Should I try this again?

I’m sure no one has looked at my blog in a very very long time. Not even me!! But it was fun to keep a bit of a diary by doing this and I’m going to give it a go again. Even if I’m the only one looking at it. I don’t even remember how to do anything on here so it’ll be a bit of a learning curve. 

Collin, who is in 3rd grade now, received his Bible last night at Lenten services and I thought I’d like to give him something for his Bible. I found this in my Bible and I’m pretty certain that my mom made it. So this is what I gave Collin. It just happens to be his favorite color as well. He is very much into sunflowers at the time. 

I started crocheting another bookmark like this last night. There are 9 grandkids and now that I have given to one I need to give to all. We’ll see how this pattern goes…I might be switching to something else if I struggle too much figuring out how to stitch the squares together.

Doll House

A few years ago, DH and I bought a beautiful doll house at an auction.  Since this is a small town, we knew the girl that it belonged to and her dad who built it from a kit and her mom who probably made the cross stitch quilt and some of the rugs for it.  And we knew her sister who told us the story about the house.

The girl who owned it is now a missionary in Africa and since her parents where moving away to a bigger town but a smaller apartment, they couldn't keep the doll house for her any longer.  And so it was put up for auction with all the other things they couldn't keep any longer.

It was obvious right from the beginning that she loved this doll house.  The furnishings were well thought out.  And the walls had been papered.  But when we got everything home, we found folders full of letters that she had received from companies where she had inquired about purchasing things for her doll house.  She was very much involved with her doll house and had kept everything that had anything to do with it. 

I felt a little guilty having it instead of her.  But so goes life and the decisions that are made.

For Christmas, DH asked what I wanted, and I replied that I wanted a cart on wheels to put the doll house on because it was sitting on the floor and couldn't be moved.  And so couldn't be used.  Or cleaned under/around.  And being the sweetheart that he is, he made me a cart on wheels that fit the doll house perfectly.

And then the fun began.  There weren't many things needed but what fun doing the ones that I thought needed to be added.

First off I did a little knitting and counted cross stitch.

 

An afghan made from fingering weight yarn and knit on size 1 needles.

 

 

 

A quilt for one of the kids' beds.

 



 

And another quilt for the other kid's bed.

 

 



 

A crocheted rug for the master bedroom made from leftover Peace Fleece yarn.

 

 

 

A scarf knit on toothpicks and with lace weight yarn.

 

 

A counted cross stitch wall hanging from a free pattern at Herrschners.

 

And this little armoire was just calling for some clothes hangers and so I made a few from paper clips.

 

 

And now for what the doll house looks like with everything in it....

 

 

It has a wrap around porch and in this picture you can see the cart that DH made.

 

And here you can get an idea of how big it is.  It is as tall as the built in cabinets in the den.

 

This is the full back.

 

A closer shot of the attic.

 

This is the second floor.

 

The kids' bedroom.

 

The bath.

It needs a picture in here.  I just haven't decided what yet.

 

The master bedroom.

 

Main floor.

 

Kitchen

 

Living room

 

And a closer shot so you can see the knitting in the rocking chair and the afghan on the couch.

 

 

It has been so much fun putting all this together and adding my personal touches.  But it was also impressive that a young girl had been so in love with her doll house that she had planned and thought out just how she wanted to decorate it. 

 

I'm honored to be the new owner.

It's a little bitty bunny

A week ago Friday evening we were invited to a birthday party for a 1 year old boy.

The party was the next evening. 

Well, as most of you know, we live in a tiny town with minimal shopping.  Certainly no gifts for a 1 year old.  And I wasn't really in the mood to drive 60 miles for a gift.  And so the next best thing...

Get out the yarn and find a crochet hook!

And a little bunny was born. 

He was fairly quick to do.  I started him at about 10 a.m. at our Saturday morning Knit & Purl at the local library. 

I started really disliking him at around 3 p.m. though.  Those ears and arms were quite annoying.

But...

look at that cute tail!  It's what kept me going and I finished him at about 4:30 p.m.  In plenty of time to get him into a gift bag for the little guy...

I think he turned out kinda sweet.  But the toys that had flashing colored lights and played music were the hit of the night for the birthday boy.  

That was as expected.

Details here on Ravlery. 

Sweet baby set

A great niece is having a baby boy in December. Perfect reason to knit another Iceling set!

The info on all the pieces are on Ravelry. Just click the linkies. This is the hat.

The mittens aren't included in the Iceling set but are Basic Baby Mittens by Kari Salvatore. They are just right and I did a single crochet chain with a size 7 hook to connect them to each other. Just trying to cut down on the chance of mitten lossage!

I was hoping to get the whole set out of 2 skeins of yarn and so when I had one mitten knit there was the decision of taking a chance on the bit of scrap of yarn left or breaking into that extra 3rd skein. I weighed the finished mitten and then weighed the yarn scrap. The both weighed the same.... Well I decided to live dangerously and go for it.

And this is the amount of yarn left after I finished the second mitten. Phew!!

The cardigan just tickles me. I think it looks like a little teeny tiny blue blazer. So grownup for a brand new baby...

I even found the silver crest buttons for it.

It looks so cozy and warm...perfect for a winter time baby.

Actual knitting content!

Done! I finally finished the Eliina Shawl that I knit from the Zen Garden lace weight yarn that I bought at Joan's Stash Busting Sale.

This is really quite close to the color...it might be just a smidge darker in person.

I've tried lace weight yarn before and just couldn't work with it. But this time was magic and there wasn't a problem at all with the knitting. Of course that I loved the color and was going to knit with it come heck or high water didn't play into it at all.

I added some beads to the lace edging to give it a bit of weight and just a little sparkle. They are silver lined pink glass beads.

One bit of info that I learned--When you do a crochet cast off, and add beads while you are doing it, they face to the wrong side of the fabric. I had to pin each bead to try to force them into showing from the front. Uff. It turned out ok I think.

All the information about my Strawberry Ice Cream Eliina Shawl can be found here on Ravelry.

This doesn't look like much yet but it is going to be an Iceling baby cardigan. Norma has been telling how in love she is with this pattern so I thought I would give it a try.

The little cardigan will be for a sweet baby yet to be born in Moldova.

We have 3 foreign workers this year on our farm and all 3 of them are from Moldova. One fellow has a wife back home that is expecting a baby the end of September and they know that it is going to be a boy. I'm hoping that "blue is for boys" is the rule of thumb there too!

I'm tickled pink!

The Haruni Shawl is finished. Happy Dance! Shown here with Teddy checking it out. He loved this yarn. Dream in Color Smooshy. He wanted to be under it all the time. He was a lot of help while I was knitting it. ;) ;)

I know blocking pictures are pretty dull but I was so excited about this I had to post. I blocked it in less than an hour with one hand tied behind my back. Well, not really. But I was talking on the phone to my sister so I did most of it one handed and 1/2 brained. Of course that is nothing new...

I just love this lacy edging. sigh.

I'll try to do fancier pictures another time. Today is cloudy, windy and drippy.

I'll also try to remember to show you the tiny crochet hook that I ended up using for the bindoff. Plus all of my mom's tiny crochet hooks. But that is a story for another time.....

A 1st birthday party in a few hours?!

Meet Bella. I made her yesterday. Here's her story.

I got a phone call about 9:30 a.m. inviting us to our great niece's 1st birthday party. I immediately got on Ravelry to look for toy patterns. I wasn't having a bunch of luck when I remembered that Lion Brand has toy patterns. I found Bella there.

I got started crocheting about 10 a.m. and by 11:30 decided that there was no way I was going to get it done on time since I had another obligation for most of the afternoon. So I thought about what makes a bunny a bunny and of course that's the ears and the tail. So Bella didn't get any arms and legs, but the mom of our great niece said she looks like the Velveteen Rabbit so Bella is in good company!

I finished crocheting Bella about 1:15 p.m. and headed to our Church Ladies' Pie Social and got home from that about 4:30 p.m. I wrapped Bella in some pretty pink tissue paper and tied it with some yarn that's the same as her tail. We arrived at the birthday party about 5 p.m.

Here's the scoop on Bella.
Caron Simply Soft yarn.
Size G crochet hook.
Bella the Bunny pattern.
Just a bit of embroidery thread for eyes, mouth and nose.
That's it...and a few hours of crocheting as fast as you can go! :)

BTW, a very happy ending, great niece absolutely fell in love with Bella.