Drummer - the yarn lover

Our new (just got him in May) boxador, Drummer. He's such a love bug - but loves to string my yarn all over the house!!

Mommy giving him kisses.

My son Hunter, so happy to finally have a dog.

Laying low for the first day after coming to his "forever" home.

Diagonal Baby Blanket

Well, it's been awhile, but I have a new look to my blog and new projects in the works. My most recently finished project is the ever popular diagonal baby blanket - not a fun thing to tie in all the leftover yarn hanging from each color change, but a beautiful blanket none the less. This was made a bit larger than a baby blanket by request of the customer ordering it. Now the recipient's mother wants another one for her other child...awesome.

Addicted to Tunisian

My first attempt at tunisian crochet - I got several skeins of yarn from NaturallyCaron.com's country line - so beautiful and so soft!! So I am attempting to recreate an expensive wrap I saw in a hotel gift shop in Philadelphia. Now, that was knitted, and although I'm not making it identical to the stockinette by doing a tunisian knit stitch, I'm making it a bit more light weight by picking up my stitches in the top (or back) most loop of the previous stitch which gives it more of a waffle pattern.

Here is my first 30 or so rows. I have completed 20 rows of the waffle pattern and then continued 5 rows of the tunisian purl stitch for a contrasting edge band that I will repeat on the other end of the wrap.















You can see here the close up of the contrasting band I've created. the picture doesn't do the stitches or the color much justice. It's a rich salmon color and the purl stitches do look like purl knitting.















My second attempt at tunisian (I simply canNOT have only one project going at a time...) is a simple pullover. I decided on a v-neck because I find they are very flattering.

This is a strong contrast as well, I've chosen a honeycomb tunisian stitch for the front piece and then a standard tunisian stitch for the remainder of the pull over - here they are together...















Here is a closeup of the back piece I'm currently working on, it's just the standard tunisian stitch.















And here is the front piece in honeycomb which is a pretty cool stitch pattern. I started out the bottom of the front and back with a knit-looking ribbing by doing 3 sts in tunisian knit and alternating with 2 sts in the tunisian purl. It's not as stretchy as knitting would be, but certainly close to the fpdc and bpdc ribbing on most crocheted sweaters.















The front piece is completed, and once I finish the back piece I'll seem up the shoulders and crochet the sleeves onto it from there, less seems to sew up - my pet peeve!!















This pattern is done in Caron Simply Soft Paints in Sunset - it's quite beautiful, and very soft, not as soft as the regular Simply Soft line, but lighter in weight - so it has it's benefits.

I'm off to finish the back section and hopefully get started on the sleeves real soon!!

Finished pics of the Bubble Bag

Bubble Bag

My first felting project - everyone loves it, everyone wants one, and it was super easy to make. It's published in the Interweave Crochet Winter 2009 Issue and the author is Tracy St. John. She made a really easy pattern to follow so thank you Tracy!! I altered the colors a bit - went for a more bright base color (Current from Pattons Classic Wool) and used 4 dot colors instead of 3 because I fell in love with the New Denim blue color from Pattons Classic Wool. (Oh, and they were on sale....duh!)

Here are the colors I used - one of each dot motif:



















Here is the layout using 4 colors instead of 3 - this ensures the dots are aligned with each other:

















Here is the bag pre-felting:





























And then just after felting it's drying on some towels and it's stuffed with a roll of paper towels scrunched up to give it shape:





























I'm very happy with the results - and will attempt to make a mini version of this bag for my 2 year old. She likes to stuff mine with her toys and tote it around the house. This bag took me 2 days to make, will definitely consider this for Christmas presents next year!

Yes, I'm blogging

You just can't get through life without blogging about something or other....I'm hoping to share some of the patterns I've created on this blog - heck, if my sister can do it, then I can too. Although she's a knitter and I'm a crocheter - we both think we've got the better talent, but both wish we could do what the other is capable of.

I'll probably set this up and go months at a time without any activity, but if I do, send me a message and get my butt in gear! I'm just too busy crocheting to blog...