Crafty Boosie

I’m still working on the Irish Hiking Scarf and will be for a while so I doubt I’ll have any else happening until it is done.  I am one of those people who don’t keep a bunch of works in progress.  I generally try to stick to one or two projects at a time.  I currently have the scarf, three popsicle toys and a pair of pjs in progress.

This is my progress on the scarf as of this morning.  It is coming along, albeit slowly.  I generally only work on projects while Paige is sleeping because she is far too active during the day to get anything done.  The scarf is turning out beautifully.  I’m absolutely in love with it.  I usually give away most things or make them for my daughter but I think I might just keep this one for myself.  I haven’t decided yet.

I also have three popsicle toys crocheted.  All I need to do is stuff, sew shut and put on the face.  I really don’t know why I haven’t finished this yet.  It’s not like me to get it nearly done and then stop.  I’ve been having trouble focusing lately which leads to my last WIP.  I have a pair of fleece pj bottoms cut out but haven’t sewn them.  I decided that I want to embellish them before I sew them up but I can’t decide how I want to embellish them so they are sitting on my sewing desk waiting.  I can’t decide between a flower, a butterfly or a heart.  I do know that I’d like to use some sequins and that requires a trip to Michaels so it will be a while before that project gets finished.  Naturally, by the time I finish it the weather will likely be too warm for her to wear them.  LOL.  That sounds about par for the course.

Having three WIPs is a lot for me.  Hrm… well actually I have another WIP but I’ve shelved it for now.  The quilt using Papa’s clothes.  I have the shirts all cut up and ready but I’m struggling with continuing on it.  It is a very emotional project and too hard to work on right now.  I’ve put it on hold and I’ll see how I feel about it this summer or fall.  Every time I see the bags of fabric I get all misty-eyed and know it is too soon.

This weekend, I had a lot of fun crocheting toys for my daughter.  She came to me and asked if I could make her a popsicle toy.  I tried to tell her that I wasn’t sure if I knew how.  She thought about it for a minute and then told me I had to try.

I started with this little green guy.  It wasn’t until I finished that I realized that I would have liked it better the other direction.  It looked upside-down to me.  Upon seeing it, my daughter announced that she needed more: blue, yellow, purple, pink and red.  Yikes!  That’ll keep me busy!  I found the free pattern on Ravelry.  I modified the pattern a little bit but at least it gave me an idea of what to do.  After seeing the pictures on the pattern, my daughter decided it needed cheeks.  I didn’t photograph the pictures of the cheeks I added to the green one but they are there.

Next, I made the blue one.  Paige picked out the yarn herself.  I like how this one turned out.  The shape was better, the mouth looked a little better too.  My only disappointment with it are the eyes.  I accidentally sewed one one backwards.  Oops!  Thankfully, my daughter doesn’t care.  She loves it.

As soon as I finished the blue popsicle toy, Paige immediately started asking about the yellow one.  I made 4 attempts with the yellow one but had to give up for the day.  Every time I tried counting stitches, my daughter would come “help” me but she would go too fast and cause me to lose count.  HAHA.  I had to take it apart so many times I gave up temporarily.

Around 4pm, my daughter developed a fever.  She had a nasty cough all day but it turned into something terrible by the late afternoon.  I spent the evening taking care of her, my poor thing.  After she was in bed, I ended up working on a completely different project.  I found a tutorial for a really adorable Amigurumi Tea Cup Pincushion and decided to give it a try.

I absolutely love how it turned out.  It’s soooo cute!  Unfortunately, my daughter found it on my desk this morning and confiscated it for herself so I removed the pins and now it is her newest toy.  LOL.

Fifteen minutes after confiscating the pincushion, she began asking me about the yellow popsicle.  *sigh*  I guess it is time for me to get back to work.

I’ve been crocheting for over a year but I’ve only been able to make hats.  I have made more than 50 hats for Paige, myself, family, friends and the NICU dept.  Crocheting in the round has not been a problem.  What HAS been a problem is crocheting a square.  All my squares for the past year have ended up looking like triangles because I kept dropping a stitch at the beginning or end of every row.  I tried over and over again to figure out what I have been doing wrong without success.  I am totally self-taught.  I learned from YouTube videos.  My mom tried to help me when she was here a couple years ago but she couldn’t see what I was doing wrong.

I’ve made lots of blankets in the past but they’ve all been knitted because I didn’t know how to crochet a square or rectangle.  However, all of a sudden I was sitting at my desk and I had an “ah-ha” moment.  It just clicked!  I ran downstairs, pulled out my crochet hook and my yarn and tried again.  To my utter surprise, it worked!  I thought it was a fluke so I pulled it apart and tried again and it worked.  I went to bed and tried again this morning and YES!!!  I still was able to do it.  I don’t know why it suddenly clicked but it did and here is the proof:

The photo looks a bit wonky because the ends were curling but I assure you that my lines are straight and my rows have the correct number of stitches.  I now have a hot pad or pot holder.  Yay!  I’m so very excited!  This means I can now crochet blankets which I have been dying to do.  Crocheted blankets are definitely much faster to make than knitted ones.  This does not mean I’ll stop knitting blankets.  What this means is that I have a whole new world of patterns and possibilities that have opened up for me with making them.  I’m so glad it finally “clicked” in my brain.

Now please excuse me while I resume my happy dance.

I know it seems like I haven’t been doing much lately but I have. In fact, I have been crocheting quite a bit.  Would you like to see?  Let me apologize in advance.  I took these photos this evening so I had to use flash.  Also, some of the photos are blurry and I was too lazy to take new photos.

This is actually a hat I made for Paige months ago but I never posted about it.  It was my first attempt at working two colours in crochet at the same time.  It looks cute but the back is pretty obvious where I switched colours.  Oh well, it wasn’t bad for a first attempt.  The colouring is really off in this photo.  I used Caron Yarn in Limelight and Watermelon that I picked up on a trip to the states.

I’m not sure what this yarn is because it came in a plastic bag from my friend Shannon but it is the softest yarn I have ever felt.  It’s very bulky and I knew right away that it would make a perfect hat or scarf.  I made the hat since I wear those daily in the winter and I didn’t think I’d have enough to make a scarf (which I don’t wear very often unless I know I’ll be outside for an extended period of time).  I absolutely love this hat.  It is going to keep me very warm this coming winter.  Paige loves it too so I’ll likely have to fight her over who gets to wear it.  LOL.

Coasters!  Everyone needs coasters.  We used to have coasters but when Paige was younger she broke some of ours and we ended up having to throw them away.  Then we bought plastic ones but they somehow got all warped and we tossed those too.  I have had this yarn lying around for ages.  It really isn’t a good blanket yarn, although I did make a car seat blanket with it for a friend.  It is great for household items like dish cloths, wash cloths, place mats and coasters.  I have a TON of this yarn so I’ll likely end up knitting some wash cloths and dish cloths in the future… someday.

These are something else I’ve been working on.  I briefly mentioned this before but I generally don’t talk about it.  These are NICU hats (preemie hats).  I don’t do it for accolades or anything which is why I rarely ever mention it.  I make them because they are cute and fun and I donate them to help.  I started making them to give myself practice with making hats and I try out new yarns or techniques sometimes when making them.  Mostly, I just like to help.  A very, very small way for me to “give back” to the community.  I try to make them in a variety of sizes to ensure that all the babies will have a chance to wear one, even the smallest of the preemies.  When I called the hospital they mentioned that they had a lot of hats that we just too big for the preemies and sat in a box untouched.  I didn’t want that to happen so I used my daughter’s head measurement from when she was born (she was only 5 lbs and considered a borderline preemie) and that is the largest size that I make them.

Anyway, that is what I have been working on lately.  Nothing fancy but it has been filling my time.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I made a new summer top for my daughter but my husband took the camera with him when he went camping.  He’s home now so I was able to get some pictures of Paige wearing it.  Without further ado, here is the new top.

In addition, I took a few minutes over the weekend to throw together some fabric magnets.  I got the idea from Make It and Love It.  I had a couple ugly real estate and advertisement magnets on the fridge that I was only keeping because I needed the magnets.  I grabbed some scrap fabric and went to work and….

Tada!  I now have some cute magnets to hang on my refrigerator.  I did glue some plain white copy paper under them so that the print from the magnets didn’t show through but it created some weird rippling in the larger magnet.  Next time I will try white scrap fabric instead of paper and see if that helps.  Now I just need some more real estate agents to mail me new magnets so I can make some more adorable magnets.