Tuesday, November 06, 2012

Little Blue House and the Blue Max Special


I’m kind of sad and really nostalgic today.  I’ve been thinking about things we have owned in the past and sold.  The main thing I’m sad about is the house we used to live in before the house we live in now.  When Eddie and I first got married we lived in his trailer that he had bought when he was still single.  We had some good memories there, but as time went on we decided to buy a house.  We found a little house on the other side of town from where we were living at the time.  It was a cute and pretty little house.  It was a little blue house that sat on a little hill on about an acre and a half of land.  We used to sit on the front porch in our rockers and just look down the hill and watch the traffic go by, or watch our neighbor work in his vegetable garden.  It was a nice, quiet relaxing little area.  This picture is not of our front porch and rockers, but reminds me so much of how it looked:

I really miss my front porch.

Eventually, we decided we wanted a bigger house and smaller yard, so we started looking.  We couldn’t really find anything that we liked, so when my Aunt Dorothy moved into assisted living we bought her house from her.  I cried when I left our little blue house.  We had lots of wonderful memories there, but it was time to move on.  I feel like that was our little house and I guess I still think about it a lot.  Since we sold the house, it has gone through more than one owner.  I don’t know if the house is being rented or is owned by the people who live in it now, but Eddie said he has been by there and it looks awful.  He said whoever owns it has torn the blue siding off and tried to paint it.  The yard looks terrible.  The neighbors say the people who live there now party all the time and there are always loads of cars and people in the yard.  They said they have to call the police on them about every 2 or 3 days.  It really makes me sad and breaks my heart to know that our little blue house, which was once such a place of refuge and wonderful memories, has been mistreated this way.  I remember when we bought the house, the then owner had grown up in the house and her mother had lived there until she died.  She had even planted some of the trees in the yard.  In fact, the owners of that house once owned almost all of the land around the house.  The owner told me that she was glad we bought the house because she knew we would take care of it.  There is something about passing something along to someone else, believing that the new owner will continue to take care of it and not mistreat it.  I feel really badly about how the house is being mistreated now.  I told Eddie to not even tell me anything else about it, it breaks my heart so.  I just think that God is responsible for everything we have.  We don’t really own anything.  Everything is His and he gives it to us to take care of while we are on this earth.  I guess I just feel badly because it’s not being taken care of.  People these days just don’t have any respect for anything.  It’s really sad.

Another thing that Eddie told me this morning was that he thinks he saw a car that we used to own.  We sold it, too, several years ago.  It was a 1986 Mercury Cougar that was a dark blue on top and the bottom part was silver.  It was called a Blue Max special.  We called it “Old Blue.”  He said it thinks he saw it in the parking lot of a restaurant where he was eating this morning.  He said it looked terrible and said it looks like there was piles of trash and junk inside it.  That breaks my heart too.  We loved that car and it served us well over the years.


I know we are not supposed to focus on material things ... and I don’t.  I don’t have a desire to own lots of possessions.  I guess it just makes me sad that people who owned our things after us just didn’t take care of them the way we did.  But, then we have no control over who owns our former possessions and the way they take care of themI guess we just have to remember what Jesus said in Matthew 6:19-21.  I 'm using the King James Version just because I love the language:

19 Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:
20 But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:
21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Tuesday, October 02, 2012

Japanese Origami Paper Flowers

This past week, I discovered a cool new project to make and sell at my next craft show.  I saw these pretty Japanese Kusudama Paper Flowers online.  I thought they were so pretty, so I decided to try my hand at it.  Below is my first attempt.  I had a vase around the house that I used and this is my first paper flower arrangement.



These are really fun and so addictive!  People use all kinds of paper to make these.  I used mostly scrapbook paper, but I also used yellow copy paper and book pages.  I'm going to make some more and trying selling some of these arrangements at my next craft show.

Friday, September 21, 2012

Ruffle Scarf


I've been seeing alot lately on the Internet and on blogs about these knitted Ruffle Scarfs.  There are several videos on Youtube for how to make them.  I went to Youtube and just typed in "Ruffle Scarf" in the search box and several came up.  I was curious about how this works and it's really very easy.  The yarn that they are knitted with is a kind of ribbon looking yard, but you spread it out and it makes a lacy type yarn, then you knit into the top holes of the lace.  It's quite simple, really.  A friend of mine has been making them and selling them and she said they were fun.  Well, one day this week I bought some yarn at Hobby Lobby (Yarn Bee Chrysalis) and tried to start one.  I must have been really tired and distracted because I started it about 3 times and every time I got to about the 3rd row, I ended up with more stitches on my needle than I started with.  I was thinking that I wasn't having "fun" at all, but I decided it wasn't going to beat me, so last night I started again and so far it's going really well.  The yarn is kind of fiddly, but once you get the hang of working with it, it's really pretty easy and you get a really festive looking scarf out of it.  I just had to try it and I haven't decided yet if I'm going to wear it or sell it, but if it goes well I'll probably make a couple more, maybe, to sell.  The colors are beautiful.  I love variegated yarn.  It's one of my favorite things.

Tuesday, September 04, 2012

Chef King

Every day is a little bit better since Eddie's bypass surgery.  That was a real scare for both of us.  And a wakeup call.  We've both been trying to eat healthier more now than ever before.  The other night he decided to cook some balsamic chicken and pork on a small griddle that we have.  It's the kind that you put on top of the stove and when you cook your meat, it has grill marks like you have cooked it on the outside grill.  Only one problem, yuck ... cleaning.  I hate this thing.  The meat is pretty when it's finished, but the darned griddle is a pain in the patootie to clean.  So ... if we ever get it clean this time, we'll definitely be using aluminum foil or something else the next time.  IF we ever get it clean.  We've tried everything.  Right now it has oven cleaner on it.  We'll see how it goes.  Anyway ... I took some photos of Eddie cooking.  He was sitting down and wearing one of my aprons, but he was enjoying every minute of it.  Also, the meat looks really good on the griddle.  It tasted great too and I think we're having leftovers tonight!



Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Putting Things Into Perspective

I saw a post from one of my favorite bloggers Willa Cline.  If you go to her blog, you can read what she wrote.  It was about someone else that she read about who doesn't understand how people who work full time have time for vacations, etc., when this person spends most of their weekends doing laundry, cleaning house, etc.  Willa was talking about how it's all about deciding what is important to you and doing that.  It's about priorities.  I learned alot about that this past week.  My husband had to have a cardiac triple bypass surgery last week.  It was a shock to both of us.  He is tall (6 feet), not overweight, doesn't have high blood pressure, no sugar problems, no cholesterol problems at least when he had his bloodwork done.  We thought he was in relatively good health.  He had been complaining off and on for the past couple of weeks about being short of breath.  On Tuesday, Aug. 14, he went to the ER.  They ran several tests and ended up doing a artiorgram and found significant blockages.  The dr said stents wouldn't do it and he was recommending bypass.  He had the surgery, came through it fine and is now home recuperating and healing.  What it's taught us is that he had a very close call.  He was very lucky that he went when he did and had it checked out.  It prevented what could have been a much worse outcome.  It's really put things into perspective for us.  It means that we take care of ourselves and spend as much time together as we possibly can and count our blessings.  We also say "I Love You" alot more often.

Friday, July 27, 2012

Disappearing Nine Patch in Progress

Tonight I whipped this up:



I don't mean to sound boastful, but this pattern was so easy that it didn't take long at all.  This quilt top looks like I spent tons of time on it and I really didn't.  I put the tutorial on here a couple of posts ago.  These are 9 patch squares that have been cut crosswise down the middle.  Then the little blocks are reassembled into a different looking block.  I'm really loving this pattern.  I found some really pretty 5 inch cotton fabric squares on eBay at a very good price.  They were in my mailbox when I got home from work this afternoon and I couldn't wait to get started.  I guess I don't know when to quit when I start this kind of stuff because I didn't stop until this small wall hanging was sewn together.  It's not finished.  I still have to put borders on and quilt it, but I really wanted to share what I've done so far. 

This fabric is just a hodgepodge of everything.  When you use just 3 or 4 colors it really adds a different look.  Look at this square that I started with some 5 inch squares I already had.


Lots of fun!  I hope this inspires you to make one of your own.  If you do, I hope you share your pictures with me or on your own blog.  But, let me know if you make one and share the photos.  I'll post more photos of this one later.


Thursday, July 26, 2012

The Lord is my Shepherd

This morning on the way to work one of my favorite chapters in the Bible came to me.  I used to have it memorized when I was a child, but this morning as I was trying to recall it, I couldn't remember it all.  It just made me realize that I need to memorize it again.  It's Psalm 23.  I love the way this chapter is written and when I read it from the King James Version, it sounds like music.

Psalm 23
(A Psalm of David)

1 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
3 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

I grew up going to church and learning all these verses and chapters from the Bible.  The King James Version is the version of the Bible that we always used.  Over time, I have come to start using other versions as well, but I really like the New International Version.  It makes things easier to understand.

I'm not a person who is what some would call a Bible thumping Christian.  I don't proclaim my Christianity from the rooftops, although I'm sure some would think I should.  I prefer to live my Christian life quietly, without announcing any works I might do.  I think it's much better to do works in quiet so that I don't seem boastful about what I've done and people don't necessarily know it's me that did them.  I know I did them and that's all that matters.  I work mostly behind the scenes in helping people or doing whatever Jesus puts in my path to be done to glorify him.  As I said, I'm not one to shout my Christianity from the rooftops, however I'm not afraid to tell anyone that my Lord and Savior is Jesus Christ and that he died for my sins.

I hope I don't sound preachy today.  It just seemed like the Lord was leading me to post this on my blog and Facebook today for a reason that only He knows. 


In my next post, I will share some pictures of the Disappearing Nine Patch wall hanging that I've started.  I'm having great fun with this pattern and it's so easy!

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Disappearing Nine Patch Block

I'm always looking for new, easy quilt blocks and patterns to make. This morning a coworker brought in a quilt that she had been working on at a quilt retreat. It was beautiful, but the pattern was a little more complicated than I wanted to try. So, I was looking up something else quilt related in Google and ran across this easy quilt pattern that I had seen awhile back and forgotten about it. It's called the Disappearing Nine Patch Block. I've been loving nine patch blocks for a really long time. In fact, my very first quilt was a nine patch quilt. I made several nine patch blocks from scrap fabrics in my stash and I made all of the center squares of the nine patches with red fabric. It was so easy and I had a quilt top in no time. My very first one, and it made me feel so good that I could create something so beautiful. Well ... now, I have discovered a wonderful new variation on the nine patch block. I can't believe I haven't known about this before. Here is a Youtube video tutorial describing it.


Now, you see how easy this is. I can't wait to try one. But ... then I saw that pretty quilt in the tutorial and those lovely scallop edges. I have shied away from scallop edges in the past, but the following video makes it look very easy. At least it's presented in a way that I think I could actually do it.


When she was talking about the scallop ruler, I knew I had to order one of those, so I did that. Then I saw this next video on how to make the continuous bias binding for the scallop edges.


Well, then of course, you know I had to get one of those bias rulers too. Maybe I didn't need that ruler. If I were a more seasoned and experienced quilter I could probably figure out how to make those bias strips without it, but for me, it will be much easier to make them with this ruler, so I ordered one of those too. Sigh ... I guess when it comes to quilting, or any project really, one thing calls for another. But, now I really want to learn how to make those scallop edges. I think they are beautiful and add such elegance to a quilt. I have tons of 5" squares, so I can't wait to start working on the disappearing nine patch block. I will post pictures when I get some of it made.

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Book Spine Poetry

I wanted to share something with you that I've been working on the past few days.  I just discovered a really fun, inspiring form of making poetry from book spine titles.  This is the coolest thing.  The best definition of "book spine poetry" that I can give you is that you look for book titles (not authors) either in your own book collection at home, or in a library.  You find a book title that speaks to you or sounds intriguing, then you find some other titles to go along with it to make a short poem in a way that makes sense.  Once you have your books together and your poem, you stack the books with their spines showing in the order of the poem.  You read the titles, not the authors, to make the poem.  Then snap a picture.  Anyone can make poetry with book spine titles.

Then I asked myself, what better place could I do this than in a library where I work?  Man, the possibilities are endless.  It was all I could do today to do my real work.  What I really wanted to do was go out in the stacks and look for poems.  I did manage to make a few and I made this short video.  I hope you enjoy it.

I hope you will be inspired to make your own book spine poetry. If you do, please take pictures and share. My understanding is that some schools are using this as a learning tool to get kids interested in writing poetry. I sure wish my teachers had used these types of things when I was in school. I think my writing and other schoolwork would have been alot more fun if they had.



Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Wind Storm

This has been an unseasonably hot summer so far. It's been in the 90's almost every day and for the past week or so, the temperatures have been over 100 degrees. We had a bad wind storm last week. I was at home by myself when it hit and I was scared to death! I have never seen the trees bend over the way they did that night. I felt like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz.

I was pacing the floor. I didn't know what to do, so the only thing I knew to do, if I thought a tornado was coming, was just get in the bathtub and pull a quilt over me and pray and hope for the best. The storm finally ended, but not before taking our power for about 2 days. We did finally get our power back on and it was wonderful!

Monday, June 25, 2012

Kitten Cuteness

We got our new babies this past Saturday.  They are so sweet and adorable!  Just what we needed after losing our precious Heckle a few weeks ago.  I thought I wouldn't be ready, that it would be too soon, but as soon as I saw pictures of these babies on my cousins' Facebook page, I knew I had to have one.  Then ... we decided to get 2 of them so they could be companions and playmates for one another.  We are so glad we did!  They have added so much joy to our lives already (in just 2 days).  They took to us right away, have not been scared at all, so we think it was meant to be.

This precious one is Pepper.


And this sweet baby is Bootsie.


Taking a nap together.  So sweet!


I'm just like a new mother or grandmother.  I've been snapping cute photos like crazy.  I'm going to get an album and document their growth from babies to adults.



Monday, June 18, 2012

Kittens

I never posted about this on my blog because I was so heartbroken about it, but about a month ago we lost our beloved cat, Heckle to a leukemia cancer.  He had had all of his vaccinations, so I couldn't figure out why he got it.  The vet said that it was old age mostly, that when cats reach a certain age, they start to get these kinds of things.  Heckle was 16.


Ever since he died I've been missing him something terrible.  He was such a good cat, had his own personality and was just like having another little person in the house.  He loved to be loved on and petted.  It was so tragic when he got sick and near the end he just didn't resemble himself at all.  The illness took it's toll on him.  After he died, I lit a candle one day and had a little memorial service and talked to him and it made me feel better and gave me closure.

That was a little over a month ago.  One of my cousins has a cat who had 4 kittens about 6 weeks ago.  She posted pictures of them on Facebook and they are so darned cute!  Well, my mind started churning thinking about it and I asked Eddie about adopting one of the kittens.  He said ok and then we started talking about getting 2 kittens.  Now, we are going to adopt 2 of the kittens.  We're very excited, at least I am.  I think Eddie is too, he just isn't saying much.  I think he misses Heckle too and just have that warm presence in the house.  So, on Saturday we are planning to get them.  I've posted a few pictures here that my cousin has posted on Facebook over the last few weeks.  She took these pictures with her camera phone, so they are not very clear, but I think you can get the idea of what they look like.






The ones we are planning to get are the gray and white one and the striped tabby one with white feet.  They are so cute!




Thursday, June 07, 2012

Origami Bookmarks

I think I'm addicted to making these little bookmarks.  They are just so darned easy to make and take less than 2 or 3 minutes.  I've already made a bunch of these.  I'm using one right now on a book I'm reading and it's working pretty well.  It doesn't fall off the page or out of the book.  It reminds me of when I first started making origami cranes.  They turned out to be so easy and therapeutic that I guess I became addicted to making those too.  I have hundreds of them at home.  I'm probably going to be making some more origami crane mobiles to give for gifts.  Anyway, here are a couple of pictures of the bookmarks I've made and the cranes.




Earlier this week I found a pretty origami crane mobile with beads that I want to try and make.  I love this mobile and I can't wait to try one.








Wednesday, June 06, 2012

Lots of Things

I've been working on a few things since I last posted.  I dabbled into making fabric bowls from the book, It's a Wrap by Susan Breier.  This was something I had seen at my local quilt shop and thought it was cool, but didn't think I would ever try it.  Then, one day I started thinking about it and decided to try it.  I ordered a used copy of the book from Amazon from a dealer in North Carolina.  I live in Tennessee and I thought that by ordering it from a state nearby it wouldn't take as long to get it as maybe from a state farther away.  Wrong!  They didn't even ship it until almost a week after I ordered it.  It was very frustrating since when I'm in the mood to work on a project, I work to work on it NOW.  Fortunately, there were lots of Youtube videos and online sites with tutorials and I basically learned how to do everything without the book.  This was a fun project, but the worst part of it is wrapping the fabric around the clothesline.  Also, it was a bit of a challenge to find the clothesline in my area, so I ended up using a macrame cord that I found at Hobby Lobby.  It worked fine.  So, I made a couple of bowls.  One of them is pictured here:


I think it came out pretty well, but by the time I had made the second one I was just over it.  It came out pretty well too, but I still have to put the fabric edging at the top.  By the time I finally got the book, I was just over it all totally, but I did look through it, decided that it didn't tell me any more than the online resources had.  You can basically learn this technique and not even need the book.

After that, I just got in the mood to work on crocheting granny squares.  I did some images searches in Google and saw some really pretty scarves, so I decided to make one.  I made the first one and really liked it, then I decided to make another one for my mother-in-law for Christmas.



The lighter colored one is the first one I made and the second one in the dark lavender is the one I made for my mother-in-law.  Granny squares are really fun to crochet and you don't need that many for a scarf .. about 12.  I crocheted a single crochet around the outside edge of the scarf all the way around and added some fringe.

I was on Pinterest earlier this week and I saw a really cute idea for bookmarks.  I love origami and I found this great tutorial for making them.  When you get to the blog page, just scroll down a little bit and you will find the tutorial for the origami bookmarks.  They are so easy to make and lots of fun with different colored papers.  I first tried it with some origami papers and then realized that the paper is not strong enough to stay on the corner of your book page.  So, I found some scrapbook papers that I had at home and they are the exact size (3 inch square), so I made several with them and they came out great!  I love these!  They stay on the corner of your page and you can keep them on there until you finish reading and then move them to mark your new page.  One thing I did a little differently from the tutorial was fold in the back flap also, so that when you turn your page, the bookmark will not be in the way of your reading.  Here are a few that I made:



To give you a little more detail, here are some photos to show you how I folded the back flap in so that it doesn't show on the back when you are reading the next page:



After you follow the instructions in the tutorial (the link I mentioned above), your bookmark will look like this:



To fold the back flap in, I turn the bookmark over and fold the flap toward the back to crease it,


Then I turn it back over, and fold the flap inside the bookmark, like this:



When you finish, the bookmark will look like this:


Then you can put it on your page,


and leave it there while you read, and move it to mark your place when you stop reading.


I love these little bookmarks.  They are fun to make and really cute out of the scrapbook papers.  I hope these photos make sense.  If not, let me know and I will try to take some pictures of the whole process.


  



Friday, May 04, 2012

Changes

In my last post, I talked about changing the title of my blog because I wanted it to include alot of everything that goes on in my life and not just the knitting and crocheting.  I decided to change the title of my blog to The Farmer's Granddaughter.  The reasoning behind this is because I am a farmer's granddaughter and and since my grandfather died when I was only about 6 years old, I never got to know him very well.  All I have are stories my mother has told me about her mom and dad.  And everyone in the family called them Mom and Dad, even the grandchildren.  I have a picture, that I will post later, of me and my grandmother, but I was very small and I don't remember her at all.  The main memory I have of my grandfather is of me jumping in his lap every time I would go and visit.  As soon as I walked in the door to their house, I would run and jump in his lap and he would say, "Dad's 'ole sweet baby."  I held on to this precious memory for so many years thinking that this term of endearment was mine alone.  Sadly, I found out later that he said this to ALL of his granddaughters, not just me.  But, that's ok.  I still hold on to that memory and bring it out every now and then when I'm needing to feel loved.

My mother has told me many stories about her childhood.  She was the youngest of 7 other children on the farm that her father owned and worked himself with the help of his sons and grandsons.  There are so many stories that she has told me and I won't tell them all in this post, but I'll tell more later.  The main reason I wanted to name my blog the way I did is because I want to have a connection to my grandparents.  Since they both died when I was so small, I really missed out on having grandparents to love and nurture me.  My dad's parents were divorced and I ever saw his dad at all.  He was just a very strange and distant man who had no use for me or the rest of his family either, apparently.  My dad's mother was the closest thing to a grandparent I ever had in my life and even she was distant at times.  She had alot more contact with her other grandchildren than she ever did with me, for some reason.  My cousins all talk about all the wonderful memories they had of her, I a few memories, but not as many as they do.  Anyway, I digress.  I think that if my mom's parents had been a little younger when I was born I would have had wonderfully loving grandparents.  There is no doubt of that in my mind.  So, naming this blog is a way for me to have a connection to them and especially my grandmother because she was a farmer's wife and homemaker.  She grew her own garden and canned all of her vegetables and probably lots more things that I don't even know about.  But, the most intriguing thing about her to me is that she was a quiltmaker.  She must have passed the gene down to me because I am a quiltmaker too.  I also have alot of other interests.  I hope, by changing the name of my blog, this will allow me to be more flexible in my blog posts.  Hopefully, I will blog more often and not worry that just because I don't have a knitting project going on that I have nothing to blog about.  I will also post pictures too because I know how boring it is to go to a blog with no pictures.  I'm mean, we're all about the visual, right?  Plus, pictures on others' blogs give me so much pleasure and are so inspiring.  So, until next time...

Saturday, April 14, 2012

I haven't been blogging much lately.  I guess I've just been busy with other things, but I really need to get back to blogging more.  I'm actually thinking about changing the name of my blog to something other than Sharon's Knitting and Other Stuff.  I think sometimes I don't blog because I think I'm limited to only blogging about knitting and if I'm not working on a knitting project, then I think I really don't have anything to say.  The more I think about it, the more I think I want it to be more than just knitting.  I think I still want it to be knitting, but also about other things that I like to do.  I also like writing poetry and short stories, crochet, quilting, and I also like photography.  So, I'm going to have to give it some thought about the name change. 

Lately, I have been thinking about my writing.  I have several cousins who are talented at writing poetry and short stories.  The other day one of them sent to me a copy of her newest short story and she also sent a CD that had a recording of her reading the story.  It was so awesome!  It really made the story come alive.  Her mother (my first cousin) and I got to talking about how it would be a good way for us to also record our poems and short stories as a way to preserve them.  So, we are going to do that.  I have already bought an inexpensive microphone just for testing and have recorded a few poems.  As a test, I burned the recordings to a CD and played it in my CD player in my car, and it worked great!  That really got me excited about recording other stuff and also inspired me to try and write some more.

I do have some knitting to show you.  This is a scarf that I'm working on as a gift for a dear lady who is a friend of me and my mother.  The pattern is the Flyng V Scarf from the book Exquisite Little Knits.  I've talked about this book before and this pattern.  I love the pattern.  It's very easy to do and with a variegated yarn, looks great!  The yarn I'm using for this scarf is Deborah Norville's Collection Everyday Soft Worsted.  It's anti-pilling.  I'm using size 7 knitting needles for this one.  The color is Red Rocks.

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Dolls and Doll Clothes

Lately, I've become interested in historical dresses.  Since I don't have the experience or confidence to sew adult size dresses, I decided to try and make some doll dresses.  I've been wanting an American Girl doll for a long time, but I just can't justify paying over a hundred dollars for one.  So, after doing a little research, I decided to go to Target and look for a similar one called Our Generation.  I know alot of people have bought these dolls for a much cheaper price instead of the AG dolls.  They are very similar in size and body type and, to be honest, I think the Target dolls have a much prettier face on them.  The one below I bought at Target for $21.99.  Very affordable.  The hair is not the same as the AG dolls, but I plan to leave it up the way it came in the box so that won't be a problem.  I found the dress pattern for Kirsten's school dress at this link.  It's kind of a hidden link because I couldn't find it by doing a search in Google.  I just happened to find it the other day by chance.  Anyway, I thought I would try this dress first and it has its mistakes, but overall I think it came out pretty well.


I'm working on a Civil War era pattern that I found on Etsy.  Hopefully, it will go well and if it does I'll post a picture of it in a few days.

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Beaded Change Purse


This is my first knit beaded change purse.  I'm very excited about it.  This is an area in knitting that I had not explored before.  I love learning new things in knitting and I'm really happy to have accomplished this one.  I bought my kit from Purse Paradise.  The pattern for this one is called Elaine.  I also bought the Danielle kit.  It's a little bit bigger, I think.  Elaine didn't take me too long to knit.  I think I will be making more of these little beaded purses.  These little purses take size 8 DMC pearl cotton, size 11/0 seed beads, and 1 pair size 0000 needles, except I found that the size 0000 was just too msall for my eyes, so I used size 000 knitting needles.  Unfortunately, that size is not available in the craft or knitting stores in my area, so I also ordered them from Purse Paradise.  You can find some purse frames at Joann's, but only one size.  So, it's kind of tricky finding all the materials, but once you do, it's so much fun to make these!  The knitting itself is very easy, the sewing of the bag to the frame a little tricky, but not bad.  It wasn't bad at all, in fact.

Friday, January 06, 2012

Flying V Scarf

Here is the picture I promised of the Flying V Scarf from the book Esquisite Little Knits.  I dug out my book last night so I could make a copy of the pattern.  I think I might be making another one of these soon.  Both of these scarves are great examples of easy patterns that look really complicated.  I like those kinds of projects.

Thursday, January 05, 2012

Multidirectional Diagonal Scarf




I haven't been working on very much related to knitting lately, but I dug this scarf out a couple of days ago and I've been working on it.  I love this pattern.  It's so easy, but it looks so complicated, and best of all it's free.  You can find the pattern here.  I sure wish there were more patterns like this for free.  There is another pattern I absolutely love, but it's not free.  It's called the Flying V Scarf and the pattern is in the book Esquisite Little Knits.  I have one that I've made and I'll have to take a picture of it and post it.  It's another easy scarf pattern that looks so difficult.  Variegated yarn brings out the best in both of these scarves.