Before and After

I believe I mentioned before that I learned how to crochet twice.  There was the first way, that was kinda right and got by unless I wanted something to actually match a pattern and then there was the correct way.  Since learning how to crochet "right", there are several projects that I have given away that I wish I could take back and correct.  My apologies to my first blanket recipients!

Last summer I decided to make blankets for my friend Shayna's kids.  I completed the small blankets in July but she and I weren't able to get together for me to give them to her.  Thank goodness.  I decided that I wanted to take the original blankets (done the old way) and use them to make new blankets.  

Both blankets are camo, so for Maddie's blanket I kept the pink camo and combined it with purple camo in a large granny square blanket.

This is the before (actually before the before since I was just starting it):

This is the after:

Close-up

Without a flash (to get a good look at the stripes)

As for Grayson's blanket, I took a basic plain camo rectangular blanket and combined it with a darker camo to make a wave blanket.  That one's not finished yet.  I'll include pictures of it when it is.

So at some point (before Shayna's kids are grown), I'll finish the second blanket and get them to her.  Until then, enjoy knowing at least what Maddie's blanket looks like!

More Holiday Gifts

While Sam was in NYC for work in February, I made him take pictures of Carlos and Stacey in their holiday gifts.  Unfortunately, Carlos' hat was too small (he has a really big head) and the hat for Mateo was too small as well.  The scarf and hat fit Stacey perfectly until she washed the scarf and shrank it!  But it's the thought that counts, right???

The scarf was from a pattern in a magazine but the hats were all my own!

Critter Madness

Even though it seems I have been MIA as of late, I've been creating up a storm.  As shown in previous posts, I was starting to get the hang of making amigurumi creatures.  They're easy and quick to make and make such great gifts for kids.  Although if you ask my mom, they make great gifts for her too!

So I've added a few new animals to the collection - an elephant and a penguin.  I did the elephant in both a grey as well as a light blue and am not sure which I like better.  You be the judge.

Late February, our nephew turned 5 and I thought that it would be fun to make him a toy.  Well if anyone knows anything about having young children, especially more than one, then you know that I could not show up without a gift for his little sister as well.  

I made the frog earlier in the week.  Sam and I had given the kids Kermit the Frog at Thanksgiving, so I figured that we could continue the tradition of frogs.  That was until I found the elephant pattern and felt I had to make it.  I started on Saturday morning and by the time we arrived for the birthday party, the little guy was done.

Grey Elephant

I gave Yoni the choice of which he would like and he surprised me by choosing the frog.


Yoni and his legless frog (I like it better this way)
 

That left Yael with the elephant.  I got a real kick of Yoni carrying the frog around by his eyes!

Yaeli and her elephant

When Holli's little one turned 5 the following month, I asked her if she would want a frog, pig or elephant and she chose an elephant too.  I assume that it was delivered to Jessi but don't know for sure since it had to go through Holli first and she absolutely loved it!

Jessi's Blue Elephant

A few weeks ago, Amanda brought me the first pig that I made.  She showed me that his feet were coming undone from his body and asked if I could fix it.  She told Rhylan that the pig had to go to the "doctor".  I thought it might be fun to provide Rhylan with a new "friend" when I returned her pig.  That led to making the penguin and I have to say that it is my absolute favorite so far!  So easy to make and so cute!

Rhylan's Penguin

My next project to finish is the Longhorn that I began for Joe.  Pictures to come!

Lush by Levine

Note to self: Always try your products before giving them to other people.

So I decided that it was prudent that I take a bath this afternoon (#1 thing to do on day off) and use both the bath fizzies and the peppermint sugar scrub.  I grabbed my jar of peppermint fizzies and started the bath water.  A hint for those of you that have received the fizzies and have yet to use them.  In order to benefit from the aromatherapy properties of said fizzies, drop at least 3 if not 4 into the bath as you are sitting in the water.  The scent of peppermint was eye-opening but didn't last long.  However, the fizzies also act as a softener on the skin, which was nice.

The sugar scrub I found is best used with a long-handled bath brush or loofah on a stick.  If you use it with your hands (at least with my hands), it tickles!  This stuff is fantastic for softening the feet and getting off any stubborn dirt on your feet (yes my feet were really dirty!).  The scent is really nice and the oil in the scrub really softens the skin.  The only downside was the slipperiness of my bathtub following using the scrub.  And I was temporarily turned pink (just my feet) which washed off with my shower.

Shelly and I went to Sun Harvest Farms this past weekend and I picked up some new essential oils.  I'm looking forward to experimenting with pomegranate vanilla and an orange/clove mix.  I'm gonna make some new fizzies for myself and some new sugar scrub with organic sugar (and no food coloring) and plan to look into a new oil for the scrubs instead of grapeseed oil.  It's time to tweak this recipe so that it's mine.

Does anyone know where I can get waterproof computer labels???

Holiday 2008 Gifts

As the holidays approached, I became overly-ambitious.  I decided (after reading Martha Stewart Living) that I wanted to create spa goodies for my ladies.  She published recipes for sugar and salt scrubs, bath fizzies and salt drops (balls).  The scrubs were easy and were jarred immediately.  Unfortunately, they didn't travel well, so plans to send them to our New York friends was halted.  The bath fizzies were a fun project that involved chemistry.  I got to purchase citric acid and be ultra precise because one false move ended with fizzy bubbles everywhere and having to start from scratch.  The salt drops sucked!  What a hard project.  All but a mere few broke, crumbled and fell apart.  Only Marie received salt drops and hers didn't travel well, basically negating their original purpose.

Marie's Salts from Lush by Levine

The scrubs were made in two flavors - peppermint grapefruit and lemon eucalyptus (pink and green respectively).  Unfortunately, as per Shelly, the peppermint grapefruit turned her feet pink temporarily.

The fizzes came in a number of scents as a result of special requests - peppermint, eucalyptus, green tea/cucumber, cucumber/melon, lavender, and citrus.  No one has used the fizzies yet so I don't know how those turned out - but they look pretty.

As for the boys, I crocheted all of them hats.  I combined a few patterns that I found online and in books and created a fantastic pattern that I am really happy about.  Everyone loved them and it's awesome that I can customize them to people's head size (even some of my friends' really large heads).

My silent mannequins

The Kallstrom (and Fuqua) family

Stewart

Yarmulke for Eran

Lucky the Jew

Brad's camo hat

Shelly & Joe show off their hats

Then there were the gifts for the kids.  I was especially proud of these.  I made "friends" for my best friends' daughter, the pig and the frog.  I also made pigs for my mom and an inverted pig for Shelly.  Speaking of pigs, I decorated piggy banks for the niece and nephew.  

Yael's Pig

Yoni's Pig

Yoni's freehanded "Curious George"

Another side of Yael's pig

Shelly's "inverted" pig

Rhylan and her friends

A bear of my own pattern for Mateo

Enjoy all of the pictures.  In a few months I'm going to start working on my Holiday 2009 gifts (once I figure out what I'm gonna make!).

Greetings and Salutations

About a year ago my friend Jen taught me how to crochet.  My first project was a really crappy thin "scarf" in various colors of blue, yellow and green.  It was basically a long line with only 3 rows.  It was just silly but I was really proud of it. 

After making another crappy scarf and several really oddly shaped "blankets", six months into my hobby I realized (after watching a how-to video), I was doing it wrong.  Once I figured out how to crochet the right way, my projects became much easier.  My projects were nicer, straighter, prettier and it was a whole lot easier to read patterns.  It was like a whole new world was opened to me (again!).  

Hats, blankets, scarves and more blankets followed.  Baby booties, new blankets, bigger blankets and toys followed suit.  And then the holidays rolled around and I wanted to make gifts for everyone.  I made salt and sugar scrubs and bath fizzies.  The Martha Stewart influence was growing stronger.  

Just last week I made a new wreath for our front door.  It was flowery and had butterflies and it allowed me to bust out the glue gun.  I went to Hobby Lobby tonight and bought stuff to make chocolate candy.  I don't know what's wrong with me.

In a few weeks, my husband and I are breaking apart the backyard and building vegetable gardens.  I'm really looking forward to growing my own veggies.  I'm even considering applying for a booth at the local farmers market to sell my crochet stuff.

It's invigorating to be creative!  It's a side of me that I never knew was there.  Some of my friends have begun to make fun of me.  My mom calls crocheting my "geriatric hobby".  My husband laughs at me all of the time, but I don't care.  I love it.  The more I continue to create, the better I'm getting at it and the creations are even prettier.

The purpose of this blog is to showcase my projects.  To display my wares and to hopefully muse on all of my craftastic hobbies.

Welcome to my world of creativity!