Wristwarmer

I just finished a pair of wristwarmers for the Cold Hands, Warm Heart CAL at Crochetville, well almost. I still have the fun fur trim to finish on one. I got the pattern here and I really like them because you can whip out a pair in almost no time at all. They were a little plain though when I tried them on so I got some Lion Brand Fun Fur in a coordinating color and crocheted a fun fur trim around the wrist, hand and thumbholes. I like them a lot better now:


I think I'll be making some more of these.

Almost done

The room I've been cleaning on is almost done, all I need to do is get Ricky to move the old computer junk and other stuff out for me then do a little more rearranging. It's almost time for after pics and anyone who's seen the before pics here will be surprised-scroll down a few posts. Where once you couldn't walk in without stumbling over something now there's almost nothing at all on the floor and the center of the room is clean, except for running the vacuum. The ironing board has been cleaned of the stuff I put on it while picking through stuff, been folded and is leaning against the wall, all the stuff I thought I wanted to keep is in a box in the closet floor and the guitar equipment is towards the back of the room instead of the middle. All my yarn, thread and stuff is either in a box in the closet, in a tote under the milk crates or in the milk crates except for the stuff still in my bedroom, living room and dining room. I'll get to those when I get to the rooms to clean.

I wonder if I subconciously don't want company and that is why I keep such a cluttered up house....

Pack Rats Anonymous

I posted a couple of posts ago about how I was a pack rat so I figured I might as well advertise the fact. I was looking for a pack rat picture on Google so I could make a button and also came across a website called Pack Rats Anonymous. I don't have time right now to explore it but since I'm a pack rat I thought I'd also link to the site since I am using part of their picture in my button, it's only fair, right?

I don't think I'll join, I just thought I'd link to the page since I was using their pic, there's no cure for me, I've been a pack rat for much too long ;)

Anyway, if anyone else is a pack rat too click the button on the sidebar and have a looksee at PRA ;) and if you want, grab the button and advertise the fact on your own blog:

*YAWN*

I woke about 5 this morning and Ricky told me to go wake BJ up-he had to be at work by 6 and since he's living here temporarily it'll take him an hour to get to work. Thankfully that will only last about a month until he moves to his USM dorm. He had already got up and left, never hurts to make sure though.

I really don't want to get back in that room and clean anymore but if I don't it'll never get done-I'm the world's laziest when it comes to cleaning and I have my grandmother's pack rat tendencies. At least I got all the junk out, it's just a matter of setting the trash bags out for the trash men to get today and rearranging all the stuff still in there. Still I'm tired and have a crick in my neck so I don't feel like doing anything. Once I get in there I'll be ok cause once I start something I usually try to finish-except crochet/knitting for some reason-go figure.

Guess I better get going, I have to go to town in a bit for a couple of things.

At least I'm getting a good start on transforming the room into my crochet/knit room.

I'm very tired now

I knew there was a lot of junk in that room, I just wasn't aware how much until I started cleaning this morning-the hazards of being a pack rat, I suppose. I still have a lot of organizing to do in there and there's some things that Ricky will have to throw in his truck and take off for me but the biggest part is done.

I thought I'd show what the crates on the wall look like, they're almost full of the yarn I've been buying lately, most of it is for projects I have ongoing but some of it was just because I liked it. I usually buy RHSS because it's just about all W-M sells. They have some Mainstays and a few Simply Soft and Lion Brand. I have a LYS but their prices are way out of my league. The yarn I've had for years has been organized for the most part either into boxes or totes. I have a couple of boxes full of stuff that needs to be frogged and I still have quite a bit of tangles stuff to untangle but when it's all done I'll have quite a stash, even though most of it is quite old. As long as it can still be crocheted or knitted then it's still worth having. I'm also going to try scrumbling sometime or other so all the little bits will come in handy. One of the bins is pretty full of Bernat Frenzy that I've been snatching up while W-M has it on clearance. $1.94 a ball is pretty good for that stuff and it makes nice scarves.

Anyway, pay no attention to the stuff still underneath the bins, like I said, I'm not through organizing yet ;)

Milk crates aren't just for milk anymore

I've had these milk crates for a long time, years even and usually they become a catchall of stuff that can usually be thrown out. I've been cleaning the front bedroom out so we'll have room to store some of my son's stuff that he can't have in his dorm room in there and I had 5 of them, 2 of them crammed with stuff that mostly got thrown out. I'm not saying how many 30 gallon trash bags I have filled so far from that room but the trash man will probably wonder what's going on ;)

Anyway I got some nails and nailed 4 of the crates along one wall where I found 4 studs and nailed the 5th one under the first one I nailed up. I started putting my skeins of yarn that still had wrappers on them in the crates and I have a lot of that although most of it is slated for various projects I have going on. I plan on separating the skeins without wrappers into boxes according to whether they can remain a skein or if I'll have to wind them, it will depend on if they're tangled or not. The room is still a big mess but only because I haven't organized what's in there, most of the trash is gone except for some stuff I can't get to until I start organizing.

So I guess I best get to organizing while I feel like it, huh?

The CAL is on the move

Looks like I had some takers for the Cathedral Window CAL, now to get started on a page for it. I have a free account at ASP with plenty of space. I can host pictures at Image Shack so I don't use up space at ASP.

I'm still scratching my head over the design and how to do the picture page so I'll be playing in MSFrontPage. I code my own stuff and I don't let MS code it for me but it is a good program to play with HTML then I can just C&P the code over to ASP when I get it right. The only gripe I have about ASP is the timeout if you're idle for a certain length of time, and when you're writing code in the code block you're still idle. It's much easier to write the code, tweak it then C&P it to ASP than to risk losing it by losing track of time.

Anyway, be on the lookout for the new page sometime within the next week or so.

Now I know I'm off my rocker

I just posted a new thread in the Crochet Along forum at Crochetville to do the Cathedral Window Afghan. I can host it at a site I have so that isn't a problem, the only problem will be if there are any takers.

I did make a button, just in case:

Back from yarn shopping

And other stuff. I found some pretty colors in RH to do the Cathedral Window in so I guess I don't have a choice.

My colors are:

Mainstays:

I got my black and white in that to save some money, every little bit helps around here.

RHSS:

Lt Varigated:

Monet

Dk Varigated:

Plum Pudding

Here's a pic, the black is on the bottom and kind of hard to see:

Totally off my rocker

But it's such a gorgeous afghan! Cathedral Window

I've acquired this pattern and I'm going yarn shopping today. Not that I don't already have enough to keep me busy, but I've also heard this thing is a bear to make. I've also heard it's totally worth the frustration when you get it made. It's huge-around 6'6" diameter. I'll just have to work on it a little at a time until I get some other stuff done-yeah, right, how many times have I already said that? LOL

Anyway, that thing is just too pretty not to make so I'm going to give it a shot. Hopefully I can find the purples I'm looking for, if not my second choice is blues.

I'm getting it bad

And I don't need a cure......or do I? ;)

It's gotten to where I can be doing the most ordinary things and see something and think "I can do that in crochet" or "I wonder what that would look like in crochet"

Ordinary things like tank tops, bags, whatever. The latest was when I was using the restroom at a pool party and saw a mesh bag hanging on a hook and thought "I bet I can crochet that" It was made out of some kind of plastic screen stuff with cloth handles. It was lime green with pink handles.

Is there even a cure for this?

Do I even care?

Not really and maybe someday I will crochet something that pops into my head like that.

Just wanted to get that off my chest before I went to bed.

Baby crochet

A lady in our church is pregnant and I wanted to make her something other than a blanket, clothes or anything that is normally crocheted for babies. A newbie to Crochetville was asking for suggestions and someone else suggested a portable diaper changing pad done in the potholder stitch. I don't like holding the piece the way the tutorial describes, it slows down my progress so I hold it like I always hold my crochet projects and just crochet through the back lp and next loop below, I get the same results and it goes almost as fast as doing plain sc.

I found a partial cone of some Peaches n Cream cotton yarn and I'm trying this with that. I'll have to wash it when I'm done to make sure it's clean and sanitary but it's coming along pretty well. I'm using a size J hook and ch 56 to have 55 sc across the narrow end. I'm figuring at least 30" long should be long enough and I'll be putting a tie on one end so it can be rolled up and tied for portability.

She looks like she's pretty far along and I haven't heard when her shower is yet so I'm trying to hurry with this, now that I have the stitch down (after frogging a couple of times cause I lost a st somewhere) I should be able to have this done fairly quickly.

She's my former sister in law's niece so I wanted to do something I hadn't done for anyone else, this sounded like something special.

Now that I've got the stitch down I might be making some potholders from some old yarn I have lying around, no more making two squares and joining them together. For functional potholders this stitch is great.

Another shrug

I've started another shrug, this one is from a frogged sweater. I frogged the sweater awhile back and wasn't sure what I was going to make with it and this morning it spoke to me and said it wanted to be a shrug. It won't be exactly like the one I just did although I'll be using the same stitch-a V stitch, it's easy and works up fast. The pic I'm posting is the start of the sleeve, I don't know if I'll try to finish or put it up until I do a few more roses but I just wanted to start it.

If you can't see it, the yarn is a light blue and I think I have enough to make a shrug with longer sleeves and still be able to add the ruffle. I'm hoping I can make it a little looser too, I made the starting circle a bit bigger so that should help. I might make the back a bit bigger too. I'm not sure exactly how long I want the sleeves yet, but I'm thinking maybe ¾ length, we'll see, that seems to be the length the yarn is telling me to make it so that's probably what I'll do.

Here's the pic, FWIW:



At least it's helping me with one of my crochetalongs, the Recycled Yarnalong ;)

Finished shrug

I just finished the shrug I started yesterday. I wanted to finish last night but the Voyager DVD we were watching was really interesting, we're into season 7 and it's really good. I don't think we ever saw season 7 when it first ran so these eps are new to me.

Anyway the shrug turned out better than I thought. It fits snugly, which is ok, I want to wear it over some of my sleeveless dresses to church so my shoulders will stay warm when the building A/C is working a little too well.

I can't tell you the name of any of the colors, there was no label and like I said in my earlier post I've had this yarn for a long time now, it's just now told me what it wanted to be so there it is. The ruffle kind of gives it a more sophisticated look, I think. I didn't want just the shrug, I wanted it to come a little more around to my front and I knew I didn't have enough of those yarns to get it all the way across my big bust so I think this is a good compromise.

Anyway, here's the pic. I took them with my webcam so they aren't the best. I had to shrink them down a lot to get them to not look fuzzy and the color isn't the best but here it is:



The colors are teal and a varigated in purples, darker teals and navy mostly.

I jumped on

The shrug bandwagon. It's surprising how fast these little things work up. I picked up a couple of skeins of yarn that I've had for *mumble, mumble* too long. One is a very pretty turquoise yarn and kind of soft, there's only a partial skein of it. The other is a varigated in mostly purples and teals. I had a full 3-3½ oz skein of the varigated and thought I had another so I set out to start the shrug this morning. I used the turquoise to start the sleeve then switched to the varigated when I got to the body. When I got low on the varigated I looked around for the other skein I thought I had and couldn't find it. I knew I had some more of this color somewhere and finally found it, in a throw I was going to frog anyway since I didn't have enough of any of the colors in it to finish it and wouldn't be able to get them anywhere either, that's how long I've had this yarn.

Anyway, I frogged the throw back to where I could get the varigated off and it's about another full skein so I rolled it up, now to see about finishing it.

I'm thinking about doing something with the sleeves, I left them short but they're kinda plain so I'm going to scratch my head about what I'm going to do with them. I'm also going to be getting another color that coordinates with all the ones I'm already using and make a little shawl collar on it too. I'm hoping to finish before Sunday so I can wear it to church, it should be just right for keeping my shoulders warm, they keep the temp a little chilly in there.

Anyway, let's get back to shrugging along ;)

Update on the Roses afghan

I figure I might get it done faster if I post progress on it.

I just finished the last of the orange roses I need for it. I finished the yellow ones earlier this morning.

Now all I have left are the lilac, pink, white and red ones to do then there's turning the roses into squares and putting them together. I'll be crocheting them together, to me it's faster and makes the afghan stronger plus I hate sewing squares together and won't unless there's no other way.

Another update will come when I finish another color, think I'll go with lilac.

It's a hit

Seems a lot of people like my little thread thingie. Others have said they use old milk jugs or coffee canisters or paper towel holders. All of those are good ideas as long as they keep the thread contained.

I do have to make a modification on the thingie, a big ball of thread (like Aunt Lydia's Big Ball) won't sit on it freely, it's just a bit too short. I'm thinking about a couple of ways to modify it without taking it apart that should work, or I'll just use my paper towel holder, no one seems to want to hang paper towels on it anyway. I'm working on an idea anyway and holding 2 threads together, the paper towel holder should hold both balls for me. That way I won't have to do any cutting on my other one, I can just use my paper towel holder.

That was another good idea, Michelle ;)

I made a thread thingie

I got this idea about a week or so ago and Saturday when me and Jen had to run to Fred's for some more cleaning supplies for the church I got what I needed.

I made a thingie to hold my balls of thread while I'm crocheting. I bought a toilet paper roll holder for about $4 from Freds and got a piece of a 2x6 from church. They were throwing a lot of old lumber and stuff away so I figured they wouldn't mind if I snitched that little piece. I rescued it from the dump, right?

Anyway, I finally got everything out a little while ago and put it together and tried it out. It works! The ball of thread is off the ground and rolls freely on the holder. I'm sure it's not perfect but it's a lot better than it rolling around the floor or something.

I just wanted to show it off. I would have done it yesterday but after scrubbing 3 swimming pools I could barely lift a hook, much less a screwdriver.

I'm probably going to paint it later, don't have any so I'll have to hit the dollar store and see what they have.

BTW, whoever's in the Doily Swap, that's a sneak preview of the doily I'm making, hope whoever gets me likes it.

That didn't take long

After almost 2 balls of Frenzy the scarf is done. It hangs just below the bust on both sides and is just about the length I wanted to make it. It's so soft I'm going to have to make me one too in one of the other colors I have. I hope she likes it.

I'm definitely getting some more of this to play with if they still have it when I get more money.

Here's the pic:

Frenzy scarf

I'm working on a scarf for my secret pal at church out of some of that Frenzy I just bought. It's turning out pretty good, I'm using a MAM pattern from a book of MAM afghans I have. It's really just nothing but V sts with a dc on each end, very easy to do. I don't want the scarf to be one of those mile long things, just something to wear with her outfits or in cool weather to keep her neck warm. It should do that pretty well, it's soft and cozy feeling with just a little prickliness to it.

I never really looked closely at the label of this yarn before because I've never bought it, price was just too high for 50g of it. I looked at this one and this is what Frenzy is made of:

37% nylon
30% acrylic
12% polyester
10.5% alpaca
10.5% mohair

No wonder it normally costs almost $5 for 50g, with alpaca and mohair in it.

I guess our W-M must be discontinuing it since they've marked it down to $1.94. I'm hoping to get more if I get some more extra money, doesn't really look like anyone's buying anything in the discount buggy, or they have loads of the yarn they've discounted because the buggy is always full when I see it.

They also have some Lion Brand bouclé and some Bernat Galaxy yarn there, if it's $1.94 I might get some of that too.