Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Merry Christmas!

Yes, I am a bit late with the Merry Christmas greeting, but for a very good reason.  My third grandbaby was born Christmas Eve!  Lawson Clark was born at 4:57PM.  His mommy’s blood pressure got way too high and an emergency C-section had to be done.  They’re both doing well over all, although mommy is having trouble with double vision.  She’s been told the magnesium could be doing it, but the Dr. ordered a CT scan just to make sure it isn’t something more.  I stayed at the hospital the first night and fed *my* baby ice chips during the night, and helped her with whatever I could. I held and fed Lawson since mommy was too weak to try breastfeeding him just yet.  Was going to stay last night, but neither mommy or Gramma was getting enough sleep (she slept a couple hours the night before…I didn’t sleep at all), so I decided to come home, after I made her promise me she’d let the nurses do their job and take care of her and Lawson.  Since there is a snowstorm here today, I’ve had to stay put right here at home, and trust the daddy and other grandma to take care of mommy and the grandkids.

Here is a pic of my precious three grandchildren.  The hat Lawson is wearing was made by me shortly after I knew dd was pregnant.  Since I didn’t know the gender, and wouldn’t until after baby arrived, I made it in white.  :)

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Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Waiting Patiently

Well, honestly, I’m not so sure about the “patient” part.  LOL  But we are waiting for grandbaby #3 to make an appearance.  In the meantime I have been going to dd’s house to help out with laundry, and whatever else she might need help with.  This is a picture of Monday night’s activity.  I had baked sugar cookies and took some icing along, looking for a couple decorators. My grandkids were more than happy to oblige.  Their daddy even joined in, and you can see grandbaby #3 in the pic, too. Shouldn’t be too many more days until the baby is more visible.  We’re all so very excited, and trying to be patient!  :D

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Saturday, December 8, 2012

Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays to All!

Since I haven’t posted much in a while, I thought I’d give a little update as to why.  I have been doing *lots* of crocheting.  Being that it has all been Christmas presents, or presents for the new baby soon to make an appearance, I haven’t shown anything here on my blog.  Don’t want the recipients, or the recipients’ parents, to see things yet.  :D  Also, I had some surgery earlier this week, so am working at getting myself back up to par.  Rest assured, I am enjoying looking at my favorite blogs…just not commenting a lot recently. And once the baby comes, and Christmas is past, I will have plenty of crochet goodies posts to share with you all.  :)

Monday, November 26, 2012

Decorating the Christmas Tree

Today was the first day of buck season here in Pennsylvania, so the men were out in the woods.  Laura and Adelyn came here and Adelyn helped Gramma Rita decorate the Christmas tree.  I couldn’t ask for a better, or cuter, helper!  :D 

What does all this have to do with crochet, you ask?  Well, the decorations are all crocheted by me, and the balls have bits of yarn in them from the projects I have worked on this year.  I got the idea from here. I hope to get some close-up shots of the balls soon, and share those with you as well.

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Sunday, November 4, 2012

Flutterby Doily

Recently I had the excitement of winning patterns from Bella Crochet!  If you haven’t checked her out, you might want to.  She creates the most beautiful patterns!  This doily is one of the patterns I won from her.  The instructions call for fabric glue, and using it to glue certain things together.  I don’t have fabric glue, plus I just like to have everything all hooked together via crochet, so I attached mine via a round of sc and chains.  I also did the butterfly bodies differently than the instructions called for. For this pattern I was able to use partial balls of thread.  :)

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Monday, October 29, 2012

Sailboat Doily & a Hurricane

I’ve been wanting to make this doily for quite some time now.  The pattern is from the June 2011 issue of Crochet World. So, one day last week I set out to make a sailboat doily for myself. Oh my…my, my, my…it tested my patience big time, truth be told.  The “fill-in” section made my head spin while trying to understand the directions and keep my sailboats from getting twisted all around.  I ended up scanning the magazine picture of the doily, enlarging the portion I needed to see more clearly, and pretty much went by that to do the fill-in sections.  I think I did it right…but even if I didn’t, I really don’t care.  Looks fine to me.  LOL  I am not happy with the pic I am posting, but since the weather has been nasty, I wasn’t able to get a pic of it in decent light. I laid the doily on my couch, and had to use the flash.

Also, I wanted to post this now in case the power goes out…which I imagine it probably will.  We are to get high winds and rain from Hurricane Sandy.  Not looking forward to it, but will certainly be glad when it is out of here.  Hopefully there will be no, or minimal, damage.  The nasty winds are to start here sometime this afternoon. 

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Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Two Doilies

Yay!  After months of not making any, I finally had the chance to make not one, but two, doilies!  Woohoo!  My daughter’s family went camping this past weekend, and I house-sat for them.  While there I was able to finish these two doilies.  Blocked them when I got home, and took their pics just a short while ago.  :) 

This first doily is something I just made up as I went.  I used this free flower pattern.  Instead of #10 thread, which I would normally use for the flowers, I used embroidery floss.  Love the vibrant colors!  After I made 8 of them I wondered what I should do with them.  LOL  That’s when I grabbed the white thread, I had taken with me, and proceeded to incorporate them into a doily.  I know it’s nothing fancy, but I do like the way it turned out.  :)

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This second doily is called Candy Dish doily, and the free pattern can be found here.  I love this pattern.  It’s so easy to work up and lends itself to many color combinations.  And I was able to make it in a day. For this one I used my trusty white thread, and some new thread I found at Hobby Lobby while on vacation a couple weeks ago.  If I recall correctly, it is Red Heart and the color name is Passionata.  I was lazy and didn’t pin either one of these when I blocked them.  Just kind of hand pressed them into place.  ;)

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Saturday, September 29, 2012

Flower Ornaments

Hello All!  Hope this finds you all doing well and getting lots of fun, hooky time in. :)  As you might recall, I am crocheting ornaments for my Christmas tree this year.  Here are some flower ornaments that I recently made.  Finished the last one last night, as a matter of fact.  I got the pattern as a free Ravelry download.  If you go to Ravelry and search for “Flower Ring Decoration” it should come up for you.  I used a smaller ring than specified, mainly because the 1” is all I could find. (Plus it is a nicer size for my tree ornaments.) I made 28 sc in the ring and continued with the pattern as instructed.  Then I borrowed an idea from my round Christmas ornaments to add the hanger and a bit of bling.

As always, thanks so much for looking!

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Some cropped close-ups for you.

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Saturday, September 22, 2012

Happy Fall!

Hooray!  Fall is here!  Woohoo!  Can you tell I am excited?!  Fall is my favorite time of year.  :D  Today’s picture is of a doily I made a while back, and I wanted to show you how my daughter has it displayed on her kitchen table. :) 

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Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Slip Stitch Dishcloths

I have been faithfully working on my Sarafia squares, which I am doing for a CAL, but I can’t post them here for fear the “wrong” person will see them.  After Christmas I will post pics of that.  ;) During the past week I have been having lots of fun whipping up these slip stitch dishcloths.  They are so easy to make, and work up so quickly.  I can’t seem to stop making them!  :D  If you’d like to make some of your own, you can find the free pattern here!

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Not only can these be used as dishcloths, but I think they would make great hot pads on which to set a hot pan or dish.

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Close up of how they look.  Love how they look knitted, don’t you? Yet they’re quick and easy slip stitches!  :)

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I also got the idea that this stitch would make some really nice coasters.  What do you think?  I think I see more coaster sets in my future.  :D

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As always, thanks for visiting my blog.  I truly appreciate it and thoroughly enjoy any comments you leave.  Thanks!

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Really?!

Was at the fair today, and it was an enjoyable time.  However, this is one of the things I saw.  How unfortunate for the person who put all the time, energy and hard work into this afghan!  I’m sure it’s gorgeous…if a person could have seen the right side of it.  Why, oh why, would the fair people display it like this?  I really feel badly for the person who made it.

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Sunday, August 19, 2012

Baby Hat

This little hat makes me smile.  :)  I made it last weekend…same weekend I made the ornaments.  Can hardly wait to see grandbaby #3 wearing it.  :D  If you’d like to make one of your own,  click here to be taken to the pattern.

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Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Ornaments

Today I am excited to share with you the main project I worked on while house-sitting for my dd’s family over the weekend.  Ornaments!  This yr. I want to do my Christmas tree in all crochet/yarn ornaments. Being that it’s August I figured it is none too soon to get busy with some of them.  And since I was alone the entire time, I was able to work on each one without being interrupted constantly.  Therefore, I had a very productive weekend crochet-wise. I used a pattern from here, but I did not stuff mine. I also didn’t put the pointed edge on mine, or the button in the middle.  That’s one thing I love about crochet…everybody can do their own thing, and it is still just great!  I love these colorful ornaments and can hardly wait till Christmas rolls around to use them. That, and the fact that grandbaby #3 will be making an appearance around that time.  :D

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Ornaments 2012_1

Ornaments 2012_2

You might notice that the one finished with yellow is bigger than the others.  That was an oopsy on my part.  LOL  I inadvertently crocheted 12 hdc in my first row rather than 10.  No worries, though, it is still pretty.  :)

I also had a go at this little crocheted boot. For this little gem, the pattern can be found here. I hope to make more of these before December rolls around.  :)

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Monday, August 13, 2012

Beginnings of a Bunting

I had been at my dd’s place for a few days, but am now back home.  I crocheted up a storm while at her place, and will be sharing photos soon.  But first I wanted to share the photos of what I worked on prior to going to her place.  I have the triangles all ready for a bunting for grandbaby #3’s room.  Dd isn’t sure how long she’d like for it to be yet, so for now, they’re content to just be triangles.  ;)  These match the blanket I made for baby’s room.  Thanks for looking and have a great day!  :)

If you’d like to make your own triangle bunting, it’s very easy.  There are many tutorials and patterns out there, but this is where I got mine. I didn’t pin mine out as pointed as these, although either way is pretty IMHO. :)  I also added a sc border around each.

Since dd isn’t sure how long she wants it, I am probably just going to thread these onto some yarn when the time comes.  That way they can be scooched (scooched isn’t a word, but perhaps it should be!) as needed.

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Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Wrap Around Baby Boots

This past weekend I made this little pair of baby boots.  Hopefully they’ll work for my grandbaby born in December.  Since we won’t know the gender until baby is born, I used a neutral colored yarn. If you’d like to make a pair, the pattern can be found here.

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Color Field Doily

The actual name of this doily is “Bright Planet”, but I am calling mine “Color Field” doily because I used the color field picture from Design Seeds as my inspiration for the color scheme.  I also improvised, and did not complete the doily as per the pattern.  I did my own thing for the last few rows. As always, I thank you for checking out my blog.  I appreciate, and enjoy, all comments.  :)

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Friday, July 27, 2012

Teeny, Tiny Blankie

My granddaughter received a Calico Critters house for her birthday.  Gramma Rita thought it would be fun to crochet a little blankie for the bed.  :D

The house.

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Gramma Rita and Adelyn playing.  :)

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The blankie :)

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Thursday, July 26, 2012

Round Granny Doily ~ 7

I finished another round granny doily!  Once again, I used Design Seeds to help choose the colors. I am now working on another doily.  I’m using a color combo from Design Seeds, but not doing the granny pattern.  Figured I’d shake things up a bit.  LOL  Thanks for looking, and have a great day!  :)

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Dreary, stormy day today, so the lighting for my pics wasn’t too great.

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Monday, July 16, 2012

Round Granny Doily ~ 6

Yay me!  I am back in the land of the doily makers…at least for a while!  I do want to make some more things for grandbaby #3, but right now I am having fun doing some round granny doilies.  Finished this one, and have another one in the works that I started last night. I use this pattern to get my doilies started.

This is the Design Seeds color combo which I semi-matched for my colors.  I say “semi-matched” because I know they don’t match exactly…but for me they are close enough.  And this is helping me use my leftover threads, of which I have sooooo much!  LOL

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And, here are a few pics of the doily.  :)

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As always, thanks for stopping by my crochet blog.  Here’s wishing you a great day!