Life is Slowing Down

    Well life has been a little nuts lately. I received a promotion at one of my jobs last month. That required 3 weeks of training which was totally fine with me. But with those 3 weeks we ended up 4 snow storms that made driving an additional 30 minutes than when going to my store. But with snow the traveling turned into an hour or more each way. So now I am done with training and can try to get my self back onto a schedule.

    I have manage to do a little bit of crafting last month :) I always love when I can fit some crafting time in now I need to do that a little more often.

    So my first project I want to share with you is my pillow graphghan. For those of you who don't know what a graphghan is let me explain. A graphgahn is a afghan that is crocheted by using a chart just like ones that cross stitcher's use. So I started on something small for my son. I thought it would be really easy but it was actually a little over whelming. So here is my Pikachu pillow that I made with Red Heart yarn in a single crochet (sc).

    It is not perfect but I am not as intimidated by the graphghan's any more. I learned a lot with this attempt and look forward to learning more maybe even try it in a different stitch. Now to figure out how I am doing the back of this pillow.





#26 Auvergnasse Snowflake

#8 Flurry Snowflake

    I bought a book I am sooooo happy to use, it is called 100 Snowflakes to  Crochet by Caitlin Sainio. Winter is one of my favorite seasons and one of our color schemes is blue and sliver with snowman so what else to add to it than snowflakes? I have made two snowflakes so far YAY!!!!!! The first one is #26 Auvergnasse. I just love the points on it. The second snowflake I made was #8 Flurry

 

On the cross stitching front I finished Brooke's Book's seasonal house winter (as if you can't tell what season it is lol). I am missing a thread color so there are some empty spaces but I think it looks pretty good. I have also finished my first of hopefully many ornaments. I love the way it's finished with the mason jar lid it gives it that country type feel to it which my husband is looking for a country themed holiday décor which I would love to be able to t provide some of that by hand making them. The kit is from dimensions called Chalkboard have Faith. I customized it to our red, green, and gold theme ornaments by substituting the white stitching with DMC Light Effects E3852 Dark Gold. I have Hope and Love left to do I still need to get Joy.

    

Well off to watch Tangled with the hubby and work on my corner to corner (C2C) afghan.

HUGS and stay warm if you live in the Northern States

Wrapping up 2014

First of all I would like to wish everyone a HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!

I cannot believe that 2015 is already here. With things being so hectic over the holidays this year I have lost about a weeks time. But I am looking forward to the wonderful things 2015 will have for us. My beautiful cousin with be getting married in a few months along with one of hubby's friends this year too. My son will be graduating elementary school and moving on to middle school. I have no clue where the time has gone when it comes to my son he is already 5 ft tall wearing a men's 8 shoe and soon will be a middle schooler. I wish there was rewind button I can't believe how grown he is getting. But that's part of being a parent right seeing your kids growing up but wishing at the same time that they will stay little forever.

I know I haven't blogged in months and I am hoping to be able to work on that this year some more so that I am blogging at least on a regular basis. So I would like to share photos with you of all the things I have completed since the last post I did. I know that this is a short post and it could be a whole lot longer but I am running on limited time right now. I look forward to sharing my new year with you all.

 

 

 

Hello August

I cannot believe that we are already into August!!!! Where has the summer gone? I cannot believe that my son will be entering the 5th grade in just a couple of weeks. But he has had a blast with camp all summer. And I am highly jealous of his tan :)

I haven't gotten much done this past month. I was able to finish up 3 charity square for Charity Cross-Stitching for Sfpsfc & Sick Children in Need which will be my last 3 squares for them as they are closing their doors. They will still be putting together quilts which will take another year or so to finish but once those are done and delivered they will be officially done. I enjoyed my time stitching for them it gave me great pride in what I do. So I will have to find another place to stitch for in time but I think I will be taking a break of charity stitching so that I can get some personal projects done. The first square is for a boy's sports quilt so I stitched Baseball bat & Mitt from Cyberstitchers , the next square is for Building Blockmen quilt where I was lucky enough to stitch the Blue Musketeer!!!! This chart was donated by a member of the Charity, and the very last square is an Owl I think he came out so cute (and I'm not really an owl person) this chart cam out of Just Cross Stitch's June 2014 Issue.

 

 

 

 

This month I am going to be mainly focusing on my Mermaid SAL (as I am behind) and I am pulling out Echo's of Autumn with hopes of getting a good chunk of it done. I also have 2 charity squares for WOCS to do also. Here are my starting points for  Mermaid SAL and Echo's of Autumn:

I have also been secretly working on a blanket for my husband. I am attempting to make a C2C (corner to corner) blanket in NY Giants colors as that is his favorite team. His birthday is in 3 weeks and I am really hopping that I can get it done by then seeing the only time I get to work on it is when he is at work and I am not working. But it would also help if he would stop hurting himself to the point that he gets off of work for a week too lol. Hopefully I will have a picture to share on my next post.

Have a beautiful AUGUST!!!!!

Crocheting Like a Mad Woman

 

 

Well it is officially summer vacation for my son!!!! It's a happy moment and a "oh my what am I going to do with him so I don't hear 'I'm bored' all summer long?"  Well we found this playground program that kids a can attend Monday through Friday and he loves it!!!! We also have day trips planned all summer on the husbands day off which I am really looking forward to. Our plan for this summer is make it eventful so our son has something to talk about when he get back to school. I am really hoping that we make it to Old Sturbridge Village this summer I think it will be a great experience for our son. What do you hope to do with your summer? So far we have spend time with family and friends. We went strawberry picking which was a lot of fun and we are really looking forward to going to the beach tomorrow.

 

So like that title states I have been crocheting left and right for the past month or so. I have made multiple hats for the newest addition to our family. Our nephew RK has many hats coming his way in the future but right now they are just beanies. I got the pattern for these beanies from Cre8tion Crochet (one of my favorite sites to get patterns from). The pattern is called Infant Boys Beanie it is so easy to work up that once you make a couple you don't really need the pattern to remember how to make them.

This was made with Red Heart yarn called Fall I love how it worked out as stripes.

This was made with Red Heart Soft (brown) and Cotton yarn (orange)..... note to self don't use cotton yarn it can't stretch well lol

This was yarn from my stash...... it is very thin so will make for a great summer hat seeing that RK can't wear sunscreen just yet.

This one was made out of RH Camo yarn.... what little boy doesn't need camo :)

Besides working on hats I also finished another diaper cover for RK. This is the same pattern as the NY Giants on I posted a couple of months ago. The pattern is called Football Inspired Diaper Covers PDF 12-058 by Maria Bittner. You should swing by Pattern Paradise there are some great patterns for sale and some nice one's offered for free.

 

 

 I also for the fist time made a towel topper for my harvest towel and crocheted some dish cloths. I don't know why it took me so long to try dishcloths and towel toppers.

My very first towel topper

 

 

I was also able to get some cross stitching done. I finished two more squares for a charity group. I also  to start my Mermaid Sal from Love Thy Thread I am really excited to be stitching her.

A butterfly square for a  Pink and Lilac butterfly quilt

Made for a colorful cow quilt

Mermaid SAL

I am really excited that I have finally found a needlepoint store in my area!!!!! I never thought I would have been able to say that. So I got a Mill Hill kit called Autumn Harvest Collections, I hope I will be able to go back soon and get some more :)

 

 

Enjoy your summer!!

Catching Up with Life

Well I have been extremely busy lately. This pass month I have been running around like crazy with events every weekend. Looking forward to June as things slow down a bit. I haven't been able to craft as much as I would like because I have been dealing with a lot of emotional things and trying to get out of this rut I have been stuck in. I have made small improvements but I am not 100% there yet but that is okay it's how life goes.

Monday May 19 I got to welcome my nephew into the world he definitely gave his mother a run for her money lol. He weighted in at 8lbs 7ozs and was 21 inches long. He is so darn cute and I cannot wait to see him with the things I made him. But I can finally share them here because my friend Nic has already see the items (it was so hard not sharing pictures)

First up is a NY Giants football inspired Diaper cover seeing the Daddy is a huge Giants fan along with my husband who was in the background encouraging me to make this. I got the pattern from Pattern Paradise called Football Inspired Diaper Covers . It is an easy to follow pattern and you can pretty much customize it to any football team (though she only has the NY and Cowboys star included in the pattern but it's not hard to buy a team logo patch). I am now working on the football field one for them too.

Back side of NY Giants Diaper Cover

Font side of NY Giants Diaper cover

 Next up is the monkey blanket. The baby's room theme is animals and sports and Mama didn't want a lot of monkeys but I couldn't pass up this one because I just loved the face and I didn't want just a plan granny square blanket. I got the pattern for the monkey face from Tillie Tulip which is a free pattern.

 

 

I also found out this month that the charity group I stitch for will be closing at the end of this year because the women who runs the group and does all the sewing has been dealing with some medical issues. It is sad to see them closing their doors but they did touch so many kids in the 8 years they have been running. I have only been stitching for them for about a year now and I have enjoyed every second of it. So here are some of the squares I have stitched since my last post.

Bambi for a Disney quilt

a block for a Mr. Men quilt

Fire Truck for an Emergency Vehicle Quilt

Mindcraft square for video game quilt

pink butterfly for butterfly quilt

snow pea from Plants vs Zombies for a video game pattern made by bicyclist

Bird playing soccer for a football quilt

Daisy for a girls Disney quilt

 

As the month is calming down I have had a chance to look through my stuff and I am trying to de-clutter my life when I found this doll in my stash. I started her a long time ago and she happened to get put away for a while. I started her because my Grandmother made me this doll when I was a little girl which got lost over the years. My grandmother passed away years ago so having her make one isn't an option anymore. So a light bulb went on when I realized "hey you know how to crochet now" so I have plans on finishing her up now so that I can display her and have another loving reminder of my beloved Grandmother.

 

Well off to cook dinner. I hope to post again soon :)

 

 

 

HAPPY STITCHING