Posted on 02/01/2022 5:04:10 PM PST by Diana in Wisconsin
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As much as I have no desire to go on a cruise, those Crochet Crowd cruises were probably a HOOT!
Cute song. Well done. I was just ‘frogging’ an afghan the other day as a matter of fact! Grrrr!
Those crochet cruises did look like fun. I have never been on a cruise & never intend to go on one. Some folks just love them - cruise all the time.
We did get some snow yesterday for most of the afternoon - didn’t stick (my kind of snow!). I planned on picking up a new knitting project, but just couldn’t make myself do it. Weird mood all day. This morning, we had “graupel” on the deck and bare spots in the lawn. Sort of like snow ‘pellets’. We get graupel every couple of years - not a common occurrence.
So, dad was going to watch the Super Bowl & had the TV on. My phone went off - text message. ‘Receipt/thank you’ for ordering a K-12 HD movie - Melanie Martinez .... a mere $7.99! Wut??? Called this morning & got a credit for it, but only because the ‘watch time’ was zero. Talking to my folks & dad said something popped up on the screen - he didn’t know what it was so pressed one of the “arrows” on his remote at which point there was a “thank you” message on the screen. Sigh - he accidentally ordered that movie - why it popped up in the first place is beyond me. Anyway, we now have a ‘purchase pin’ on his TV so he can’t accidentally order anything. Between that & his pacemaker monitor not reading this morning (finally got it to work after troubleshooting with a video & 5 tries), it’s been a fun one!
Cold day - not going out so maybe I’ll get in a knitting mood later on today.
Also been amusing myself re-melting old candles and making smaller versions in those 'Oui' yogurt cups that I have a million of. Added to the Pantry Stash for emergencies.
You’re definitely putting me to shame ... I was nothing but a “lump” yesterday. Great projects!
My little great-nieces got 4-H lambs last Friday. The lambs have never been handled before, so they are pretty wild - their mom is helping them out - she's won blue ribbons showing sheep before, when in college. So far, the lambs come up to them for food (bucket/hand) & they are able to reach out & brush shavings off their coat, rub them a little. Halter training started yesterday - it's a "rodeo", but progress is being made. The girls will be participating in a 4-H show with their sheep the end of April.
The girls named their sheep (both boys ... i.e. 'wethers', castrated males) Acorn & Persimmon. Acorn is sort of brown & while at first glance Persimmon appears 'white' (especially in contrast to Acorn), he's more of a light gray. Both have black 'points' - faces and legs.
First picture they sent me of Acorn (left) & Persimmon (right):
I saw a pattern for a knitted 'bobble' sheep pillow and fell in love with it (scroll down the blog post & check out the 'giant' ones!). One day, maybe I'll do it. In the meanwhile, I saw a pattern for a crochet bobble sheep pillow that is more appropriate in size (and my 'effort') for the girls. The girls are getting new bedrooms (moving into new house next month) & I thought sheep pillows that sort of look like their very first lambs, would be something they'd like. Here's the pattern .... I think it's pretty cute:
The pattern calls for Loops & Threads Charisma yarn. The only place that sells it around here is Michael's & they have a poor selection, plus I wasn't seeing colors that I liked. When I looked for yarn substitutes, Hobby Lobby's I Love This Yarn Chunky was a good one. The store is less than 10 minutes away, but would they have the colors I settled on? I went this morning .... didn't see the colors I wanted, but making a 2nd pass down the aisle, I spotted a brown chunky-looking yarn on the very bottom shelf (not in the ILTY chunky section I looked at previously). Well, wouldn't you know - it was the 'weathered brown' color I wanted for Acorn .... and nearby was was the "weathered gray" color I wanted for Persimmon! The pattern calls for 4-5 skeins ... I have a gauge issue (tend to be short on height) so I bought 6 skeins of each to make sure I had enough .... bought out both colors! The yarn was 30% off, so I saved $16! Here's a picture of my large (12 skein total) yarn buy/colors:
I looked for pillow forms (round 16") while I was there - no round forms, so I'll probably have to order them. I think I'll put eyes on the sheep heads, too. The heads will be done in black, not the dark gray that was used in the pattern. Since there are no 'legs' on the pillow, I might connect the 2 halves using black ... which would add more of the black 'points' that both sheep have.
I'll probably start crocheting this weekend - can't wait to get started!
You come up with the most meaningful and fun projects for those kids. They’ll love those, too!
The “boys” have tags in their ears. I’m going to see if I can work out a tag for the pillow ears with their names on them. The girls will never forget their first lambs .... I want to mark the pillows with those names.
Been busy all morning .... just ran off the directions for the pillows & I’m about to pick up a crochet hook! Temp is dropping here and it’s a bit muddy out after we had a front come through yesterday, so I don’t feel ‘too’ guilty staying inside & crocheting. Iron Dog starts tomorrow so I’ll be crocheting & watching GPS on my laptop. :-)
So the bobble sheep pillow was going to be “fun”, right? LOL! The pattern (IMO) “sucks rocks”. Three videos later (maybe 4), & combining techniques from 2 of them, I finally arrived at a bobble-stitch-in-the-round method that looks decent.
For bobble stitch, you generally appear to need a foundation row of single crochet, then a bobble row, then another sc row, bobble row, etc. You increase on the sc rows. The pattern has one bobble stitch on top of another (no sc rows!) with increases on the bobbles themselves (now that I look at the pillow pics, I can see the increases). The bobbles were pretty ‘flat’ too ... I want big FAT bobbles! I think I’ve got ‘em going on - fat ones. The math is fun ... need two sc for each bobble so that’s easy, but then you have to figure increases evenly across the round. Glad I made A’s in math & I also got an extra skein of yarn for each pillow!
If anyone can figure out and/or adapt a pattern, it’s you! :)
Those pillows are so cute! What a great Grandma you are!
What a great Grandma you are!
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Puhleeeeez .... NOT a Grandma ... I’m a great-aunt. LOL!! I can see how you might think ‘grandma’.
No kids of my own so my little great-nieces (2) & great-nephew (1 thus far .. I think more kids are in the plans) are very special to me. :-) I love doing projects for them - try to pick things that will be meaningful so they’ll appreciate/hang on to them .... so far, so good!
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I'm laughing, because here is what has happened thus far ....
I used the original pattern stitch count/increase 'schedule'; however, my bobble stitches are bigger/fatter (what I wanted!) than the pattern bobbles. The 'fatties' do not work with the stitch count. I noticed my circle had some "ruffles" (not lying flat), but I could more or less smooth them out so I kept going. Well, by the time I got to the 16" diameter I needed, "smoothing out" the ruffles was not going to work. Here's what I'm looking at:
For some reason, this reminds me of the "ruffles have ridges" Pringles commercial (wish I had some Pringles ... I'd be 'stress eating'!).
A different view. The good thing about this is I can count bobbles & know exactly how many I need to take out for this thing to lie flat .... I can adjust my stitch counts (math skills big time!). I took the time to type up instructions for the 'ruffled' version so I can copy/adjust them for the unruffled version.
From a glass-half-full perspective .... I have a great pattern to follow, I LOVE the bobbles and the way they make a nice, dense 'fabric' - the pillow forms won't be showing through. On the heathered gray, a white pillow form showing through would not be as problematic as it would be on the much darker heathered brown pillow.
So, back to the drawing board, so to speak! Listening to the 'Legends of the West' podcast, tracking the Iron Dog racers on GPS, & having a glass of wine. Fun times!
No grandkids here either! You are still very fortunate.
So this is the project I’ve had on my hook for .... going on two or three years now? It’s a gorgeous scarf .... I was working it on the dining room table & mom needed the table for company, so I put the scarf away & never picked it back up. Out of sight, out of mind - I had trouble finding it when I went looking for it a couple of weeks ago.
I’m doing it in “Stained Glass” because of the color choices I had, it was the one I liked the best - the colors have grown on me and I like them more than when I bought the yarn. So far I have the hairpin lace strip done, one side panel of woven stitch totally complete & several rows done on the other side panel. My friend is always after me to enter something in the county fair and this will be “it”, if I can get it done.
We got two portable tables (used them at the yard sale this fall) & I’m going to put one up in the living room near the window - better light & I won’t be bothering anyone else. The woven stitch is a bit of a “stinker” - takes concentration to do it, but the result is really pretty.
Not liking the color combo in the pattern pics & the pics don’t show how pretty this scarf is, but here’s the link so you can see what I’m talking about:
Waves Hairpin Lace Crochet Scarf
https://www.bhookedcrochet.com/2017/12/17/waves-hairpin-lace-crochet-scarf/
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