Little Red Riding Hood and Autumn's New Blanket

Hello,
 It has been months since I posted. I have been happily busy with my 3rd grader, Brownies and I started a new job. I am still crocheting though. Most of the time I forget to photograph what I have made and give it away. I have some photos on my phone that will not upload to my computer. I don't know why they won't, I have tried several times to put them in my photo gallery.
 Here is a wall hanging I made for the nursery at my last job. I don't know if it is still hanging, I quit about a month after putting it on the wall.

 I took some time off with my daughter this summer. She wanted a new blanket, I have made her three so far. This one has 720 1 inch squares in all different colors. I used the continuous join method in light pink, after joining, each square is 2". If you haven't tried the continuous join, you should. It changed how I do motifs. I think it is awesome. It was a lot of work. I loved making it though.

 The finished blanket is 6' by 7' and fits nicely on her bed. Luckily, this summer has not been very hot and making this blanket was no problem. I used scraps of yarn for the little squares and I still have some left over. I am going to start a ripple with the rest. I vowed a year and a half ago to use up all of the yarn I have. I have been good and haven't bought any, unless it was to finish a project or it was something someone asked me to make for them. I figure that by Christmas I can go yarn shopping again. :)

My Favorite Blanket So Far

Spring is finally here. Yay! I love winter, but this last one was too long and too cold. School will be out for the summer in a few weeks and every year I make an afghan for Autumn's teacher. Her teacher this year is brand new and this was her first class. It has been fun watching her grow as a teacher and it has been nice seeing how much the children have learned. A few weeks ago I asked her what her favorite colors are and she said orange and yellow. I had no idea how I was going to make an afghan with orange and yellow as the main colors and still have it look nice. It turned out to be my favorite of all the blankets I have ever made and Will wants me to make a big one for our bed. Here it is.

I hope she likes it. I had fun making it. I used the Grandala pattern from Alice Best. Her pattern is my favorite granny motif and I use it a lot. Thanks Alice.

March 2014

 I am sitting here watching the snowplows out in the street. When will spring come? This year, I don't know if it will. We have somewhere around 35 days of below 0 F this season. I have lived here for almost 15 years and this is the most brutal winter I have experienced. I usually love winter, not so much this year though. It doesn't help that I have been in a cast, on crutches or in an orthopedic boot since September. I had surgery in January and I hope to be 100% by summer. I have been really enjoying summer the last couple of years. I get to take the older kids at our daycare/preschool on day trips. I love it and my daughter is one of the kids in the summer program. Right now, summer seems like a distant dream.
 I spent most of January laying on my couch recovering from surgery. I made so many things and gave a lot of them away without taking photos. I couldn't put any weight on my foot and I couldn't get up to sit at the computer either. I did manage photos of some of the blankets I made.

The first two are for family and they are very warm, made with super bulky yarn. The last one was for one of Will's co-workers. She welcomed her first grandchild in January and he asked me to make her a blanket and a hat. Of course, I didn't get any photos of the hat. Lol.
  The first blanket is the Neat Ripple from Lucy, my go to pattern for ripples. The second one is my pattern for a Granny Rectangle. The last is just a straight forward granny square, continued until I thought it was large enough. It is 40"by40".
 Now I am working on a little patchwork granny blanket for a girl I know, I was 17 when she was born and she now has three daughters of her own. She doesn't know I am making it for her baby and I am also going to make something for each of her older girls.

I am also working on a huge ripple, haven't taken any photos yet, it is a stash buster. There is also a tote bag that we are working on in our Ravelry group, Everything Zen. I think it will be perfect for carrying stuff around on all of our field trips this summer, like to the pool. I can't wait. Here is the yarn I am using, I may add some more colors.

I hope everyone is having a good weekend. It is still looking like winter here and in most of the country. Talk to everyone soon.

Happy New Year!

I love the start of a new year. I don't make any resolutions or anything like that. I do usually start a new project though. A couple of days ago I saw a post on Facebook about a CAL that was starting for a Mood Blanket. I was intrigued. Then a group started on Ravelry for the the same blanket. It is also on Instagram, for some reason I can only access Instagram on my phone, so I joined the FB group and the Ravelry group. The idea is to make a square or stripe in a color that suits your mood each day in 2014. I love it. Some people are assigning colors to moods and some are picking out colors each day depending on their mood at the time. That is what I am going to do. I spent a few hours on Ravelry and Pinterest last night looking at lots of squares and motifs. I woke up this morning and made my coffee and looked through a few motif books I have. Then I chose Pale Plum (Redheart) and mixed a couple of motifs. This is the square I will make for 360 days, the last 5 days will be spent on the border.

This will be fun and I won't get bored. It only took a few minutes and it won't take away time from my other projects. I am not sure what join method I will use yet, there is plenty of time for that. Here are the links to the CALs. Crochet Mood Blanket on Ravelry. Crochet Mood Blanket on Facebook. There are almost 700 members on the Facebook site already. Just ask to join and they will hook you up.
 I spent some time on a new blanket yesterday. This is my version of a mixed stitch blanket. I am having fun deciding what to do next with each row.

 Last week Autumn spent Christmas Eve day with one of her best friends and she asked if I would make her something for her Christmas gift. Autumn picked out the colors and told me she wanted me to make a striped hat and scarf for her friend.

Her friend has a pink coat, most of the girls here do, and she wore the set that night to church.
So far my year has started out nicely. It is snowing and it is so pretty and cosy. I am not going out in it, I can't get my cast wet, but I will spend this nice New Year's Day cooking and working on projects. 

December 2013

 Here we are at the end of 2013. Hard to believe. At the beginning of the year I had thought that I wouldn't be very busy, I don't know why I thought that. Now that Autumn is a big second grader, it seems like we are always on the go doing something. Lots of fun though.
 I have made a few things in the last month and a half since I posted. Most of it was Christmas presents. Some of it I forgot to take photos of. Oh well. I started out making Autumn and our next door neighbor, another second grader, matching jester hats.

Autumn wanted bells on hers. I improvised this pattern from a photo I saw. They are both a little bit different. I had to measure as I went and Kirsten is a tiny little thing. I thought they turned out cute. I think they are afraid to wear them to school, they don't want to be made fun of. They wear them everywhere else though.
 I also finished a couple of blankets for my little friends that I work with. The first one is a Lucy Ripple. The little one I made it for has red hair and wears a lot of grey, she is an adorable child and a I wanted to make her something special.

I love Lucy's ripple pattern. It always comes out looking really nice. The next blanket is for another little girl that I love. For her I used the granny rectangle pattern that I created last year for another one of my kiddos.

For this one I tried to use all the colorful yarns I have. This one was fun to make too. I also made a lot of cowls, hats and slippers for co-workers. Of course, I forgot to take photos.
 This hat was made for a CAL in our Ravelry group, Everything Zen. It worked up in a  couple of hours. I used Stylecraft dk in claret that my friend Tracy sent me. I love that yarn. I wish we could buy it over here. I know you can get it online, but I always wait until I have a huge order so I can get free shipping. Otherwise, it costs a lot to ship just a few skeins of yarn.

This pattern is called Fallen Leaves. It is a nice, easily adjustable pattern for a slouch hat.

 Yesterday I started making some little squares. I am thinking I will make a bag with these. They are only about an inch and a half wide. I am using Sinfonia dk cotton. I like that it is a little shiny and I like the colors.

We are expecting a huge snow storm this afternoon and I can't go play out in the snow right now. I have a cast on my foot until January 9 when I will have surgery to fix it. I have a week off for Christmas and then most of January off to recover. I plan on making something for myself with some (more) yarn that my sweet friend, Tracy, sent me. More Stylecraft to add to my collection. I will talk to everyone soon. Have a great weekend. :)

October's Projects

Hello everyone,
 Here we are in November already. I love fall. I love the way everything looks and how the holidays are just around the corner. I can't believe we are coming up to the end of 2013 soon. I have been busy this year. I feel like we spend our afternoons running around trying to keep up with everything. Autumn is in swimming lessons on Mondays and Wednesdays. She also joined Brownies this year and I am helping with the troop. I enjoy it though. Autumn is growing up fast and I don't want to miss a minute of it. With everything going on, I haven't felt like I have gotten much crafting done, then I looked back on the month and realized that I had actually made a few things.
 The first was a pot holder. More of a trivet really, you would burn yourself if you picked up a hot pot.

I made this for the Everything Zen group that I am a part of on Ravelry. It is from this pattern.
I also made some Elf Slippers. I didn't like this pattern at all. It was part of our Elf Slipper CAL.

I have two little girls in the nursery at work that both turned one. I made each of them hats.

If anyone is interested, let me know and I will write up the patterns.
I made a cowl from this pattern

I also made a hooded cowl for a Christmas present. I really like this pattern

Last, but not least, I knitted a scarf. I am really proud of this one. I don't like how knit things roll up when you make a project with the stockinette stitch, so one Sunday I sat and browsed through Ravelry and tried several stitch patterns before coming up with this. I cast on 33. Then I k1, p1 across, ending with k1.  On the other side I did the opposite. p1, k1 across.. I love how it turned out. I gave it to Autumn. We showed to my boss/friend Heather and she loved it. How sweet is my daughter? She gave it to her.

It is ribbed, but doesn't really look ribbed until you pull it apart. I think I need to make a hat to match and work on my knitting skills. I am loving knitting. Switching to the Continental method made all difference for me. I really want to make something other than a scarf and a hat may be the ticket.
 I hope you are all enjoying the weekend. I will talk to everyone soon. :)

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What I Have Been Up To

 The months seem to get busier and busier. I am not going to give up my blog, I love it. I just don't seem to have time to be a frequent poster. My daughter is in second grade now and involved in all kinds of fun things. She just started Brownies on Saturday. Next week she is going to be participating in a dance camp and then they will perform at half-time at the JV football game. Sounds like fun to me. I may be clumsy now, but I was a cheerleader back in the day and I loved it. I hope she has fun.
 I usually make blankets for the babies I take care of for Christmas or their birthdays. In Iowa they can't have blankets, or anything with them in their cribs until they are one. Last year I made all four of my kids blankets. I have started on them already for this Christmas.

This one is finished. Just a simple granny stripe. It was fun to make.

I am loving this one. It is from this pattern. I am going to try to make it into a rectangle though. If I am successful I will share how. I have a few more to make, but I haven't started on them yet.
 I finished this scarf last week. We did it in our group, Everything Zen, on Ravelry.

We also just started a new CAL in our group, making slippers. I haven't started stitching yet. Come join us, it will be fun. :)