Mending...

I had to don my "housewife hat" again today and work on the laundry as well as picking up around the house, doing the dishes, planning dinner and such.  I also had to do a bit of mending for my niece, Z.  The sequins on her prom dress were coming undone.  So...I spent a few minutes tacking them all back down.

I posted about it on Facebook, the mending that is, and in turn I received several messages from local teenage girls asking me to do some mending for them.  Tell me...is "mending" a lost art?

Failure...

I tried out a new pattern this morning.

Something is off.  Maybe it's me.

Does this look like a newborn baby bootie?

 I don't think so.

Unless you're one of Santa's elves.

Scratch this pattern.  At least for me.

Pink Bunny

My "Auntie Burrows Rabbit" is finished.  I think the pink bunny is adorable!  I need to go shopping for some ribbon and when I do, I'll add a big, gauze bow and then the bunny will be complete.  :)

Simply Amazing!

The sky tonight is simply amazing!

Refrigerator For Sale....(just kidding)

It's turning out to be "one of those days".  I went to get a cold drink out of the refrigerator this morning and everything inside it was HOT.  Yep.  Again.  And the refrigerator is about 4 years old.  It shouldn't be giving us problems like this.  Around every 3 months the filter on the back of the refrigerator gets plugged up and we have to clean it out and defrost the refrigerator and freezer.  I tell you...it's a pain in the butt.  So today isn't just Laundry Day, it's Defrost the Refrigerator Day as well.  Darn it!!!

Laundry Fairy

Big C just left to go back to college after being home for Spring Break.  I had to make his bed and pick up mounds upon mounds of dirty clothes.  This leads me to ask..."Where is my Laundry Fairy"?

I swear...the dirty clothes around here are multiplying like rabbits!!!!!!!!!!  There's just no end to the laundry!

Laundry Day

It's Laundry Day in the Whitney Household.

I'm wearing a pair of sweatpants with holes in them, a nightgown, a pair of black socks and a pair of black panties.  Things I don't wear all the time.  lol

If it's Laundry Day in your household, what are you wearing?

New Crochet Project

Today, I'm working on a project out of this magazine.

 Here is a photo of what I have done so far.  (See Below)

I have the arms and legs left and then I can start putting it together.

 When I'm finished, I hope it looks like the photo below.  It's an Auntie Burrows Rabbit.  Except mine will be pink.

I Did It!

I did it!  I applied for admission to Missouri Valley College and hopefully, this August, I will be returning to college to finish my degree.  I only need a few classes to complete it.  After that, I'm changing my major and starting over to become an Art Teacher.  I hope.  I've been out of High School for 30 years as of May.

It seems a bit odd to be doing this, with Big C in college and Small T heading that way in a year, but I think it's finally time to go back and get it done.  My education has taken a back seat while I raised my family.  Now that they are all setting out on there own, it's "Shelly Time" once again.  :)

Softball Earwarmer - Free Pattern

I finished up the 2nd Softball Earwarmer this morning.

 I wish I had a photo of Small T wearing one of them, but she's at school.  So this will have to do for now.

These are really quick and easy to work up.  I wrote the pattern down as I made the 2nd one, so now I can share it with you.  Here you go:

Softball Earwarmer - Free Crochet Pattern

WW yarn (I used Red Heart Super Saver in Bright Yellow and also Cherry Red for the "stitches")

size H crochet hook

yarn needle for weaving in ends and for making the "stitches"

ch 72, a little looser than you normally would make your chains, join to the 1st st with a sl st, being careful not to twist the ch.

Round 1- ch 2.  hdc in each st around.  join with a sl st to the 2nd ch of the beg ch 2.

Rounds 2 thru 6 - repeat Round 1.

Round 7 - (this begins the edging) - ch 1, rev sc in each st around.  fasten off yarn, weave in ends.

Now we'll work the edging on the other side of the earwarmer.

Attach yarn in any stitch along the edge.  Ch 1, rev sc in each st around.  fasten off yarn, weave in ends.

For the red "stitches" running down the center of the earwarmer, cut a long piece of red yarn.  thread it on the yarn needle.  Using the "holes" running down the center of the earwarmer, start the stitches.

There will be 2 "holes" between the base of each stitch.  I worked the stitches as you see in the above photo, doing one side and when I finish those, I worked the other side.  When you are finished, weave in the yarn ends.
And that's the pattern.
I hope everyone enjoys this free pattern.  Feel free to make as many of these as you want for yourself or for profit.  Please don't claim the pattern as your own though.  Please link back here and give me the credit for that if you would.  :)

Softball Earwarmers

I've had several orders for these Softball Earwarmers.  I don't have a pattern for them, but just winged it as I went.  This is the first one, that I finished last night.  I have another one to make today and I'll write up the pattern as I make it.  This is a pretty popular pin on Pinterest in my area, and that's where the idea came from.  It was pretty hard to find the right color of yellow for this, and I finally had to settle on Red Heart Super Saver yarn in Bright Yellow.  I wanted something much softer for this project but couldn't find the color.  The red stitches are the color Cherry Red.  I think we can soften up the yarn if we use liquid fabric softener when we wash it.  We'll see.

RIP Max

As of Tuesday, we are without our family cat, Max.  Our neighbors dogs got hold of him, breaking a leg, biting him repeatedly, doing major damage to him, and he had to be put down.  My husband is extremely sad over this as is my non-cat-loving daughter.  It seems that a non-cat-loving family can indeed become attached to a pet that we normally wouldn't have.  RIP Max.  I'm sorry this happened to you.

Colorful Stripey Fingerless Mitts - Stashbusting For Stashaholics

I realize that Spring is here, technically, but someone really needs to tell that to Mother Nature.  It's still cold where I live and I decided to make myself a pair of Colorful Stripey Fingerless Mitts.  (free pattern can be found here)  These have been on my "to-make list" for a long time now and last night when I was searching for a quick and easy project to make, I said to myself "Shelly, it's finally time to make these" so I grabbed some yarn out of my stash and got down crocheting them up today.  These worked up fast, even with all the yarn ends to weave in.  I used some Red Heart With Love yarn in the colors Holly Berry and Pewter and a size G crochet hook.  The yarn colors will work well with our school colors this coming Fall when I'm sitting at the baseball and softball games freezing to death.  Since the yarn came out of my stash, this makes these a Stash-busting For Stashaholics project.  Yay!

Stacking Up

Monday night is one of my favorite nights for watching TV.  I watch Bones, Swamp People and Cryptid.  But, while I'm watching, I'm also working with yarn.  Last night, I spent some more time with the Turqua and Cherry Red granny squares.

My pile of finished squares is starting to really stack up.  I now have half the squares that I need for the blanket finished.  (There are 17 squares here.)  Woo Hoo!

And I have this poor little square almost done.  My 14 oz. skein of Red Heart Super Saver ran out on the last row.  But that's ok.  I went down to my yarn stash this morning and grabbed another big skein of the yarn and now I'm ready to start again.  :)

Smell It!!!

What happens when you mess with Medium J for too long?  Well, if you're Little Ty, then you get hung upside down and you get to smell your dirty track clothes!  Geez.

I guess boys will be boys.

Seeing Red....

Last night, I spent a bit of time with one of my crochet projects.  I've been doing so much knitting lately, that I've really missed the art of crochet.

 I've been making these Turqua and Red granny squares.  I had 2 finished ones plus one in progress.

Now, I have this little stack of them!!!

I had a good night with my favorite crochet hook while I was watching TV.

Imagine...

...yourself making a baby blanket and...running out of yarn...again.  That's how my morning went.

I'm using yarn out of my stash and honestly, I thought I had enough of it.  I will have to pick up one more skein of it at the store, if I can find it.  Wish me luck.

What A Morning...

It's been one heck of a morning this morning.  For someone that isn't a morning person, it's already been a long day.  It started at 4:30 a.m., with a wake-up call for Small T.  She has FFA Judging Day at Trenton and the bus left at 5:30 a.m..  OMG....I didn't even get to bed until almost 1 a.m..  I had to call in a rare set of reinforcements in the way of Grandma and her wake-up phone calls in which she calls until someone answers the phone.  Thank God for Grandma!!!

 My early morning head fogginess was dispelled by my drinking over half a pot of coffee.  Yay, coffee!!!

After a bit, I settled down with the TV and the ID channel (which was showing some of my favorite crime stories)......and also with a couple of my WIP's.  First, I worked with the pink and yellow self-striping yarn that I'm using to crochet a baby blanket.  Before I could get very far with it though, I had to spend a bit of time untangling the the stupid yarn.  I pulled a big bunch of yarn gunk out of the middle right after I started.  I swear, it seems like this happens to me a LOT.  *sigh*  However, I did manage to get a few rows in on it.   So that's a plus.

 Then, I broke out the "white knitted baby blanket" that I'm working on.  We've been spending some quality time together now that I've finished the Earth Tones Knitted Throw.

 I think I'm half way done with it at this point.  I might actually be a bit more than half way finished.  You never know.

Then, at 7 a.m., I went inside, woke up Little Ty and Big Daddy, then came out to the porch to watch the sunrise while listening to the birds chirping.  It's turning out to be a beautiful morning after all.  :)  I can't believe I actually said that!!!

Block 13 - Knit A Block A Week Challenge

This morning, I finished Block 13 of the Knit A Block A Week Challenge.  I'm a little bit ahead of the challenge at this point, but I'll be back behind before I know it.  That's how it usually works.  This block is made using Caron's Simply Soft yarn in the color Bone.

Block 12 - Knit A Block A Week Challenge

Last night, I finished Block 12 of the Knit A Block A Week Challenge.  This one is made of Caron's Simply Soft yarn in the color Woodland Heather.

Here Piggy Piggy

Once again, I have a pig in my yard.  Cute, right?  And well behaved too.  My neighbor's pig escaped and came to visit this afternoon.  No, I don't live in the country.  I do, however, live in a rural farming community, but I live inside the city limits, a block away from City Hall.  This little pig belongs to the neighbors down the street.  It's their pet.

Block 11 - Knit A Block A Week Challenge

Last night, I finished Block 11 of the Knit A Block A Week Challenge.  I'm using the same basic pattern for each block.  This square was made using Caron's Simply Soft yarn in Off White.

Block 10 - Knit A Block A Week Challenge

Block 10 of the Knit A Block A Week Challenge was made with Caron's Simply Soft yarn in Lavender Blue.  I'm using the same pattern that I used for the other blocks.  I cast 40 stitches onto size 8 knitting needles.  I knitted 65 rows, then cast off.

Apple Blossoms - Stashbusting for Stashaholics

Back in January, I used some small balls of Grey Heather and White (Caron's Simply Soft) yarn to make up a bunch of little Apple Blossoms.  The pattern can be found here.  I've had them in my yarn bag all this time because I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with them.  Saturday, I got my jar of sticks down from the top of my corner cabinet in the dining room and attached the apple blossoms to the sticks.  I also attached some pom poms I had made as well, but later, Small T took them off, saying that the apple blossoms by themselves looked much better.  Since I used the yarn out of my stash, this project is a Stashbusting for Stashaholics project.  :)

Earth Tones Knitted Throw - Stashbusting for Stashaholics

I finished the Earth Tones Knitted Throw this past Friday.  As always, it felt great to get it done.  

Medium J is holding it up for the photo.  It looks smaller than what it is though, since Medium J is pretty tall.  The blanket fits me perfectly.

To make the blanket, I cast 125 stitches on my circular needle.

I knitted the blanket in blocks of color, which was 10 rows per color.  After 2 blocks of color, I then added a block of Aran.

Starting from the bottom, here is the color sequence:

Coffee

Medium Thyme

Aran

Burgundy

Pewter

Aran

Blue Suede

Buff

Aran

Carrot

Cornmeal

Aran

Burgundy

Medium Thyme

Aran

Carrot

Cornmeal

Aran

Pewter

Blue Suede

Aran

Buff

Coffee

Aran

Burgundy

Carrot

Aran

Medium Thyme

Cornmeal

There are 290 knitted rows in this throw...or 29 blocks of color.  

I've used 9 different colors (and skeins) of Red Heart Super Saver yarn.  I didn't need a whole skein of any color, although the skein of Aran was a large one instead of the regular size skein.  

Two of the skeins I bought new - Cornmeal and Buff.  The other 7 skeins of yarn came out of my yarn stash.  That makes this throw a Stashbusting for Stashaholics project!  Yay!

MIA

I can't believe it's been 10 whole days since my last post.  Wow!  Time sure has gotten away from me lately.  We've had a lot going on around here and the days haven't been nearly long enough to get it all done.  Three members of the family have been sick.  Big C came home from college so we could take him to the clinic.  Big Daddy and Small T have also been ill.  There have been a lot of doctor appointments in our schedule.  I've also been subbing at the school some and we've had a lot of school activities in the evenings.  Even though it's only March, you can tell that school is nearing the end of the year because the evening activities have really stepped up their pace.

I was lucky enough to have an overnight visit from my mom and my sister, Lea.  Lea is the next youngest under me.  I'm the 3rd kid, she's the 4th.  Lea and Mom were here to attend a funeral (along with the rest of us).  Our cousin passed away and even though our dads (who were brothers) had a lot of kids each, we really don't have any extended family.  So when there's a problem, we all band together, even when we haven't seen each other in ages, which was the case here.

We're still going for prom dress fittings and alterations.  This is Small T at the last appointment, which was the day my mom and sister were travelling to our house.  Small T looks so grown up here.  It saddens me a bit.  Every time I look at her here, I get very emotional and think that one day, she'll be getting ready for her wedding.  Where does the time go?  Just yesterday, she was that little girl sitting in her high chair.

My niece, Z, came for a visit and she tried her prom dress on while she was here.  She loves it, by the way.  It's a good thing that Prom is on April 5th for her, as we just found out she's going to have a baby and she's got a tummy pooch starting already.  She's had a lot of issues in the past few weeks and she's running my sister, Annie, ragged.  But things have finally settled down now and I think Z will be ok.  All it takes is a good OB/GYN to answer some questions and lay to rest a few fears that a young, newly pregnant, girl will have.

I blogged about teaching my sister, Annie, to knit.  It's a good thing I did.  I posted before that she had finished her first knitted block, which is shown above.

She's also finished a 2nd block (above) as well as a 3rd, which I don't have a photo of yet.  Knitting has become her stress reliever and now she'll have 9 more months of extra stress with her daughter pregnant.  Z's still in high school, goes to vo-tech to their CNA program, works a full time job, and was kicked out of her dad's house at Christmas.  The girl has some high stress going on and her mom is finally having to handle a lot of it herself.

Big Daddy's truck has had some health problems again.  After attending my cousin's funeral, Big Daddy and I were headed out of town to see my biological dad, who was in kidney failure, in a big hospital several hours away.  We ran over a piece of re-bar sticking out of the pavement on the highway and ended up spending 5 hours with Roadside Assistance in an attempt to get the spare tire out from under the bottom of the truck.  The mechanism that lowers the tire malfunctioned and in the end, it had to be beaten off the truck and then out of the tire.  It was a horrible 5 hours but the Roadside Assistance guy was the best!!!  He never gave up!  And there was also an older gentleman that stopped to help us and if it hadn't been for him, we'd have still be sitting there in the parking lot of Wal-Mart, outside the Tire Center (who refused to help us after telling Roadside Assistance to tow the truck there and and that they would help get it fixed ... and then we turned the tire center guy in to the Manager who couldn't believe that their guy would do that since it's against company policy....imagine that!!!)  In the end, with the help of these two guys (but not the tire center guy), we got back on the road at about 9:20 pm. My biological dad was still expecting us to show up.  So we did.

I have been half-heartedly working on my blocks for the Knit A Block A Week Challenge.  I finished Block 10, which is shown above.  It's made with Caron's Simply Soft yarn in Lavender Blue.

Here's a photo of the first 10 blocks I've made.  Seeing them all together gives me a little boost to keep on going with this challenge.  So...

I started Block 11 last night.  I'm using Caron's Simply Soft yarn in Off White.  I'm only a little bit behind with my blocks at this point.  I think I should already be done with Block 11 but I will try to get some time with it today.  I'm a little confused with how many blocks I need to do per month as my March calendar is a bit wonky as far as how many actual weeks there are.  Or maybe I'm just having a "duh" moment and can't figure it out.  Which is probably what is happening.

I finished the Earth Tones knitted throw on Friday.  I am so happy with how it turned out.  This is a Stash Buster project for me, so I'll be blogging about it separately as well as here.

I finally took the apple blossoms and pom poms I made back in January (blogged about here) and tied them to my "sticks".  Small T took the pom poms off and said it looks better.  This is a Stash Buster project too, so I will blog about it separately as well.

While sitting in the various hospitals, I have had plenty of time to look at magazines (which I love to do).  I found a lot of things that made me drool.  Take this "tree" for instance.  It's a Christmas themed tree.  Hard to believe, right?  But it's just gorgeous!!!

I love the little painted pine cones and the little fabric acorns and the stars are cute too!  I seriously want one of these in my own home!!!

Then I found this...it's simply captivating!  But what I really like about the photo is the piece hanging from the ceiling of her porch.  I think it's a dragon.  In fact, I'm sure of it.  I could see this hanging in my home somewhere even though my family would think I was crazy.

Next up is this quilt.  I just love it!!!  I was actually thinking of trying to crochet something similar.  Hmmm...the possibilities!

Yesterday evening, I sat down with my upstairs yarn stash and my basket of projects and got them all sorted out.  I wrote down my list of WIP's and also my list of things to do, and then I spent a bit of time updating my Crochet Mood Blanket.  I'm glad I have been keeping a journal because it sure came in handy in getting this updated.  Speaking of my journal, I'm on the 4th book so far.  Sounds good, right?  Well, it's kind of become my journal of everything.  I keep all my craft project notes, my daily journal entries, my recipes, etc. all in these books.  That's why I'm going through so many books so far.

And last, but not least, last night while we were watching TV and I was crocheting, Big Daddy made us some "surprise" milk shakes.  Mine was caramel.  Yum!  We seldom have this type of treat and it was GREAT!  Thanks Big Daddy!

So...there's a few bits and pieces of the last 10 days.  I hope you enjoyed it.  :)