Headband

I got this pattern off of my SiL's blog Maebelle Creations and Musings.  She designed it herself, and so I thought I'd give it a try.  It turned out perfectly.  The Flower is my own design... But based off flowers I found on Teresa's site Art of Crochet for inspiration. 

Thanks for sharing your pattern with me!  Great work on making your own and writing a pattern  :)

An Awesome Book and Some Oldies

So, as some of you may know if you read other blog posts, I learned to crochet from my Gramma when I was 9 years old.  She taught me how with thread, and I started out reading diagram patterns of doilies.  Usually just coaster size doilies, and as a 9 yr old I usually could finish one in an afternoon after school. 

The other day, my mom gave me one of my Gramma's old books.  Flipping through the pages, I found several things I recognized as her works.  I also found some neat things I want to try.  I haven't crocheted with thread (aside from that awesome gnome) for about 10 years. 

So here's the cover of the book, and the title page, and a couple pages from it.  If you can't make it out in the picture, it's called "The Complete Book of Crochet."  The ladies purse is one I wanna try, or maybe another one in there like it.  And the ruffly doily is one that my Gramma had made.

Here's a few more pages out of the book.  A bedspread, a hat, some gloves and a head-band.  Can you imagine making an entire bedspread from THREAD? jeeze.  Prolly size 30 or 40, but still...

This is one of the things I have that my Gramma made.  It's a peice of fabric, embroidered.  Variegated thread of oranges and yellows.

 And then an edging she put around it, crocheted.

This one is a cute little doily.

She used some lightly colored

baby yarn tied to the design for

a mane and tail.  Super Cute!

I love it.

I want to put it in a shadow box one day.

This is a doily I made on the left, and one she made on the right.  Size 30 thread for each I believe.

So the story behind these 2 doilies:  I made the left one from a "Magic Crochet" magazine my Gramma had.  She had a subscription, and she kept every issue.  So I would browse her magazines for patterns, pick one, work the project and return her magazine.  We always looked through the magazines together.  Laughing at how rediculous some of the patterns were.... There was one pattern writer "Glendola Hodges" that my Gramma and I always laughed at how absurd her patterns were.... They were sorry excuses for doilies, always just huge gaping holes... like big enough you could put a fist through them sometimes... and not ever pretty.  We would see a picture of a pattern and say "that must be Glendola!"  read the fine print, and sure enough it was.  After she died, we went through her things and we found the white doily on the right.  She had made the same doily I had.  We never found any of the old magazines, so we couldn't find any info about how long ago she would have made the doily, I just know it was some time before I made mine.  I think about my Gramma every day, I miss her so much.  She was such a neat lady.  I am so glad she taught me to crochet (and knit too, but crocheting is WAAAAY better)  when I was little girl. 

One Third of Christmas Gifts

I made a ton of projects over the holiday period, First off, a Scarf/Hat set I made for a good friend of mine. Come to think of it, I think I liked how this set turned out so much, that I think I made another similar set.

Then after I had a few projects done, I laid them all out on the coffee table...

I made mostly hats and scarves, and some of the projects I did I've already shared.  But there was another couple table-loads of scarves/hats that aren't even pictured anywhere.  :)  I was knocking out 3-4 projects some nights, crazy times.

Valentines Cards

This year, I wanted to make some valentines with the kids.  But since one is only 2.25 and the other 9 months old... I didn't have a lot of options to get them involved.

So, I had my son (the older) color on a sheet of paper with purple, red, pink, and magenta.  He pretty much just scribbles.  But with direction, I can get him to scribble in certain area's of a paper.  In the mean time, I folded sheets of paper into quarters, colored another sheet of paper almost solidly with crayons (I don't have colored construction paper, so I did this).  And got out an ink-pad. 

When my son was tired of coloring, I inked his hands and stamped the inside of one of the quarter-folded cards.  And then did the same with daughter's feet.  I could have done her hands, but I was doing 6 prints, and so that many stamps in quick succession would have been messy.

After I had all the papers stamped with hands and feet, and the sheet my son colored, and the sheet I colored.  I cut hearts out of the paper he colored.  And then cut out bigger hearts out of the sheet I colored, to frame his hearts.  Then I just crayon wrote some "I heart U's on the front to go with mine/his heart combos.  Dated the backs, had him scribble a little few "words" on the inside of his cards and they're ready for Grandma's and Daddy  for Valentines Day

Beanie Beard Ski Mask

Alright, so I've been looking at pictures of these online for about 4-5 Months now.  Well the other day, someone told me I should make one.   He had no idea I had already been thinking about making one, but never got around to it.  Well the request, gave me an excuse to see if I could do it.  And well, I can.  So I did.  Here it is.  :-D

This is not from a pattern

My husband couldn't keep a straight face and look at me while I wore it, and modeled it for a picture.  I think I am going to have to make a lot of these.  Possibly for a few nephews, that would get a kick out if it.  Hehehe... love it.

Christmas Ornaments and Scarves

So Browsing through my pictures, I found these on my computer.  First up, the Christmas Ornamements I made for our kids this year.  An applique design, of a giraffe and an elephant.  My son loves giraffes.

I don't have any pictures of the Elephant by itself.  Just next to the giraffe on my desk.  I used paper clips to hang them, It's all I had in a pinch.

I made everyone's presants this year.  This is a Scarf (not yet completed in the picture) I made for a sister-in-law who loves purple.  

And here's another scarf I made.  I think it went to to the same sister-in-law, but I could be wrong.  I don't remember because I probably made about 40 items over the holidays for gifts.

So, as I dig through my photos, I find the projects I have made.  Soon I'll get all the holiday projects up I made, but for now, this is all I've discovered as of late.  :)  HAPPY CRAFTING EVERYONE!  :-D :-D

Infinity Scarf and Another Dog Sweater

So I got into my yarn.  (I have a TON of yarn, it could fill a closet if I organized it and put it in one place)  And a Mixed Fiber Polyester/Acrylic Uber soft yarn spoke tome, and told me to make an Infinity Scarf.  SOOO here's what I came up with.

The Yarn is REALLY fine.

 I used a size F hook.

The Scarf is twisted

Like a Mobius Strip

This is not from a pattern

And what it looks like on.

And After the first Dog Sweater I made, I decided to make another one.  That's improved.  And I discovered that even after making the improved one, it also needed more improving.  So I made a third one, this is the third one, the 2nd isn't worth sharing.  So improvements:  As cute as the button and strap was, it wasn't praticle.  It stayed shut, but The "Arm" holes were too big, and floppy and movement caused my dog to get his legs caught in other holes they shouldn't be.  SO I switched to a pull over style.  BUT the acrylic yarn didn't give well for pullover style... It stretched, but didn't shrink back at all.  AND FINALLY I decided to make it out of cotton yarn.  After 2 days, He is still wearing it and hasn't had any problems with legs getting stuck in same arm hole, or one in his neck hole... And any stretching is more evenly distributed.  And best of all, when I wash it, it will shrink a bit more, and all the stretching from his moving/running won't make it fit all woggo.  So... Before I continue to ramble and ramble at 1:30 in the morning... The pictures.

This is not from a pattern

Toddler Slippers and Dog Sweater

So for Christmas, I had made everyone handmade gifts. Here's what I made my son.  I got the pattern to test out downloading and reading crochet patterns on my Kindle, to see how easy it would be to read.  It did not go well.  Not only was the math completely wrong on every row to the next... The extra time it took me to count, and re-read and fix the pattern's constant mistakes... The Kindle would auto-shut off from being idle so long.

My son was very interested in me taking pictures of his slippers.  He wouldn't stop touching them while I was pointing the camera at them.

Next, I decided to try out an idea I had been pondering for several months.  My dog loves to wear shirts.  And They need frequent laundering.  So I needed to enlarge his wardrobe.  I came up with this sweater.  I had to keep trying it on him every 10 mins, and by the third time he was very irritated with me to keep having to take it off of him.  WHen I finally gave the finished product to him to wear, he was quite pleased but scowled at me as if to say "What took you so long?!" as he curled up into a little ball and sighed.

Bowser wouldn't hold still very well.  The best picture I could get of him wearing it was him scratching his ear.... Ahh well.