New Layout

I finally got off my butt and made myself a header and changed the layout of my blog a bit, which is surprising because I spent probably 3 hours retouching photos of my most recent vacation today. Apparently my photoshop threshold is higher than I thought it was.

The header does feature a portion of my stash from the last time I pulled it out in August. I think back then I had around 50 pounds of yarn, all of which get crammed under my desk somehow (I still have no idea how I do it, but it works out).

Someday I'd like my stash to fit inside that pink tote. I don't think I'll see that day soon.

WIP Wednesday #7

I just got another ball of yarn for another WIP I have, so naturally that means I've completely set it aside and I'm working on something else at the moment.

Can you guess what it is? Here' one piece:

It looks kind of like a flower, but it's not. Here's the other part:

Fat Shae seems to be wondering if it's some sort of new cat toy. I suppose it looks a little bit like one of her mousies.

It is neither flower nor mousie though. It's tastier than that (or would be if it was actually real!)

Ta-da! A cute little strawberry. One of many strawberries to come, because you can't just have one strawberry that would be silly. If you want to make some strawberries yourself, you can find the pattern here. The only thing I did differently was use a size E/3.50mm hook.

The strawberries are a part of my larger WIP for the rest of the year. As I mentioned yesterday, A. got a play kitchen for his birthday. For Christmas I've decided he is getting a giant box full of play food and other kitchen accessories made just for him by his Godmama, so if you're not interested in hearing about that, start running now! It's a good thing his mom and dad just bought a new and bigger house because I've got a lot of things planned for him!

It's Play Time!

I "splurged" last night and decided to treat myself. Thanks to Swagbucks I spent a whopping 65 cents on this baby. Darn that $11.70 shipping fee!

Annie's Attic It's Play Time!

Even though it only cost me 65 cents out of pocket, I still count this as a splurge because as a general rule I don't buy crochet patterns. I figure there's more than enough free patterns to keep me busy until the day I die available online for free. It's got to be good to get me to shell out the bucks and I'm really hoping that this book doesn't disappoint.

The reason I dug into my hoard of Swagbucks that I've been saving up for Christmas? Someone special got a play kitchen for his first birthday from mama and papa! I've been Googling like crazy for free play food and kitchen items that I can crochet for A. for his Christmas present this year now, and I stumbled upon a blog that mentioned this book when I was looking for a frying pan.

I'm expecting to get my $8.95 out of it based on the cover alone (on sale for $3.95 on the Annie's Attic website if you want one too!) I'll definitely be making the frying pan and spatula and egg, and will most likely do the baking set (in manlier colours naturally). And that tool belt set is just too cute!

Hopefully USPS isn't too slow getting my package to me. I personally have this theory that they have a secret room where all my packages go that I really want, until they feel that they've tortured me long enough and decide to deliver it. It's estimated to arrive between April 14 and April 21, so we shall see!

Little Miss's 1st Birthday Present

You've already seen the turtle buddy that I made for Little Miss's birthday gift. When I was making that, I was pondering making a matching sweater just because I had the yarn to do it. I did end up deciding to go for it, despite my complete lack of experience making clothes. Generally speaking I like to stick with flat things, though I do amigurumi, but the idea of sleeves and collars and what not kind of scares me. Especially since the flat things don't always come out right.

In the end, I think my first ever crochet sweater came out pretty well:

You can't see very well in that picture, but it has the most darling little buttons, perfect for a little lady. You can't see them very well in this picture either, but at least I tried:

All wrapped up and ready to be opened now!

Linking to:

A Little Knick Knack

Craft-o-Manic

Completed Turtle Buddy

Not much has changed on this project since I posted it as a WIP, but here it is, officially complete now:

The blanket attached to the back doesn't seem to be much longer than when I originally posted this project but in reality it's a little longer than two feet, which makes it hard to fit in a photo. I had just enough pink yarn to finish the edge of the blanket, and the orange coloured yarn is now all used up between this project and a sweater I made for the Little Miss's birthday present, which makes me very happy. I think that I'm down about six balls of baby yarn now which I count as quite the accomplishment. Hopefully Little Miss and her mama love it!

Linking to:

A Little Knick Knack

Craft-o-Manic

WIP Wednesday #6

So I've been doing pretty well with my goal to not buy new yarn and use up what I've bought already this year, but I'm not going to lie, I slipped up a bit in February when we were in Florida. We were in Joanns and I just could not resist this new Bernat Pipsqueak yarn. It got even worse when I realized they had free patterns using it.

I couldn't help it, it was just so soft and snuggly feeling I couldn't say no. And so I walked away with a ball of green and blue and the free star blanket pattern they had available in store. Upon bringing it home I found out that it is unfortunately a total nightmare to do anything with. Seriously, people complain all the time that Red Heart Baby Clouds yarn is a nightmare, but this stuff was far worse.

This means we unfortunately say goodbye to the cute little star blanket that needed lots of counting and required you to know where the stitches actually were. From there I tried a simple ripple blanket and again, a no go. After much ripping out, I decided that stripes and a simple double crochet was the winning pattern for this yarn because it is really that much of a pain.

But of course, where's the fun in just a blue and green striped blanket right? That would get boring and quite frankly I had my concerns about running out of yarn before the blanket got to a decent size. Enter my dear friend Nikki, who like me is a bit Joanns addicted, and who unlike me actually lives near Joanns. She was kind of enough to pick me up another ball and ship it to me up in dreary old no-Joanns Canada and save me the drive down to Buffalo for yet another ball of yarn.

So here's how it's going, after pulling it out I don't even know how many times now. For some reason I had a lot of trouble getting it to be a width I liked. No idea what I'm going to do with it when it's done, but I'm sure I'll find someone to love it.

Crochet A Rainbow

As I am sure many of you know, on March 11, 2011 Japan was hit with a major earthquake and tsunami. Lives were lost, thousands are still missing, and families have been ripped apart by water and rubble. Japan faces an uphill battle to rebuild, further complicated by the nuclear plant situation in the country.

Back in January when Australia was devastated by flooding, Sarah London started her Crochet A Rainbow project to help provide those suffering comfort that remind them there is a rainbow after a storm. So far 460 people are participating and they've received 904 granny squares that Sarah has sewn into blankets to be donated to the people hit the hardest in Australia. Now she is sending blankets to Japan, with the first shipment going out earlier this week.

I encourage everyone to sign up and help Sarah Crochet A Rainbow to help change the lives of the Japanese people hardest hit by this disaster. This is stash blasting at it's most useful by far.