Doing the Dishes....

I hate doing dishes! Point, blank, and simple. I have a dishwasher that is starting to loose its cleaning power, its probably about 12 years old. So anyone want to guess what I have been doing? Yeah, that's right, the *$#& dishes! I figured that if I had to stand and scrub that I could at least do it with a nice new dishcloth or two, or enough to fill my dishcloth drawer. These quick little projects pack some awesome scrubbing power.

This is a quick design I came up with to crochet these dishcloths and here is how I did it. They took me less than a hour to make.

Peaches & Cream

size G hook

needle to sew in ends.

chain desired width-on the red I started with a chain of 31, the multi colored I chained 26

1. sc in the second chain from the hook and each ch across

2. ch 1 and turn. Extended single crochet in each sc across

3. ch 2 and turn. HDC in stitch across.

4. ch 3 and turn. Backpost DC in the first stitch, Frontpost DC in the next. Repeat BPDC and FPDC across

    to the end.

Repeat rows 1-4 until the desired length of your dishcloth then repeat rows 1-3 for the end rows. Or if you want both ends to have a SC row repeat rows 3-1. I finished the edge with a round of reverse single crochet. Sew in ends and scrub a dub.

Hope you enjoy. Now I have to go start dinner which means more @*$& dishes to wash. Maybe tonight would be a good night for take out!

TTYS!

Been puttering around...

No big projects being worked on around here. Just a few little "instant gratification" ones to get me by. I did this Queen Anne's Lace scarf in Vanna's Choice color Ducky. I love the color yellow but it washes me out, so I thought a scarf would add just a little color without making me look like a corpse.

A cute little flower that took less than a hour to hook. The pattern is the Slinky Crochet Flower by Teresa Richardson. She also has a youtube video for directions. I made this one with I Love this Yarn! Sparkle and also one with a cotton yarn. I like the look of the cotton one better.

I made my daughter this Rosie Rabbit from Michelle at the Royal Sisters. She has the pattern for sale in her Etsy shop. This was made with  I Love This Yarn! Sparkle, and is my 6 year olds favorite color. I am starting one in Pink Sparkle today for my 4 year old.

Another flower quickly made. The pattern is Flower Pin by Dot Matthews.

Same pattern. I added beads with rhinestones to the center of each. I found these beads in a dollar bin at Dollar General.

I am working on a black Queen Anne's Lace and a red one for a co-worker. She is gonna model them for me around her college campus and hopefully get me some orders.

I hope this new year is a great one for you. May you be blessed with health, wealth, happiness, and lots of hooking time!

TTYS!

To Infinity and Beyond.......

Ok, so there is no beyond, but I have made a couple of Infinity scarfs.

This little one was made using one skein of Vanna's Choice in Mustard. The pattern I used was Caron's Bellflower Infinity Scarf.  I needed another skein to make it long and able to loop around, but I didn't have one so a short one it is. It's very warm and would have probably been too thick looped around anyway. Has anyone else noticed that Mustard is a popular color right now?

Now for my second one. I made this one in about 4 hours on Friday. The yarn I used is Lion Brands Tweed Stripes in color 206 Woodlands. LOVE this colorway! This was my first time using a self striping yarn and will definitely use it again.  

I started out similar to the patter for the Mustard scarf, and changed up the shells a little. 

Here's how I did it.

-2 skeins of Lion Brand Tweed Stripes

-H hook

Start with a chain of 34.

ROW 1-

DC in the 4th chain from the hook.

*Skip next two ch's.

2 dc, ch 1, 2 dc in the next ch.

dc in each of the next two ch's.*

Repeat from * to the end. Ending with dc's in last two ch's.

You should have 4 shell clusters and 5 two dc spaces.

ROW 2-

ch 3 and turn, dc in next dc.

*in ch 1 space of shell- dc, ch 2, dc

skip to 2 dc's and dc in each.

repeat from * to the end with a dc in the last dc and a dc in the top of the ch 3.

ROW 3-

ch 3 and turn, dc in the next dc.

*in ch 2 space of shell-2 dc, ch1, 2 dc

skip to 2 dc's and dc in each.

repeat from * to end with a dc in the last dc and a dc in the top of ch 3.

Repeat rows 2 and 3 until you reach the desired length. You could leave this as a scarf or sew the two ends together to make a Mobius or Infinity scarf.  I hope I explained the instructions well enough, but if not please feel free to leave me a message.

I have dinner simmering away in the Crock Pot, Beef Tips and Gravy. Pammy Sue at Scotty's Place posted the recipe a while back. This is always a hit with my family. Basically you just add a package of beef tips, (I use the large pack, got a lot of mouths to feed here) and 2 cans of Beef Gravy. Throw it in a crock pot on high for 4 hours. I am going to cook some egg noodles and add them to it. Perfect for a chilly day. I am gonna go now and make a Butter Pecan Pound Cake. If you would like the recipe let me know, I will be glad to share.

TTYS!

I've been in stitches

 This is what I have been up to during the last month.

This was a freebie! Free pattern, used my free linen and free floss. My motto is "If it's free, it's for me!"

I found this pattern on Pinterest. Here is a link to it.

As I was going through all the cross stitch things I found a couple of things with the previous owners name on them. Come to find out I knew the lady that had these things. Her husband was the Optomitrist in the town I grew up in, and she was the sweetest lady. There are many started projects with the pattern, cloth, and floss all together in a ziplock bag. I found this one and knew it had to be finished and fast. She had completed the roof up to the top so I finished the rest.  I hope Mrs. K would have been happy to know her things are not going to waste.

This is the one I am working on now. I bought the kit on E Bay a year or so ago. I had started it in Aida but found this beautiful piece of Linen and decided to restart it. It is Dimensions kit #42455 "Apples and Berries". I think it will look great in my dining room and can't wait to see it framed.

Is anyone else having to wait forever to upload pictures? It took almost 45 minutes to upload these 4 pictures. Is it my computer or blogger? Today was a perfect Indian Summer kind of day. Nice warm sunny day with a slight breeze. Tomorrows forcast is rainy with a 30 degree drop in the temperature. Welcome to the South! I am ready for some actual Fall weather. Hope your week has been a great one!

TTYS!

Good Grief Ya'll!

So, Saturday morning I was enjoying some peace and quiet, coffee cup in hand, and enjoying a nice stroll through blog land. I was looking at this blog (go check out her Infinity scarf, gorgeous and she has a tutorial) when I saw my blog name on the side bar. Right under my name are the words "1 month ago". WHAT? That can't be right! I haven't blogged in over a month?!?  Bad Blogger, Bad! No excuses, I have got to do better than this!

Well, lets see, what have we been up to. Last time I wrote I was off on a vacay. We had a wonderful time at the beach, the weather was absolutely perfect, the girls and my Mom had a great stress free time. I love to watch the sunrises over the ocean. We began the September beach trips many years ago to take my MaMa Murry to see the sunrise on the ocean for her birthday, which would have been September 7th. It was bittersweet to see this sunrise, she passed away in March of this year. I think this is the prettiest one I have seen yet.

I got to see some friends who moved to Myrtle Beach a few years ago, and their children. I photographed their wedding 10 years ago, and while at the beach I photographed her Daughters Senior pictures. Here she is ready to take on the world.

This past Saturday we went to a birthday party for a very special lady.

This is my Great-Aunt Aline with her family. Happy 90th Birthday!

A couple of sweet little guys had birthdays recently also.

Caden Jacob turned one on September 20th. I introduced him in this post.

Thomas turned one on September 29th. Here was his debut on here.

Let me introduce you to Thomas' new little brother, Brayden.

Yes, Thomas and Brayden are less than a year apart. To be exact 21 days from being a year apart. Their Mother, my cousin Heather, would be very appreciative of any prayers ya'll would like to send up for her. :-)

Brayden was born on September 8th. The day after what would have been our MaMa's 90th birthday.

I think I will stop here. I have been up the last two nights with a sick 6 year old, sore throat, coughing, and fever. She has a doctor appointment at 2 this afternoon. We are hoping its not strep.

Look for upcoming posts with my crafty projects coming up soon. I promise it won't be a month before we meet again.

TTYS!

I felt the Earth move.....

So I am sure you have heard about the Earthquake already. Today I experienced it for the first time. I was in the pick-up line at school waiting on my Daughter to get out, cross stitching, and all of the sudden my Explorer started bouncing. I thought maybe it was the wind, nope just a slight breeze blowing outside. It lasted about 30-45 seconds. Weird, but not uncommon, for where I live. There is a fault line near me.  About 14 years ago we had a earthquake, I slept right through it. My ex-husband was running around like a chicken with his head cut off. He tried to wake me up. I had just got my nephew Tyler to sleep, after being up almost all night with him having asthma attacks, and threatened him with bodily harm if he woke the baby up.

We are waiting to see what Hurricane Irene is gonna do. We are in the projected path of the storm, don't I sound like a weather girl. My freshman year of High School we were hit by Hurricane Hugo. I remember being in World History when the announcement was made that school was cancelled the next day. I thought they were crazy, but hey it was a day off from school, so I wasn't going to complain. Yet. It was horrible. Our house flooded, trees were down all in my yard, we were without power for a couple of weeks. Horrible I tell you! So from then on I have paid attention to hurricanes and their paths. My ex in-laws lived in Mississippi when Katrina came through. We left SC the day after Katrina hit, headed to MS to go help them dig out, with a 6 week old baby. Longest trip of my life! Thank God they had a generator, and very little damage to their property. They were very lucky.

I thought about the fact that 20 years ago today, I was starting my Senior year of High School. Feel old much? Gah, where has the time gone?

Not much happening on the crochet front. I tested a pattern for Smooth Fox last week. It is called Tea for Two and you can get the free pattern here.

I hope y'all are having a great week.

TTYS!