Thursday, January 28

happy garland

crochet granny star garland!

crochet granny star garland!

crochet granny star garland!

crochet granny star garland!

All the pretty stars strung across my living room makes me happy! And as I look around my living room now, I see this garland, a pom-pom wreath, and some circles! Together they make me insanely happy!

*twinkle granny stars made from this pattern*
*the gorgeous quilt made by mom*

Thursday, January 21

amazed

Aren't you all amazed by all the giving that blogland, craftiness, and technology can create? Craft Hope for Haiti Etsy shop has been doing just incredible, over $20,000 so far. When Morgan Moore ran the NieNie Benefit Sale Etsy shop last last fall, I remember being so amazed then. But this Haiti effort has been just phenomenal! I can't imagine all the time that the ladies behind the scenes must have spent and even with such attention to detail. Beki, who listed my donations, was so nice. She emailed me to let me know when my tutorial was listed and kept relisting more and more as it sold and let me know when those were up. I just couldn't believe that she would take the time to tell me when it was up. I figured I would just see it listed myself. I purchased a "charm bracelet" quilt pattern. I just love that design, actually all of Kate's designs look amazing. How generous is she?, she must have donated at least 100 quilt patterns to the shop. Her patterns kept selling and they kept relisting them like crazy!

I am not sure when I will get to make a quilt from her pattern though. I think I mentioned I have two big projects in the works, a sweater for me and a quilt for Lills. The sweater is getting insanely boring. It was too the point that I was getting mad at it while knitting. and well that poor quilt has been in the works since October. I think I finally have all the fabric I need for it and now I just need the motivation. So ignoring these big projects, I have been having the best time crocheting!

Dani got me hooked (haha) on making some earrings.

crochet earrings

I used this pattern and a mustard colored embroidery floss. I have an obscene about of crochet thread (from all those socks) but I was craving this mustard color. and no joke I have worn these for almost two weeks straight (they're on now)!

Dani mentioned to look on Rav for more patterns, hello, that is a great idea! so I did. I made a pair like this (rav link) in purple for my sister's birthday. I am unsure now if she will like them, so I think I will take a picture and just ask her. I wanted to make a bunch more but I ran out of old lame earrings to swipe the earring wires from. BUT I just bought a big bag of earring wires from Joann's last weekend so I will be able to get busy with that soon.

In the meantime I have been decorating. I was so proud of myself for actually getting the silhouettes hung but then I was bummed because the wall looked boring...well no more!
crochet + silhouettes = happy wall

this picture by LolaNova and this one inspired me to no end!

crochet + silhouettes = happy wall

I used Lucy's flat circle pattern and this potholder pattern just with less rounds.

and now I am addicted to making granny stars again!
stack o' granny stars granny


...Although I must say, I feel a bit guilty being so fortunate in having "problems" like a boring wall or a knitting project that I really just want to stomp on...

Thursday, January 7

for mom

I am glad I have some Christmas crafting saved up to share because I have been moooving s o o o s l o w. I started a new sweater for myself with some patons wool that I scored in November for 2 bucks a skein!! But I really haven't been in the mood to craft much and I even have been watching tv and just sitting there...nothing in my hands. crraazy. Gregg is slightly freaked out.

Anyway, I made two small gifts for my mom.

a cowl.
mom's cowl

my mom doesn't like the feel of wool at all even the softest most wonderful wool will feel like velcro against her skin. I branched out a bit with the color for my mom because my dad is obsessed with the color blue (even more than Lills) so I usually stay away from blue for my mom so she can get a break from it. But I thought this bright blue with her signature yellow would be nice for her.
mom's cowl

pattern: Ilean (rav link)
yarn: Araucania Nature Cotton
mom's cowl


and Hazel the Hedgehog
hazel the hedgehog sewing friend
hazel the hedgehog sewing friend

hedgehogs remind me of my mom because Rigger (her dog that passed away last spring) used to love playing with his hedgehog toy, the toy's name was Hoggie. She still had a brand new Hoggie that she hadn't given to Rigger yet. I thought Hoggie and Hazel could sit together and watch over my mom while she sewed. Hazel also has my grandma's favorite colors on her.

hazel the hedgehog sewing friend

Pattern: pieces here
Decorations: I liked the look of Lollychops girl hedgehog but didn't have those flowers she used so I used a simple crochet flower pattern to decorate her. The flowers were made mostly with crochet thread, the cream flowers were made with berroco alpaca light.
hazel the hedgehog sewing friend

Monday, January 4

steggie!

I have a couple more Christmas handmade gifts but I just had to show you what I finished. Lilly's Steggie!
steggie sweater

steggie sweater
I got to do some new techniques with this sweater and it was really challenging. A zipper into a knitting garment, new for me. I like what I did but it could be a lot better with a longer zipper and less stretch to the sweater. But it works great. I got the zipper from zipperstop.com, and I sure will again! they have tons of colors in all kinds of zippers. Joanns was seriously lacking in the plastic separating zipper department.
steggie sweater

steggie sweater
I have never done sleeves like this pattern called for before, it seemed very backwards and it was complicated keeping all the yarn untangled. But it was okay until I seamed up the sleeve. It looks terrible! not at all like the pattern picture showed. I think it may have been my poor skills though because looking at other sweaters made with this pattern didn't seem to look as poor as mine. I did like adding the scales after the fact to the hood. That to me looks crisp and well done. So if I ever made this sweater again, I would try and figure out how to make the sleeve look like the hood.

steggie sweater

Despite my issues, Lilly LOVES her sweater. I have never seen her so gaga over something I have made her before. She was straight up yelling at me to get the zipper in place. (She couldn't understand that I needed to look up how to do that). This sweater is really thick which probably isn't a good thing with how sweaty she gets (takes after her dad for sure). She wore it to school today which made me bust my buttons because she got a lot of new sweatshirts for Christmas and I let her pick her own clothes in the morning.

steggie sweater
rarrrr! (I love looking at the finished steggie projects in Ravelry, most of the kids are acting like dinosaurs and generally being awesome in their sweaters!)

Pattern: Steggie
Yarn: impeccable loops and solids in aqua and vanna's choice in eggplant and burnt orange (i think)

Friday, January 1

for Gregg

Happy New Year! We were super dull last night but we did mange to stay up until 1130. I know, woot woot. We watched the movie Funny People. loved it!

Gregg's blanket

This was a super secret undercover gift project. As I am sure you know, making a quilt is pretty time consuming and trying to do this without the recipient knowing who also happens to live in your house is pretty darn complicated. Luckily, Gregg works a lot and he had a couple of on-call nights. A couple of the on call nights he got off earlier than expected, I was trying to sound excited when he called saying he was coming home, but really I was frantically hiding all the evidence. There was also one Saturday morning when he went off to study and I shamelessly stuck Lilly in front of the TV with breakfast then ran back to my sewing machine. All of that sneaking around paid off. On Christmas morning, he had NO idea!

Gregg's blanket
Gregg did almost all of his undergrad and then stayed on to receive his masters at University of Oregon. He is in love with Oregon. He will always be a Duck fan at heart.
Gregg's blanket

Gregg's blanket
He is now a med student at Penn State. He loves med school here. I thought it would be fun for his blanket to have a little bit of both.
Gregg's blanket

Details: He loved this blanket so much that I did the Oregon side much like it with big random rectangles of fabric. I quilted it long lines that are not straight at all in gray thread and binded it in kona cotton in coal. I really like how the gray looks with both sides.

Size: 48 x 62

What a great day to snuggle with his blanket too as both teams have their bowl games today!