Everything's Coming Up Roses!

I was flipping through the Grandin Road Catalog the other day and came across this:

 

This is a snapshot of some really pretty pillows and area rugs (link to the catalog page) that I fell in love with.  It caused all sorts of WANT in me and I'm determined to make something similar.  More for the "I can make that!" side of me that rears it's ugly head every now and then than for any other logical reason.

So I did a little research in how to make Crocheted Roses and found a Leisure Arts free project  (the link is to the pdf) that was written by Terry Kimbrough who is a crochet genious.   These roses are so lovely and easy to make.  Just two rows of crochet will make one rose.  If you combine some Noro silk garden yarn and this pattern you get some jaw dropping gorgeousness:

Just look a little closer at one of the roses:

I'm planning on making some solid color roses to go along with these for the pillows that I will make.  I'm going to have to come up with another skein or two of Noro silk garden before the project is done if I want two pillows worth though. 

Aren't they pretty?

Weekend Wrap Up

Guess what?  My Skull Pops are featured on Dollar Store Crafts today!  Yay!  If you're dropping in from over there, welcome, glad you could join us.

 

In other news, The Space Shuttle Project is coming along nicely.  The Eldest got all nice and sticky yesterday.  We moved to the garage for this part of the project.  It's just a bit too messy for the house.

Because of the humidity that we have around these parts, we opted for a mix of glue and water instead of flour and water.  It may need a bit more glue on the next go around, it's not quite as hard as I would like it to be.  

My Sister-In-Law's birthday was celebrated this weekend.  I got out her gift, the Queen Anne's Lace Crochet project and finally blocked it.  Look at the difference:

Before:

After:

The Magic of Blocking has worked it's wonders once again!

Mantilla Blanket Progress

The Mantilla Blanket is coming along.  Slowly, but it's coming along.  I've slowed down a bit on all of my crafting over the past couple of weeks.  I think the kids have infected me with their school burn out. (That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.)  Nobody around here wants to do much of anything.  I think everyone's brain has gone into melt down.  I'm hoping to get fired up again once summer officially starts on Monday.

Here's how the Mantilla Doily Blanket looks now:

I'm really hoping it will stretch out a bunch more when it's blocked.  I'm still thinking that I'm going to have to add a bunch of rows to get it to the size that I want.  I'm on row 21ish and there are only 29 rows to the whole pattern.  I just have to decide where I want the repeat(s) to go.

On a completely different topic:
For those of you who are or were skeptical about the whole Swagbucks thing.  Here's how much I've earned and already posted to my Amazon account since starting Swagbucks in January:

Screen shot of my Amazon account:

Yep, 100 big ones.  That new Wii game system will definitely be making it's grand appearance on Christmas morning!  I've been earning the bucks and then using them to purchase $5 dollar Amazon gift cards.  Free money!  Now are you interested?  If so, you can join Swagbucks here and searching and earning. 

And no, I do not work for them or have anything else to do with them.  I just enjoy earning free cash.  :)

Edited To Add:  Here's a link to an Atlanta TV station (11 alive) that did a small piece on Swagbucks.

Mantilla Blanket Project Has Begun

I've been wanting to do a crochet project, but I've been kind of put off by the patterns that I've found out there.  One of the things that drove me to knitting was the practicality of it.  I could make and use more of my knitting projects than I could my crochet projects.   


Now I'm not saying that I don't like or enjoy crochet.  I crochet much faster than I knit.  I've been crocheting for um, way to many years to mention.  Let's just say since I was 8, okay?  Obviously I enjoy it or I would have given it up years ago (got loads of other crafts that just didn't make the cut like crochet and knitting.)   I don't like sweaters made of it, it doesn't stretch or  drape well.  I don't need toys, got enough toys around here already, thanks.  Doilies.  Nope, just dust catchers in my opinion.  Or are they?

Remember the Hemlock Ring Blanket that Jared Flood got everybody hooked on a few years ago?  Here was my take on it:

While it was knit, it was still a doily.  But a pretty doily. 

By the way, do you realize how odd the word doily looks after you've typed it several times?  Doily, doily, doily.  Yup.  Looks really weird.  I had to get my spell check up and running to make sure I wasn't losing my mind while typing it.

Anyway, this weekend, I decided to crochet me a doily.  On a size H hook.  With some gorgeous, gray, two ply alpaca from Lima, Peru.  I'm up to round 14 and there are 29 rounds in the pattern.  I will probably have to go back and repeat some rounds to get it the size that I want. 

It's approximately 12 inches in diameter at this point, but it will stretch like crazy once it's blocked. You'll be able to see more details then.  Right now it's just a furry blob.

The yarn is indecently soft.  Makes you want to get all neckid and roll in it.  I swear it does.  Sorry, you don't get pics of that.  :)

This is the Mantilla Doily by Coats and Clark.  Not terribly difficult, although I did have trouble with interpreting a few rounds.  It's been a while since I've looked at a crochet pattern.  It all looks like Greek if you haven't looked at it in a few years.  It's looking good so far and it promises to be a luxurious blanket that the whole family will be arguing over. 

On a More Positive Note

Last night I made this Crochet Flower Hot Pad:

This was made using this free pattern. 

It was completed in just a couple of hours.  It's are really easy project that looks more complicated than it actually is.    It's a great way to use up extra cotton yarn from past projects.

Mods:
Did an extra round of sc to make it flatten out a little bit more.

Next time I make this, I will figure out a predetermined chain from the center point to connect the petals at. I didn’t do that on this one and it’s very noticeable.

Amateur Photography and Lace Scarves

Last night The Eldest was working on a photography lesson for Cub Scouts.  Not to be outdone, The Youngest had to take some pics too.  This is what happens when a four year old takes a photo:

Of Himself

And of a cat:

 

But wait!  I bet you missed the cool part of the cat photo.  Let's zoom in a little closer (I didn't say clearer, I said closer):

Did ya catch it that time?  He caught the cat in mid-yawn.   Cool.   That cat's got a really big mouth.  I guess it goes well with the rest of him too, all 16 pounds of him!

******

I finally finished my Queen Anne's Lace Scarf!  I did it in two sessions.  Unfortunately, I put it down for about two weeks in between sessions.  But it's finally done:

Here's a closeup:

This is destined to become a gift in the future for my Sister In Law.  The greens will look fabulous next to her red hair.

Crochet Nostalgia

Have you heard the phrase "It's in her genes"?    Or is it the phrase "Nothing comes between me and my  genes but my crafting"?  In this case, maybe both would be appropriate.

I come from a line of crafters:

My mother sews, crochets, paints, draws, designs jewelry, etc.     Every formal gown that I ever wore to proms and college dances were handmade by her.   She's an amazingly talented woman.  The one thing I didn't inherit from her are my artistic skills.  I can't draw or paint worth a flip.

My grandmother sewed and made jewelry.  She was also a very crafty woman.  Feisty too.  The only person that I've ever known to tell a pastor to kiss her a**.   You should have seen my eyes bug out of my head at that one!

Here's the one that I specifically want to tell you about today though.

My great aunt.  Tatter, quilter and crocheter extraordinaire.  I never saw the lady without a needle of some sort in her hands.  There's no telling how many miles of afghans that she made.  Somewhere in my attic is a couch back cover that she crocheted of granny squares.  It's a particularly amusing piece.  The colors are brown, green and yellow.  Except for about two inches that are in your face RED where she ran out of the proper color yarn.  This woman was from the "waste not want not" generation.   She saved every scrap and used them whenever the opportunity arose.

One project that she got absolutely right though, was her crocheted teacups.

Look how dainty these are:

 

Aren't they lovely?

They live on a book shelf in my bedroom now.  They sit on the lowest shelf so that The Youngest can have tea parties with them.  Wouldn't she be tickled to know that her Great nephew was playing with them now?

Let's hope that all us crafters leave such a legacy behind.

Queen Anne's Lace Crochet Project

I started a new project the other night, but it wasn't knitting, it was crochet.  Ya'll, it's been so long since I've done crochet that I had to look up some of the stitches to make sure I was doing them right!  I've been crocheting off and on since I was eight and my Mom semi-patiently tried to teach me, but it never sticks with me.  Over the years I've either forgotten how to hold the yarn or how to do certain stitches.  I don't know why I can't keep it all in one tidy little place in my brain so that I can reference it as needed. 

It didn't take long to look things up (I love the internetz) to remind my poor brain what it needed to tell my fingers and I was off and running.  I'm working on the Queen Anne's Lace Scarf from here.  If you follow the link, he's taken off the pics, scroll down to get to the free pattern. 

I'm using some of my homespun yarn that has a huge range of greens and black in it.  It's lovely, but it's not photographing well.  For some reason, variegated yarns never do photograph well for me.  I got two shots that I liked:

Here's the first:

And here's the second:

This is a really quick pattern.  I finished half of the scarf in one day.  I'll go until I run out of yarn.  There's approximately 222 yards in this skein.  It should end up just the right size.  Hopefully it will look better once it's blocked.   This is probably going to be put away as a gift to my Sister In Law for next year.  She looks stunning in any form of green (she's a redhead.)

Back on the wagon

It's time to get back on the blogging wagon. I fell off over the holidays, sorry.

I can't tell you how glad I am that the holidays are over. I'm ready to get back to some established routines around the house and to have the children back in school!

I went IKEA on New Year's day with a friend. That store is pure evil. Makes me want to spend money like nobody's business. But, did you know that someone has killed Elmo and Cookie Monster and is selling the furs there? It was shocking, I tell you!


I also found this cute foot cozy pillow that I have got to try and make:


Over the holiday, i also decided to pin some sweater pieces onto Endora so that I could get a better looksy at it:

This is going to be a really cool looking sweater once it gets finished. I'm calling this the 2 year sweater, cause that's how long it looks like it'll be before I get the damn thing finished.

This weekend, I took off and went to my folks house to try and help them move a server and some pc's into their home office. I failed spectacularly at just about everything that I tried to do. I got one server and one pc talking to each other and I got one pc and the internet talking to each other, but for some reason I couldn't get all of the servers, pcs and internet talking together at the same time. not good.

But I did accomplish something this weekend, I made a Golden Snitch for the Eldest:

He's a huge Potter fan now. He's only 8 years old and he's finished all of the Potter books, so I thought he'd enjoy this. We're thinking about attaching it to his ceiling fan to make it fly. We'll see. Might be pretty funny to watch him get whacked in the head with it if we do tie it on there. I guarantee he'll forget it's there and it'll happen.

Unfortunately, now he wants me to crochet a specific Pokemon character (Treecko for those "In The Know".) I'd have to make up the pattern and I'm not an accomplished pattern maker, especially in crochet. I might be able to cobble something together, but it's doubtful though.

What I did on Memorial Day Weekend

What a fabulous weekend! Why?

1. I sold a fish tank and made $200.00!

2. On Friday I sold a barbie and made $203.50!

3. I sold a giant display cooler and made $25.00!

4.Thanks to the above three things,

I ordered my new Fricke Spinning Wheel!!!!

5. I did some more knitting!

I've split the neckline and I'm working my way up.

6. In a few minutes I'm going to see a movie!

7. I did some crochet!

Barefoot Sandal! Once I get the kinks worked out, I'll post the pattern.

What a great weekend!