HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014!!

Happy New Year!  It's 2014!  A brand new slate with no mistakes....at least not yet.

Today is a beautiful blue sky and cold day.  Enjoying the peace of a new year.  My husband is rustling in the kitchen making his blue berry pie.  It has become a tradition along with a prime rib roast and asparagus.  We had the black eyed peas for lunch.  Can't risk our good luck so we eat them faithfully every January 1st.  Don't tempt fate!  One year we had to go out and buy a can so we would not risk breaking our chain.  My mother would be so proud.  This was her tradition after all.

Now it's time to crochet some more and continue to empty my closet.  It is amazing the amount of yarn that I used up last year.  Hundreds if not thousands of yards made into something wearable.  It served a dual purpose, used up yarn AND kept me occupied.  Look at the difference in my yarn closet from when I started trying to reduce it in 2006  and then look at it today!  What a difference.

Yarn Closet As Of January 1, 2014

Yarn Closet at Beginning of This Emptying Quest July 29, 2006

Now I have to resist buying more yarn to fill in the empty spaces.  What would I do without my audible books, movies, and yarn?  I'd have to go back to work.  I mean real work with lots of stress and all that stuff.  Instead I get to stay home and do what I please.  My only stress is what to start crocheting next and when to take my poodle out to chase the Frisbee.  She usually lets me know by sitting by the cabinet with an expectant look on her face.  Soon, Mom!  Please, Please!!!

Guess it's time to go please the poodle.  Happy New Year Everyone!  Be Safe!  Be Happy!  And, most of all, Be Wise!

Fall is Around The Corner - Need Shawls?

Today is another glorious day.  The temperatures have been in the 80's and we have been enjoying outside projects.  Well, to be honest, only my husband has been outside.  I have stayed inside working on using up my stash.  That sounds like a wasted effort though since I just added 6 new skeins of lace weight.  In my defense, I had to do it.  When reviewing all of my remaining yarn, I discovered my closet was sorely lacking in enough lace yarn to make a good sized shawl.  I'm guessing that when the original designers made 50 gram skeins (430 yards/402.5 meters) of yarn they expected the artisan (that's folks like me) to make smaller projects.  I like big shawls so had to supplement my stash with additional skeins to provide enough yarn to finish the patterns that I was using.  So, to make a long story short, I bought more yarn.  I won't be buying any lace yarn for a while.  Guess I'll be using up this stash and then moving back to my tried and true stash yarns.  One of these days I'll finish it all and have an empty closet (eye rolls here).  There are so many patterns to choose from but I've discovered that even with my many years of crocheting, the lace shawl patterns are not that easy to follow so I keep going back to ones that I've made before with known results.  Most of these were free while the purchased patterns often were too difficult for me to follow while listening to books or watching TV.  If I have to concentrate on the pattern, I usually lose interest.  Here are some pictures of my latest completions with the patterns used.  I recommend the yarn and the patterns if you like to make pretty lace shawls.  If you want to see all the shawls I've made this year, click on this link:
My Shawls in 2012

Eva's Shawl by Milobo in Knit Pick's Shimmer Yarn

Lorna's Lace in Tickled Pink  
by Cheri McEwen's Morpho Shawl

Tessellating Pine Cones by Maria Merlino  
in Lorna's Lace Bittersweet Fingering

Another Shawl for Charity

I love making shawls.  They have no specified size and don't require sleeves to be inserted into impossibly smaller or larger holes.  In general they let you choose any kind of yarn and any hook as long as you like the effect.  They are the perfect item for using up yarn and that usually results in beautiful but useful items.  Here is one I just finished.  I am already hard at work on another one.  I am gradually reducing my yarn closet and can now see the back wall.  Yea!

Yarn is Lion Brand's DK Bamboo Cotton in Snapdragon

Pattern is Have A Heart Designed by Joyce Nordstrom at Red Heart

Below is a picture of the latest garden asset.  Shaunti thinks its her garden and we don't tell her otherwise but we call it Ichabod's Garden.  Some of you will recall the movie with Johnny Depp while others may recall the story about the headless horseman.  The crane was just too beautiful for us not to add to our yard.  Then we had to have plants to surround the feet and then, and then, well you get the picture.  We think we are finished planting for now.  All are growing nicely

Finished Projects, Gloves, Hats, and Fingerless Mitts

Brown Hood & Mittens for 2011 Forward Swap

I finished my 2011 Forward Swap for my good friend Victoria.  She said she 'absolutely loved the hood and mittens and now she will be warm at the bus stop.'  Of course, now we have 70 degree weather so she doesn't need to worry about being warm and soon she will need to be cool but that's a different problem.  The pattern for the hood is available from Hood by Cindy Carlson and you can get the pattern for the mittens at Stone Lodge Mittens by designer Lisa Naskrent. Both patterns were easy to follow.  I used Alpaca Love by Debbie Stoller yarn for both.  It is so soft and works up beautifully.

Harlequin Mitts by Shirley MacDonald

Suzie's Stuff Post Stitch Mitts

Stone Lodge Hat & Mittens

Once I finished the forward swap, I began to focus on other projects which included fingerless mitts.  Once I got to these, I quit looking for other projects.  I've been too  busy finding patterns for fingerless mittens/gloves.  One day I spent over 8 hours prowling the web for patterns.  I swear it is almost as much fun to look for patterns as it is to start a new project.  If I make one pair of every fingerless glove pattern I downloaded last week, I'll be crocheting (and maybe knitting) until next year at this time. The crochet patterns are beautiful but the knit patterns are even more beautiful and have once again tweaked my desire to learn to knit in the round. So I went out and bought the double pointed needles (DPNs).  I already had the patterns all I needed was the knowledge.  So I went to my favorite source of knowledge, the Internet, and  started to read the pattern in detail and to watch the video on how to use the DPNs only to get totally confused with which of the 4 needles to use.  So I looked at the video on using two pair of circular needles (supposedly less confusing) and watched how the yarn is separated between the two needles and how you pull the needles down so you are ready to knit on it again or is it backward or is it forward???   Do you see my confusion????  If not, go look at the video.  Maybe you will get it.  So, I take a deep breath, recite my calming mantra, and pick up my trusty crochet hook and use the method that I understand and can watch movies while doing.  This will work until the next time I see a jazzy picture of a knit item and then it will begin all over again. At least now I have the DPNs and I downloaded the videos.   In spite of this frustrating episode with the knit attempt, I managed to finish the second green mitten and matching hat; made two pair of fingerless mitts, and the brown mittens and matching hood.  My husband asks me why do I keep trying to knit when crochet is so pretty???  My answer is because knitting is out there and I must master it.  He just rolls his eyes and goes back to editing the video from our last vacation on his computer.  Of course, I know how to knit with straight and circular needles, it's just those blasted double pointy ones and even the two pair of circular ones that are causing the problem.  Maybe I'm just not supposed to make socks or mittens.  Whadda you think???  Never mind, don't answer because one of these days I will be posting the success of my knitting adventure but not today. I just remembered the Om shanti mantra and to just breathe.   For now, I'm sticking with what I know...crochet.