MORE of my Grandmother's Yarn!

 We've done some spring cleaning & rearranging the last few weeks.  I changed the comforter & pillows on our bed to our summer bedspread & linens.  I even changed the painting above the bed... part of my "bad art" collection.  I'll have to share that in another post!

The curtains are a little dark.  Last summer I just took them off, not sure what I'm gonna do this year.

Even though it's spring the nights are still cold and I need a little something more over my feet.    Plus the cat likes to sleep on the bottom of the bed & I don't really want her to lay on the white bedspread.

None of my throws really went with the new colors and the afghan I made last year had a lot of dark colors & it looks more fall-ish than spring-ish.

Then I got Romantic Homes magazine in the mail...

This afghan inspired me to get out my box of yarn.  Yes... I still have yarn from my grandmother's box of yarn!  And other skeins that I have collected along the way.  This afghan is the same idea as the ones I made last year.  Just stripes of colors & some different stitches.  

 Here are the colors I came up with.  I do think I need to get a different red.  My grandmother LOVED bright colors and this red may be a little too bright for my color scheme.

So far I have two rows crocheted.  Y'all keep asking me how much I have done so I'll keep going.  lol...

All photos taken on my iPhone!  I was too lazy to get my camera out.

Crocheted Baby Hats

 I'm gonna have a new niece soon!!!  These photos are for my sister to pick out the hat she wants little Sarah (with an "h" or not?) to wear home from the hospital.  I'm thinking pink!  I also have some more masculine colors.  I think little Eli might need a hat, too.  :-)

Granny Stripes

I was browsing my favorite blogs yesterday when I saw this post on Attic 24.  She wrote about crocheting a Granny 'Stripe' afghan instead of Granny 'Squares'.  Mine is similar to the one she made.  Very easy.  It's the one I do while I watch TV 'cause I don't have to count.  I may finish it by next winter.  Jenn & Marion sent us some of Margie's things when they were cleaning up her apartment.  This is one of the things they sent:

I don't remember her crocheting many afghans.  She has told me she used to crochet all the time and would like to do it again.  We've tried, but she has trouble with it.  I think she made a washcloth while she was still with us.

One more photo... I showed you some of the skeleton key necklaces I listed in my Etsy shop.  Here's the one I made for Jordy.  The beads are from some of my grandmother's old necklaces.  I ended up with a box of broken necklaces that belonged to her.  Now they're gonna be worn by the next generations, too!

BTW, you still have time to enter my Cottage Charm giveaway.  Leave a post on the original post and I'll be drawing a name on May 29th.

What is Felting?

Yesterday I shared this photo on Facebook of my cat laying next to a felted dryer ball.   Jenn asked me what "felted" meant.  Here's a definition I found online:

"What is Felt? Very simply, felt is matted wool. Wool becomes felt when it is subjected to moisture, heat, and pressure. (In fact, if domestic sheep were not shorn, over time their wool would felt or "cot".) Hot soapy water makes the wool slippery, and causes tiny scales on the fiber to "open up". The scales prevent the fibers from backing up again after they slide across each other; with agitation, the fibers get hopelessly tangled together. When cooled and dried, the scales close and lock the wool into the tough, durable material we call felt."

Here's a close up of the felted dryer balls I made last year.  It's a lot of fun to make them.  Just roll 100% wool yarn in a small, tight ball.  Stick in a pair of panty hose.  Tie a knot before adding another ball.  I used an old pair of knee highs & put about 4 balls in each one.  Then run them through the washer & dryer with several loads of your clothes.  Hot water & a hot dryer temp are good, too.  After doing that a few times the yarn will start to look like felt & all stick together.  Then you can take them out of the panty hose & use them in your dryer to fluff up your clothes.

I've also run a few old wool sweaters through the washer & dryer.  Just getting ready for some projects.  But I haven't made any yet.  I've bought some fun old wool sweaters at the thrift store for $1-3 that I wouldn't mind cutting apart.

I did buy this book with lots of ideas of felted things to make.  I love Betz White's books & her blog.  Lots of really cute ideas!  

More Crocheted Afghans

OK, Blogger is letting me upload my photos today! This was the last afghan I crocheted. It's just a throw blanket size. I'm still using up bits of my grandmother's yarn & I save all the bits leftover from my gloves to use in these, too. There's no pattern at all... just the same stitch over & over. I think of these as my American Idol blankets because I can crochet, watch, and talk about the show at the same time without losing track of where I am. :-)

Here's the one I made for Jordy last year. It's the biggest one I've made.
And I forgot to take a picture of Lauren's before I gave it to her. This is the best picture I could find of it. lol... (Lauren, take a picture of the whole blanket when you get a chance & send it to me. Thanks.)
That pattern came from this book -- another of my favorites!!!

280 Crochet Shell Patterns

I have more crocheted afghan photos but Blogger isn't letting me upload them right now. So since several people have asked about the last afghan I showed I thought I'd show you where I found the pattern. It's from one of my favorite crochet books - 280 Crochet Shell Patterns by Leisure Arts. I love shell patterns because it's just the same thing over & over. Nice to do while we watch TV... I don't have to think too much about it.

I'll try uploading the photos again tomorrow. It's almost time for our Monday night TV shows and that's my crochet time. :-)

We Love Color

Here's what Jordy & I were working on tonight. I think we're ready for Spring!

Texting Gloves & a Pair of Legwarmers

Jo & Kristen modeled my fingerless gloves for me this weekend and I got them listed in my crochet Etsy shop. It was a lot of fun & their pictures turned out great.

Jo was also wearing the pair of legwarmers that I made for her.

Snow and My Very Popular Fingerless Gloves

The relatives in Montana are probably going to get a good laugh out of this post. But this was really exciting for California. We had snow down to the 200 foot level in places. Usually it only snows on top of Mt. Diablo and we just have to look at it. But there was even a little flurry when I came home from work yesterday. The picture above is Jo's school and the foothills behind it. I love this photo 'cause you can see the palm tree in front of the snow.
When I went through the snow/sleet/rain mix on the way home yesterday I called Jo to see if she wanted a ride but she was already home. She wanted to drive around so I picked her up & we drove to Clayton. The picture above is Mt. Diablo, but you can't even see it for the low clouds. In fact, all these are just the foothills. It was too cloudy to see the top. Glenn has photos from earlier in the day on his Facebook if you want to see them.

Jo's getting a pretty good aim. I heard she hit Stephen with a snowball at school & she would have hit me with this one if I hadn't stepped out of the way.
And here's a picture of my gloves. Every time I wear these I have someone else ask me to make them a pair. So, between that and the other things I'm making for Christmas (some of them were requested, too) I may not be blogging much. Yes, I'm having people ASK me to crochet things for them for Christmas... so there, Ebay! There are still a few items in my Crochet shop and lots of ornaments in my original shop.

Red, White, & Blue Swap

Since my partner should have received her package by now I'll share photos of what I sent her.  I found some vintage paper banners at my favorite thrift shop.  I made a little collage with an old bingo card, postcard, label, & some other goodies.
Red, white, & blue washcloths:
And an American flag tag.

Self-Striping Yarn

My sister asked me about this so I thought I'd show a picture of the washcloths I've been making with the Sugar 'n Cream self-striping yarn.  
I didn't change colors on any of these.  This is the natural way the yarn comes out.  Look here to see all the colors.  I wish our local store had more of them.  The 2 versions I got are the only 2 they had.  I would have liked to make some red/white/blue ones for July and maybe red/white/green ones for Christmas gifts.  If anyone finds any, let me know!
These have been the only crafts I've done the last few weeks.  The repeated patterns are the only thing my brain can handle after work, housework, & wedding stuff.  :-)
Oh, and here's a book I ordered for Jo today.  She saw it yesterday in B&N & wanted to try sewing some things from it:

My Crocheted Swiffer Duster

Look what I crocheted!  I found the pattern here and I think my eyelash novelty yarn is going to work even better than the original.  

My Swiffer's Sweater

So, after telling y'all I had a new crochet pattern book & I wanted to make something out of it I did start another crochet project... but not from the book!  I was out of Swiffer mop refills and found this pattern online.  It's a good thing I took a picture before I used it.  You wouldn't want to see it after just being used once.  Those ridges really picked up the dust balls & hairs!  
If you sew, but don't crochet, here's a pattern for a mop cover made from old t-shirts.  You can also buy them on Etsy.  Here's one made of flannel.  And here are some that are crocheted, but a little different style than mine.  Here's one with aliens on it!

My New Crochet Book

I haven't done any crocheting since I finished my pillow.  But I did buy a new book of crochet patterns!  It has 30 different stitches that all look pretty easy.  But for each stitch it shows 3 different color combinations to make them look completely different.  I can already see more pillows with some of these stitches & others would look great as scarves.  I may pull out some yarn and start something tonight.  Stay tuned...

Latest Projects...

Happy Memorial Day!  Lauren's back home now & we all had a day off so the whole family (including the adopted dd) went to Ikea and Michael's then came back home to start work on wedding invitations.  Karen also came over with a sample of the bridesmaids dress for Jo to try on.  We've got a lot to do!  I recently finished some projects that I haven't shared with you yet.  Here's the first.  I call this my "TV pillow".    Last week was the season finale for all of the TV shows that we watch.  I am usually doing something else while we're watching TV.  This last year it was usually crocheting.  The last few weeks it was this pillow.

I switched our bed over to our 'summer linens' last week & thought I needed a new throw pillow.  These are still a few of Great's leftovers, plus some other 100% cotton pieces.  I'm using up a lot of scraps.  Here's another good recycled project:
Lauren had a lot of maps so I cut up some of the doubles and torn ones into 4" squares, glued them onto a canvas, & aged it a little.  I still need to paint the edges.  I tried to use pieces of maps that showed places we've actually been, or that our missionaries are living in.

Here are the covers to the 4x6 albums that I made for SE & G'ma.  I still need a baby picture for Lynne!
One more photo... Glenn got kicked out of his office/studio when Lauren came back home.  So he went to the thrift store, found a little desk, & made himself a mini-office in the corner of the living room.
Hope everyone had a great holiday.  I have my regular day off tomorrow so I think Lauren & I will do a little more wedding shopping and let her apply for some more jobs!

Dryer Balls

I know I've blogged about my dryer balls before.  Well, after using them for 2-3 years one is missing and the other one split in half last week.  I thought about buying new ones because I do like them.  I don't use fabric softener because of allergies.  Then I remembered seeing some homemade felted wool dryer balls on Etsy.  After looking at them and almost buying them I wondered if I could make them myself.  I found this website that shows how to make them.  I had several partial skeins of wool yarn & several old pair of pantyhose that I didn't mind parting with.  Here's what I came up with...FREE dryer balls!

One of the wool skeins was from Great's stash.  And I still have some of her cotton yarn, too.  I made these several weeks ago using yarn from a couple of big cones.  Just finished them off last night and put them in the mail to Baby Bekah.  Maybe her momma will scrub her off with these.

And these are in the mail to Michigan.  The tan ones are organic cotton that I bought with my 50% off coupon.