crazy on my part since i'm so close to being finished but I want it to look right and I just didn't like the way it was turning out.

I've gotten way farther than what it shows in the picture.  But changing things at the last minute has set me back a bit, and the baby has been a bit fussy the past couple days and wanting mommy.  The kids always come first.  The flu bug hit over the weekend and the older kids we're all sick so i'm hoping the baby isn't coming down with it.

I celebrated my 38th birthday on Saturday and little Matthew really enjoyed mommy's ice cream cake...lol  Gonna hate my kids growing up and flying the coup, it's so much fun to celebrate birthday's with all of them around.  We made homemade pizza and enjoyed ourselves.

Help for Henryville

Our daughter's surgery went just fine yesterday and she is home recuperating (let the healing begin).  
We made it home in time yesterday to help donate to the Henryville, Indiana disaster.  We had a couple food boxes ready and hubby took them down to donate, which inspired our two youngest to come home and go through their clothes and stuffed animals and give as well.  It breaks my heart to think about so many people who lost homes, lives, and everything they own in the resent tornado outbreaks.  I gathered together baby clothes that our little one had out grown and while digging through the closet I came across a baby afghan that I had crocheted last year.  I had folded it up and put it away because all of our children have a handmade afghan.  I grabbed it up and stuck it in the box with the baby items.  I hope it brings much comfort and warmth to whomever receives it.  I guess the whole reason i'm writing about this is, it has inspired me to sit down once a month and crochet a baby afghan and set it aside for when something like this happens.  
My hubby talked to the gentleman who started the donations for Henryville and found out he lives right down the street from us.  He's already been to the disaster area and he felt compelled to do something to help, the stories he shared with my husband would break your heart, he's making a return trip to this area taking all of the donations with him and hanging around for the weekend to help clean up, cook a meal or whatever they need from him.  He made a really good point yesterday, he said all you hear all the time is the bad stuff that always happens but when a disaster like this happens your always surprised how people come together.  I love it.  And god bless him for doing what he's doing and to all those affected by the tornadoes you will be in my thoughts and prayers.  Much love to all of you.

Surgery

My 17 year old daughter is having outpatient surgery tomorrow.  They say it's minor surgery but when it's one of your babies there is nothing minor about it.  We have to be at the hospital at 6am which means we have to be up and motivated by 3am (whew).  I'm spending the day getting the other kids ready for grandma in the morning.  Our youngest who is 1 doesn't normally stay with people so it's going to be interesting how he reacts to being with grandma all day.  I'm making sure I pack a crochet tote for that long waiting room wait, if not i'll be wearing a hole in their carpet pacing back and forth, so hopefully tomorrow i'll have all my 108 little flowers finished for my Daisy afghan.  I did learn a lesson from the last Daisy afghan that I made, tuck strings as I go...lol.

Yesterdays Loot!!

My daughter had a doctors appointment yesterday so we left early enough for me to stop at the Hobby Lobby for more of my quit'ghan yarn and Joann's for some Caron one pounders while they we're on sale.

I picked up some additional yarn and some new hooks too.  I've never tried the Susan Bates hooks.  I like them so much better than the ones  I had, the hook well is a bit deeper on these and helps keep the yarn from sliding off.
I'm having fun finishing up the quilt'ghan and then it's on to the next.  I hope everyone enjoys their weekend and Happy Crocheting.  Saying a little prayer to all of those effected by the recent Tornado outbreaks.