Thursday, July 26, 2012

Gee

A quick post. I have been busy as all get out here.

I am bummed. I sold the piggy security blanky from this post for only $15 and made a cute little hat to go with it. The girl I sold it to was not there. She had seen it twice on my FB page and loved it, raved about needing it and wanting one like it.

So I finally said ok...I will deliver it to you at lunch. She said how much? I said how about $15, is that fair? She said OMG yes!! So when I get to her work and go in she isn't there but she had left $20. I said 'oh...I don't have change.' The girl says that's ok she said keep the rest. So I was like cool.

I didn't even get to where I was going for lunch and she texts' me and says 'Just got back. I didn't know so small. Can we switch back. I knew I should have been here. Sorry. And. There was a hat in the bag. U gonna b this way. I can leave up front.'

I'm like WHAT??? She saw the pic of it on the bin/tub that is in my post.

$15.  Is that too much?? I mean, my time alone was worth that to me. PLUS I threw in a hat.

I'm bummed.

TTFN
Kat
xoxo

Friday, July 20, 2012

My Favorite….

Day of the week is here! :o)  Happy Friday y’all!

Also I have been working with a couple of my favorite colors too. The last time I was at Hobby Lobby I bought a pillow that is long and round. I think it’s 20 inches long and 6 inches in diameter (which is actually an 18 inch circumference). I decided that I would make a cover for it for Kylie’s birthday in October. It’s almost done being crocheted, except I made a boo-boo. Dang it.

When I made my foundation row it was the size of the length of the pillow. Unfortunately I didn’t check the length again until about 5 rows into it and guess what? It’s too long. I was bummed to say the least. So I put it down in frustration. Then I started thinking that maybe I could just make a little ‘addendum’ to the pillow, that is to say, another small round pillow to take up the space that is lacking inside the cover by the extra length. I’ll make a little smiley face pillow inside, sort of as a surprise for when my daughter goes to wash the cover. :o) I hope I can pull it off.

So anyways…this is the cover, shy of a few inches of being done before I assemble it. And ya know what? Darn….I’m such a ditz. I forgot to get a pic of the ends of the cover. I crocheted 2 African Flowers for the ends. One in pinks and one in purples. 

kylie round pillow cover

bin of color

This pic above is my ‘bin of color’. I put all of the colors I am using in the bin to 1)contain them all in one spot nice and neat, and 2)be able to coordinate the colors so I can see what should go next, pinks are at one end and purples at the other.  This worked out real well  because when I was ready for the next color I just pulled the end up from the bin. The bin saved space and time for me. I had gone through all of my stash and pulled out my medium #4 yarns in purple and pink. I have a mixture of RH, ILTY and another yarn that I can’t remember the name of right off hand. I had more purple than pink but oh well. Kylie will love it because it has so many different shades of the colors that she loves.

Speaking of Kylie…..here she is at swim team practice. She is growing so quick. 8 years old and looks 3 years older. Look at those long legs! She is going to be tall like her daddy.

Kylie at swim team practice

Another project that I started is to the stage of making a lining and assembling it. Another purse. The body and strap are crocheted. I love these colors together. I used a lilac, purple and bright yellow in a 3 row lilac, 1 row purple and 1 row yellow sequence. The strap is 3 rows lilac on each side with one row each of purple and yellow in the middle. The pic is blurry, sorry. The material with it is what the lining will be made of. It’s a lot darker in this pic than in actuality.

purple yellow bag blurry

Do any of you have electricsheep.org screensavers? OMG. I have it on one of my computers at work. There is crochet inspiration of a different kind.

electric sheep.org      electric sheep 2

See what I mean? And there was one that I did not capture that I sooo wanted to, because it would have made an awesome motif. One that I’ve never seen. And it happened so quick that I couldn’t get it.  Twice actually. That’s when I decided to sit in front of it for a bit with my camera on and see if it wouldn’t come up again. Sadly it didn’t but I caught these two.  I know, I’m weird. If you’ve followed me for a while you know that. :o) I’m so weird that I could have sat there for hours waiting for good ones to come up to get a picture of. Some of the colors were so awesome.

So last today, I gave my friend that moved to VA her son’s hat and I also made her a going away little something. She loved it.

cindy smiley face

I hope you have a wonderful Friday and weekend too! Pray for those affected by the jerk who took other people’s lives in his hands when he decided to go to the movies with the intention of killing people. Such a sad state of affairs. What is our world & country coming to???

Cya soon.

TTFN
Kat
xoxo

Monday, July 9, 2012

PPPPPiggy

Happy Monday! I am back to work. It’s not where I want to be but if the boy and I want to eat it’s where I need to be. It was so hard to get up this morning and get in gear again.

The rest of my week last week was pretty much uneventful.  I did manage to work out in the yard a little. At least I got inside and outside of the fence mowed. That was a job in itself.  I also managed to clean my closet up some too. That needed to be done for a long time. So my vacation wasn’t a total waste of time doing nothing. I’m happy to have accomplished a few things. 

I went to Hobby Lobby on Friday. I shouldn’t have because I always spend way more than I should. This time wasn’t any different.  The Oh Baby! Crochet book was one of the items that came home with me. It has quite a few patterns that I’d like to attempt. One of them is already completed. Of course it’s not totally like the pattern but almost. The colors, ears and snout are different. And I think where the head attaches to the blanket is not how they attached it but I kind of like how I did it because it makes it pretty secure to the body. The blanket itself is not that big because it’s a security blanket, it’s only 10 rounds plus the 2 round edge. I think it’s pretty cute myself.

book pig came out of                                               

 pig front on

pig and book  

I couldn’t resist this pic of my boy. He never even woke up when I took his pic. This is his couch and his blanky. This blanket came from his daddy’s. He had it before his daddy died. It’s a crocheted blanket that looks like it’s done in tunisian stitch. Sometimes he will lay on it like this and other times he’ll lay at the green end on the couch and scrunch up the blanky for a pillow. He’s hanging in there for now. His eating has dwindled down again. He sleeps a lot too. He did drink a lot of water while I was home last week. But he won’t drink any while I am at work. I just don’t understand.

I hated leaving him this morning. Oh, I did manage to move his dog house out front underneath the carport thingy. He wasn’t using it out back anymore so I moved it. The funny thing is that when I came home from Hobby Lobby on Friday he was laying underneath it, instead of in it.  I purposely brought it out front so he could get in it and not lay in the dirt. I even constructed a front stoop out of 3 cinder blocks covered with an old truck mat from my old Ford Ranger. I guess he’d rather lay under the palace instead of in it or on the porch. Go figure.

leo on his couch

Well I best get to it here. It’s going to be one of those days for me and probably a pretty full week. Here’s hoping your week is a good one! Cya soon!

TTFN
Kat
xoxo

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Happy Independence Day!


Hi! I hope this finds you all well and content with life. I just wanted to pop in to say hi and ask you to stop for a minute today to think of and remember those who fought for our independence in this free nation of ours. Remember those who sacrificed their lives, their limbs, their time with their families, and all they did to make sure we are able to live our lives free. Remember those families who lost their loved ones and gave up so much for their loved ones to fight for our country. Most important - remember that freedom is not free - ever.

I have had one heck of a week so far. Sunday morning I went kayaking with two girl friends and loved it. I may be buying my own! It was so serene and peaceful. It's a wonderful de-stresser. Then after we got done kayaking we got dressed and rode our bikes to the Harley shop to meet up with another friend and ride with a bunch of people to Brunswick to escort the Patriot Flag to be handed off to the next destination. It was sooooo hot. It really was too hot to be riding a motorcycle but that's what you do sometimes. I barely made it home as I felt heat exhaustion coming on. It took me about an hour to get hydrated and cooled off. Even though I was not doing anything physical, the heat of the day and the heat off of the bike and pavement made for a very hot ride. When we got to Brunswick we went to the restaurant next door and ate salads and hydrated before getting back on the bikes and heading home. We stopped about halfway at a McDonalds to hydrate again and it was almost as hot in there as it was outside. Two of the girls made another stop and I and one of the others kept going to go home. I was worried about Leo being outside in the heat. It seems he endured it much better than I did. I was about 10 miles from the house when different parts of my body started hurting and I knew it was because of the heat. All I could think about was getting home and getting inside with the AC.

On Sunday evening a really bad storm came through that knocked out power for almost 24 hours. There were people that were still without power last night in my area. I lucked out that it was only 24 hours for me. And those were not easy hours either with the heat. There are those that are STILL without power in VA because of the system that went through. There was more than one violent storm that hit the east coast.

I stood at my bedroom window just after the power went out and watched my trees sway so furiously that I thought I was going to have a lot of snapped trees and feared for my and Leo's safety. I thought I heard trains twice. I went to the living room, which is in the middle of my house because I have large oak trees and pine trees on the east and west corner of my house. If one of them came down I needed to be somewhere safe. Leo of course was freaking out. I ended up not having any trees come down on the house but I did have two across my driveway. They were a good size but not too big that I couldn't pick up the ends and pivot them around to get my car out. I had to charge my phone in my car and had to go to my friend's to charge my iPad and take a shower late Monday afternoon. What did we ever do without our electronics?? I had to have my iPad and phone to communicate and be able to watch the weather and news and maybe learn when my electric might come back on. When I was on my way home from her house I noticed a couple of houses not far from mine that had electric. I prayed the rest of the way home that I had power and voila!! I was sooooo happy to have my power back. I managed to save everything in my fridge and freezer. I only opened the fridge once for water to drink and brush my teeth. There wasn't much I could do with the power off. I did go out on the porch and crochet until it got too hot out there. Then I came in the house and laid down and actually took a lengthy nap. I guess I was tired. I'm normally not the nap type of person because I feel worse when I get up than I did when I laid down.

Yesterday morning we finally put Norm to rest in the Veteran's Cemetery. It was a small gathering of closest friends. I think it was fitting that he was laid to rest the day before the 4th of July. He was a Vietnam veteran and was very vocal and participated in every event he could up until he left us. I felt his presence there with us.

We had another storm go through yesterday afternoon and I was so fearful of losing electric, but we did not. Yay! It was not near as bad thankfully.

Today I am sitting here chilling out so far. Well I say chilling. I have crocheted, made macaroni salad and picked up a little bit. I went outside and picked up a lot of branches and debris from the storm before it got hot out. So I have been a little bit productive. I haven't gotten near what I wanted to get done on my stay-cay but ya know what? It will be there when I get to it. :o)




I am 3/4 of the way done with this awesome piece! I am using double strand size 10 to make a size 3 thread and a B hook. This piece is out of the book below that I just got in the mail yesterday. I have wanted to make one of these for a while and just having the pattern in this book made ordering it well worth while. :o)





More motifs in thread. :o)




When I was at one of the girl's house Sunday morning after kayaking we hydrated and she didn't have any coasters on her tables. I made her two. :o)



And I had started to make all of the motifs for a soccer ball from Crochetbug's blog (over there in my blog roll), but I have a problem. :o( They are all different sizes!! I used a G hook for all of them. And all RH yarn except for the light pink on the one African Violet. Gauge.....what can I say? I was just reading Doris Chan's blog the other day when she posted about gauge. And it hit home on this project. One skein of yarn might have different gauges within the skein. Even though all of the RH skeins that I used say the same type #4 medium. All of them are different gauges, some skinny, some thick. And in this project it requires 12 pentagons and 20 hexagons. I don't think it's going to work with the different sized motifs. I wanted to make a purple and pink one for Kylie for Christmas. I think it will be big. I'm going to keep plugging away at it and see what happens. :o)

Ok folks....that is what's going on in my world. Leo and I are sucking up precious AC as of this minute and we want to wish you a wonderful and safe 4th of July. Cya soon!!

TTFN
Kat
xoxo