New Things

Hello,
 The last few days have been really wonderful for me. I have had down time. No work, all projects that needed finishing were done. I only had one WIP (Granny Love) but, after my blanket making marathon, I needed a little blanket break. I have some in between days, between Christmas and New Years, and I didn't want to crochet right now. I have several crochet projects lined up with some of my groups on Ravelry.  I have been wanting to finally make, and complete, a knitted project. I had a really good Secret Santa this year. She gave me this...

It is bulky yarn and so soft. I thought this would be the perfect time to finally commit to a knitting project. I have tried before, I learned using the English method. I think the fact that I am a crocheter first messed me up. I would make a mistake and get so frustrated I would frog the whole project. Then I discovered the Continental Method. For me this works so much better. I really don't think one way is better than the other, I just think that because of the way you hold the yarn and that I have been crocheting for such a long time, that the Continental Method is a lot easier for me. I don't get confused or tangled up. The other thing that has really helped is that this yarn is bulky. I can see exactly what I am doing and I have finally figured out how to count my rows if I get confused. It is also very easy to see what stitch I am working on if I get called away.
 So, for the last two days I practiced. I made a few swatches and then decided what I was going to make was a simple knit and purl scarf. Now, I am a yarnoholic and there are some great sales going on. I had to go out and get some more yarn. I am using one of the skeins and bought some more to go with it. I have big plans for all three colors. Here is my progress so far...

Yay! I even have the color changes figured out. I don't know anyone, in person, who knits. So I use my trusty Stitch 'N Bitch book by Debbie Stoller. She is easy to follow and understand. I have one more day of vacation left and after I clean the house I am going to work on the scarf some more.  Blogging has been so much fun for me and it has given me friends that I wouldn't have the chance to otherwise meet. Great minds think alike. Yesterday, after I had made this I sat down to read all of the blogs I follow. I check everyday. My friend, HillyT, had a post that was so similar to what I was thinking that I just had to laugh. Then I read further and she had mentioned me in that post too. We belong to several of the same groups on Ravelry. I love Harriet's blog. Check it out.
 I also have a really nice boss, I take care of her baby in the nursery at work. Everyone at work knows that I love yarn. She surprised me by giving me this...

It is bamboo yarn from Hobby Lobby. Four skeins that go together. I decided to use this yarn for something different also. For this I am learning Tunisian crochet. Not hard and it looks kind of like knitting when done. These are my two in between projects. I will show the finished projects soon. I have to get them done quickly. I have two CALs starting on the 1st. Lol.

The Christmas Blankets Are Finished

Hello,
 How is everyone? The last few days have been really nice. Last Saturday was my father-in-law's funeral and that was really hard. The three of us were home on Sunday and we cleaned the house and I finished up the last of the presents I was working on. We stayed home for Christmas and for the first time since we have been married we had guests on Christmas day. Will's sister and brother and a good family friend came up to spend the day with us. It was a really nice day. Autumn was the only child there and so she got to soak up a lot of attention. She was really sweet. The day before, Susie had called and asked if Autumn would be willing to wait to open her Christmas presents until they got there. Autumn said that was fine and would wait to open her gifts from Santa also. I was really proud of her. I wouldn't have wanted to wait until almost noon on Christmas day when I was seven. No way. Santa also brought her a new bike, she can't ride it yet, we have snow now. I made a big pot of potato soup and we had lots of appetizers and two chocolate pies, two kinds of cookies and lots of candy. It was a nice relaxing day. At the end of it we all got into Susie's new van and went down to Coralville to look at Christmas lights. It was a really nice day.
 Here are the blankets I made for my nephews and niece.

This is Sawyer's blanket. He is a sweet boy. He had to have knee surgery on Christmas Eve. Poor guy. He is going to be in a wheelchair for a few months. It is snowy and icy and the doctors want to make sure he doesn't hurt it again. He is also in a brace for about a year. I know all about knee surgery and really feel for him.
 The next blanket is Wyatt's.

I made the boy's blankets with the same yarn. I thought they turned out pretty cool. The last one is Sarah's blanket. I showed this one last month, but it is part of the set.

I made Susie a Nativity set and forgot to photograph it before I gave it to her. I finished it Christmas morning and hour before they got to our house. She will get some pictures of it for me later. It turned out really cute and Susie has a number of Nativity Scenes that she puts up at the holidays.
 I am now ready for 2013 to start. Last year I started keeping track of all the things that I make in a project book. I also (try) to write down the patterns that I create in it. I went back and looked at and added up all of my projects and was a bit surprised. Here is what I made in 2012.

12 Bags
14 Blankets
4   Sweaters
12 Toys
1   Book Cover
2   Pillows
1   Dress
8   Household Decorations
1   Cell Phone Cosy
1   Coffee Cup Cosy
2   Headbands
1   Pair of Fingerless Mitts
3   Pairs of Slippers
2   Shawls
4   Hats
3   Scarves
1   Plastic Bag Holder
Total 72 items. I keep my hands busy. Lol. I will keep a project book from now on. It is nice to see what you have actually made at the end of the year.
 Now that I am finished with all of my gifts I am going to finish joining my Granny Love Blanket. I have been keeping it secret since I made a big change to it it half way through. I expect to be finished by mid-week. Somewhere around the 1st. I can't wait to show it to everyone and I really can't wait to put it on our bed. It is so cold here. After having the hottest summer anyone can remember, we have had more days below freezing this December than ever in recorded history. Strange.
 If you are still on vacation from work, enjoy your time off, if not then have a wonderful day anyway. Talk to everyone very soon. :)

December Catch Up

Hello,
 I have not been blogging much in the last couple of months. We have had so much going on this fall. I am looking forward to the New Year and slowing down a little bit. I love blogging and miss that I haven't been able to blog the two or three times a week that I am used to. The week of Thanksgiving was the week that Will hit the deer and totaled our car. That same week Will's father went into the hospital and was in the ICU for about a week. He came home and had a couple of good weeks and we got to have a really nice family party a week and a half ago. I am starting to cry as I write this. My father-in-law passed away last Sunday. He was one of the best people I have ever known. He is at peace now.
 It has been kind of hard to keep a happy face during this busy season. I am lucky to have my husband and daughter that mean everything to me and I am lucky to have a job that brings me so much joy. I work with four one year olds. For the last two months I have been the only adult in the nursery with my four little friends. They really help keep my mind off of the sad things. My daughter spends an hour there with me in the morning before school and it is so nice to work somewhere that I can have my own child with me when she is not at school.
 We are having the funeral tomorrow and then we have Christmas next week. Whew. As I said, I am looking forward to slowing down and getting  back into a normal routine.
 I have been really busy making blankets. I can't show all of them until after Christmas but, I made eight blankets for Christmas this year. I started them in November. Four of them are big Queen sized blankets, made to fit on a bed. The other four were small for the four little people I work with. I also made a bunch of other little things. Scarves, hats, and ornaments. I want to write up  a series of tutorials after the holidays. I made this little Snowman for the owner of the company I work for. I got to be her secret Santa.

I made up the pattern for this little guy and I will definitely write it down as soon as I get a little time.
 If you live in the United States, you know we are having a big blizzard here in the the upper part of the country. We live in Iowa, right in the middle of the storm path. The schools and the daycare I work at were all closed yesterday and Will is still on bereavement leave. Thankfully, none of us had to go anywhere. Other than going out to play in the snow, we stayed in all day.

Autumn loves to make snow angels.

It has stopped snowing now but it is around 6F right now. Not warm at all. The schools are open today though, I am glad for that. I am helping with the Christmas party for Autumn's class today and the kids would have been so upset to miss their party.
 I hope I haven't lost any of my wonderful readers lately. I will get back to frequent posting within the next week. I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas. :)

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Mid-December

Hello,
 I realized this morning that it has been two weeks since my  last post. Last year I managed to still write my posts in December. I seem to be busier this year than ever before. Since the last post I have made a large queen size blanket, a handmade fabric strip basket and 18 candy sleighs. Here they are...

These are all gifts. I have a blanket that is half finished on the hook right now and another one to get done by Christmas Eve, then one more crochet project to finish up before the family gets together. It is top secret though, the recipient reads my blog and would know it was for her the minute she saw it.
  When I have finished all of these projects I have a list of things I want to blog about. I want to make a couple of tutorials and I can't wait to finish my Granny Love blanket, it has been hibernating until the holidays are over. I hope everyone is enjoying December. I love this time of year, even with how busy it is. I will talk to everyone soon. :)

Monday Morning

Goodmorning,
 I hope everyone had a nice weekend. Mine was very relaxing. I spent the four days off puttering around the house, organizing the basement, cooking and working on Christmas presents. Boring to some but, my favorite way to spend a weekend.
 I made a few things this weekend. I am making blankets for all four of the babies in my nursery, this is the second one I have finished.

I am also making gifts for the girls that help me in my room. This scarf is a fun project and took about an hour to make. The hook is huge, P 15, and the yarn is Super Bulky, a 6.

The hat is 8 hdc in a sliding ring and then increase until you get it big enough. Then work several rows with out increases. I will write a tutorial for it and the flower. I will also write a tutorial for the blanket. I did the center differently than any patterns I could find. I don't like the foundation chain to show through, like it does on most Granny rectangles. The solution was simple but, still took me a little while to figure out.
 Back to work today. I am ready, we are now officially in Christmas season, I am at least. Lol. I love this time of the year so much. I already decorated my house, I will post photos. My camera is charging and it is still dark anyway. Four short weeks until Christmas week. I love it. I still have a lot of things to finish making but, I love that too.
 I will talk to everyone later. Hope you have a great day!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hello,
 I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday. I am very thankful this year. The last week has had a lot of things happening in our family. My husband and my sister in law both totaled their cars, on the same night. Both are ok. My father in law stopped breathing and his heart stopped. The first responders brought him back, thank God. He went on a ventilator and was in ICU for a couple of days. He is still in the hospital. He seems to be doing better. We picked up our new car yesterday and we both love it, I am thankful that we had full coverage when we didn't legally need it. I am thankful for our health and happiness. I am thankful for my job. I love the little babies I work with and I love my co-workers. Everyone there has been so supportive of me and my family through all the crazy things we have gone through in the last few months. So, yes, I am very thankful this year.
 Today Autumn and I will clean the house top to bottom and then decorate for Christmas. We started to do that when she was two. My husband always works on Thanksgiving, that way he doesn't have to work on Christmas. We had our Thanksgiving meal last night and today will be all about baking and decorating. I love this little tradition that Autumn and I have.
 I have stopped working on my Granny Love blanket until I am finished with all of my Christmas makes. I am very close to done with it. Just some joining of a few more squares and a border to decide on. I enjoy working on it though and put it on hold so that I wouldn't feel rushed. I had wanted to finish it by Halloween, when it wasn't quite done I put it away. I can't wait to show it to everyone. We have a week off at Christmas and I plan on finishing it then.
 Here are some of the Christmas presents I have made so far...

This was made using up some Stylecraft Lucy Pack that I had leftover from my Granny Ripple that I finished last spring. This is for one of my babies in the nursery where I work.
 This is a hat for one of my co-workers...

I hope she likes it. I made up the pattern and I think I will make another hat and write up a tutorial for it. It was easy and took about an hour and a half to make.
  This is a pattern that I saw a few days ago on Ravelry and decided we should make in our CAL/KAL group, Everything Zen. I am going to make a few of these, one for me and a couple more for gifts. It took an hour while I was having my coffee this morning.

I have three more baby blankets that are almost finished for the three other babies in my care and I have three full sized blankets that are still being worked on. I had a number of other things that I am working on too. I am enjoying all the Christmas gift making. I love to make things for people, I love to give gifts and crochet is great. For a relatively small amount of money I can give lots of gifts. I hope everyone has a special day and I will talk to everyone soon. :)

What's Been Happening Around Here

Hello,
 I have not posted since November 1. I think that may be the longest break I have taken. The month started with internet trouble. I couldn't get on the web and when I did it was so slow. It took over an hour to do my last post and it was very short. We have gotten that all sorted out. Then it was my husband's birthday and then a few days later it was my Autumn's 7th birthday. I was brave (stupid) and let her have a slumber party. It started out with 6 little girls. The two oldest went home to sleep in their own beds. I don't blame them, the rest of them didn't sleep much. We had fun though. I took the girls to the Children's Museum and then out to pizza. A wonderful girl from work came with us to help. Thank goodness for Jordan. When we came home we had cake and ice cream. I made a polka dot cake that I saw on Pinterest. It was so neat.

How cool is that? Autumn fell asleep on the couch after all the birthday celebrations, but her friends were still awake at 2:35 in the morning. I had to keep going in and telling them to go to sleep. To top it off they all woke up at 5:30 in the morning. Crazy kids. I made them breakfast and put a movie on until their parents came to collect them. I would bet that they all fell asleep by mid-afternoon. I don't regret having the party, but there won't be another slumber party for many years. Lol.
 Last week I was getting all the things that I have made ready to take photos and post. I made a really neat bag with my group on Ravelry, Everything Zen.

I made the whole thing from scraps, which makes me very happy. I love our CAL group and am very thankful to Karisma for starting it.
 I have also made a hat and finished a baby blanket since the last time I posted. I need to have someone model the hat. The pictures I took of myself just look bizarre. Like an alien with big eyes and a mushroom head. I have said it before, I have no luck at self photos. I finished the baby blanket last night and it is too dark to take a picture right now. I will get some today. I made it as a gift for one of my babies in the nursery and I used all scraps for it too. I had little odds and ends left of my Stylecraft stash, and used most of them up. My most rewarding projects to make are the ones that I use up leftover yarn for.
 I had been planning to write a post on Tuesday and catch up then two things happened. I caught the worst cold and came home and fell asleep on the couch after work. I got up and went to bed. My husband came home a few hours later and woke me up to tell me he had been in a car accident. He hit a huge buck on the Interstate. It totaled our car. The thing is, we live in the country. We are always so careful out here. Especially now during rutting season. The accident happened down in the city though. He is ok. I don't know how he didn't get hurt. The car is a complete loss. When I called the insurance company the next morning, they had already had 4 people call in with deer hits. I called at 8:02. They open at 8. Two of the girls I work with have also hit deer in the last week. It is always bad in the fall. You have to be careful, but I have never heard of so many deer hits in one season. We had to wait two days to get a rental car, they were all booked due to the number of accidents. Before we knew the car was totaled, I called all the autobody places in the area to see when we could get our car in if it could be fixed. The waiting list at all of them was until at least 26 November.

As you can see, we have been car shopping. Just to top it all off, the day after the accident, my sister in law called me to tell me she had totaled her car the night before on her way home from work. The same time that her brother was hitting the deer, she was running in to a cow. Not a good day for the Griffith siblings or the crazy animals that are running around charging cars. Everyone is ok, except the animals. Next week is Thanksgiving and this year I am more than thankful that my family is ok. That is what has been happening around here lately. I hope everyone else is having a less eventful November. I will post again tomorrow with pictures of the projects I have finished. Talk to everyone soon.