crochet?:: life goes on

So, I admit that I have not been a good blog-friend of late.  Life has gotten a wee bit busy.  Even with the holidays coming up, it is actually slowing down again for me.  And goodness do I need it to slow down!  These are a few of the fun punctuation marks that have been in my loooong run-on sentence of an existence for the past couple of weeks.

The sock project is chugging along, the first one should be done tomorrow and it is really cool!

My husband painted this to decorate my garden in the spring.

And I have spent some time with my wonderful niece and nephew 🙂

I have also been fortunate to spend time chatting and laughing with good friends at a lunch here or a dinner there.  And I am trying to get back into playing the piano.  I have found that my skills are VERY rusty!  I am off to practice, practice, practice.  Tomorrow will bring a football Saturday to play hooky all day ~ YAY!

crochet:: granny tissue box 2.1

ALL FINISHED!!!!  YAY!!!!

This one is even better than the first ~ practice makes perfect. Purple ~ my favorite color 🙂

Miss Cali is turning into quite the “nose-mary”.

It seems she can now hear the yarn basket or camera and she is right there in the center of the action.

I am so excited about my next project ~ I am trying a new type of yarn and new type of garment.

I am also teaching a crochet class tomorrow night ~ wish me luck!!

crochet::granny tissue box cover 2

It’s another football Sunday, so that means I am free to do my thang…

So, this is how far I am today on the 2nd tissue box cover.  I took a break for some left-over cake, and wanted to share my progress.

We have wonderful family friends that are moving to Hawaii next week.  We spent our Saturday with them.  First a huge moving sale, then dinner at our house, a bonfire and late night cake.  We will miss them dearly.

I hope your weekend was filled with family & friends & yarn & all things that make you happy 🙂

 

crochet:: granny tissue box cover

Whew, life has been busy, busy, busy.  No time for yarn or hooks or silliness until just recently.  Those times in life do not allow for blogging, nor would anyone really want to hear about it anyway.

Now that life is back on track, I have made some small time-outs for hooks and yarn and I feel so much better now.  I prefer creative names for my couch time:: yarn art is a favorite, as well as the ever-popular hooker therapy.

This is where I started a couple of weeks ago.

So after a glass of wine and some surfing, I decided upon this wonderful pattern from one of my favorite places to visit:   The Royal Sisters

Then after wayyyyy too much time away from all things yarny…finally it is a useful piece of yarn art.

And of course, I made it to match my autumn theme going on in my kitchen.

I am quite pleased with my cotton creation.

Now it lives in my kitchen with its autumnal granny circle friend.   The boys in my life even like it.  My husband has requested a version for his bathroom. He likes that the tissues dispense evenly and he doesn’t have to shake the box upside down because they don’t fall back inside anymore.  Bonus!

crochet:: granny circle 2

Autumn colors…

So much better than the obnoxious plastic Halloween stuff at the local chain store.

I love this pattern so much, I just can’t stop.

This granny circle is enjoying a space at the center of my kitchen table with my Amish lazy susan, salt & pepper shakers, and some candles right now.

As soon as I can get it completed, I will share the matching tissue box cover for my autumn kitchen! 🙂

Happy Hooking to All!

 

crochet:: fall wrap

LOVE THIS WRAP!!!!

While (ahem…er) yarn shopping at Michael’s on my lunch hour (don’t tell my husband please), I found this fabulous free pattern that I just had to share.  Yarn shopping always leads to such fun treasures.  I am thinking about making this with wool in a deep claret red….

Aren’t the textures great for a crochet pattern?  You may need to enlarge it quite a bit to read the directions clearly.

Wouldn’t it be great in a cream color too??  So many patterns, so little time…

Have  a hook-happy day!

crochet:: cleveland browns gear

It’s that time of year…football and cold weather. BRRRRR!  I think I have my husband all set to take on the season 🙂

He is originally from Ohio, so needless to say, his favorite teams to watch are the Cleveland Browns and THE Ohio State.  Since his Mom always keeps him in Ohio State gear with Christmas presents, I decided to hook some super-soft and thick chenille accessories for this winter.

We have A LOT of snow removal to do in the winters, and this will definitely keep him warm.

I loved working with this yarn!  It was so fantastically soft and scrumptious!

I know that he will actually wear them because it is orange and brown in honor of his team.  As for the pattern – YIKES!  The pattern is called “wing it”.  I can say this much, it is all in double crochet.  It was another one of those that I did not write down because it was very subjective.  I made it to fit him and how he would use it.

I made the scarf exactly the same as my cancer ribbon scarf – only much bigger.  He wanted it really wide and long, so I increased the number of stitches for the first row, and he said, “Yep, that’s about right” and I kept double crocheting rows until he said, “Yep, that’s about long enough”.

The ski mask/hat is from memory of a photo I saw years ago, and I winged it by making him try it on over and over. Basically you make a circle of increases like you would for a potholder until it covers the crown and then make a few rounds of all the same number of stitches until you get to the eyebrows.  To make the eye hole, skip enough stitches so the wearer can see well by making a long chain that you will use as foundation on the next round, and start decreasing each round.  Make the mouth hole with the same method and keep decreasing as needed.  I finally stopped when he said, “Yep, that fits”.  The key to these for us was the yarn – I must say – choose wisely.  I originally started one in cheap acrylic yarn – big no-no.   I ripped it apart after about 15 rows because he said it would be itchy.  Boys! (insert exasperated look here)

crochet:: cancer ribbon scarf

So, yesterday I made the mistake of bragging about a beautiful day and we have had rain ever since!  It made for a good day to watch football with the boys and finish some projects.

The first order of business was to finish the 2nd granny circle so I have a matching set (one for the other nightstand if I can talk my husband into having it on his side of the bed too).  I love these!!  I have all of the yarn set up for the next one…autumn colors for the kitchen table 🙂

The second order of business was to complete my cancer ribbon scarf.  It’s more like a neck warmer than a scarf, but it does the same job.

Since I am a survivor, I decided to accessorize for the Susan G. Komen Race For The Cure next week.

If you have never worked with novelty yarn, it isn’t very fun because it is a little difficult to see what you are doing, but it’s not too bad for a small project.  This worked up fairly quickly and I am really pleased with the result.

 

 

cancer ribbon scarf:

1 small skein eyelash or boa yarn

“H” hook

large button

This is simply 20 dc wide  every row until you run out of yarn.

Chain 23

row 1: turn and dc in 4th chain from hook, then dc in each ch

row 2: ch 3 turn and dc in each to end

repeat

center button about 5 inches from one end

use any space between dc for the button hole, whatever is comfortable

Thanks for stopping by!

food:: breakfast for dinner

We are having FAB.U.LOUS. weather here in the quiet Iowa countryside.  So, we decided to throw open all of the windows, make an easy dinner, and relax on the deck to enjoy the evening.

We made some easy Bisquick biscuits with honey, cut up some bananas, and scrambled eggs with ham & cheese.

Once the eggs were ready, I sprinkled some fresh cut chives from the garden and…voila!  An easy dinner to make up some plates and enjoy the smell of fresh cut grass, listen to the crickets, and enjoy the view.

(After our party-crasher was shoo-ed from the table!)

Hope your weekend starts off just as fabulous 🙂

crochet:: granny circle

I have found a wonderful yarn inspiration site::  i-crochet.blogspot.com Wow – I will never get any hooky-work done if I keep surfing all these wonderful links.  But it is so tempting to try out each and every one!!!

I was inspired by this talented blogger and yarn artist::   crochethealingandraymond.wordpress.com She has great patterns and tutorials!

Now I have a functional new piece of art to cushion my nightstand from the bitch slapping my alarm clock gets every morning.