Mending

I think I have told you all before, but here I go again. I don’t like to mend or hem pants. One morning last week I found this...

...on top of my crochet granny square project. I do give him credit for pinning the button back on his pants with the cutest flower pin, and it was very tempting to pick them up and just sew it on. As I moved the pants away from my crocheting, I remembered I had to prioritize my projects and time and maybe I’ll still get around to sewing on his button, but only after I finish my granny squares.

Laundry

I think some of you know that my ritual in the morning is to get up at 3:30 am, put a pan of hot water on for hot tea, go to the laundry room, start a load of laundry, pick up my crochet hook, and work on whatever project that I might have ended with the day before.

I love to do laundry (I know some people think I’m crazy), but I love the way it smells, and I love the warmness of the fresh laundry when you take it out of the dryer. I love to smooth the wrinkles out with my hands and fold each item the same way every time. Until it comes to my king-size fitted sheets……

Ugh! I never can get things to lay flat, and it ends up all bumpy looking. I have even taken a lesson from Martha Stewart’s TV show and tried to do the same thing she does. But I swear it still doesn’t work for me. Maybe if I had a waist high table like she has and was a little taller, just maybe I could get it right.

What do you think? Does anyone else have a problem with fitted sheets? I was just wondering if there is anyone else out there that likes to do laundry like me.

Lessons Learned

This is a lesson I learned the hard way.

I made this scarf last Spring, and I made it out of some fuzzy cotton yarn. I love zigzag and ripple patterns and decided to change colors on every row and repeat it. I got a rhythm going and didn’t stop to weave in my ends. I decided when I had crocheted as long as I wanted that I would take a shortcut and not weave the ends in. Instead I would fold the scarf over. tucking the ends in and adding a row of single crochet all around through both thicknesses.

I wore my scarf for the first time this week and found that the fuzz was getting in my nose, so decided that I would launder it. I found that I had just a few other articles of clothing that I could throw in with it and kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. I was trying to take a shortcut again, and as you can see, all the ends that didn’t get woven in are now sticking out all over and all the fuzz that came off of the yarn is now on the few clothes that I threw in with the scarf.

Before I can put things away or iron my husband’s shirt, I will have to take a fuzzbuster to it and my socks and underwear, too! Ha! Ha! I just made more work for myself by taking these two shortcuts.

Lesson learned: don’t launder cotton crochet yarn pieces with any other clothing and always make sure to weave your ends in. Has anyone ever done something like this or am I the only one?

Teaching My Sister-in-Law Ricci to Crochet

Ricci and I have been friends for almost 20 years. As a matter-of-fact, she introduced me to her brother almost 20 years ago. Anyway, Ricci has always admired everything that I make. Every time she comes to our house, she has to look at everything I’ve been working on and always comments that she wants whatever I’ve made. I’ve made her a few things, and she loves them. She always says that she wishes that she could make things, but her grandmother tried to teach her and told her that she couldn’t sit still long enough to learn, and she just eventually gave up on her. I have heard this same thing from her for as long as I can remember.

So last Saturday Ricci came over and said the same thing again, but this time I decided that I was going to try and teach her to crochet. I went and got an extra hook and a skein of yarn from my stash and made a swatch of 20 single crochet and 10 rows long and handed her the hook and the fabric and said, "I’m going to show you how to crochet, and you’re going to sit still until you learn."

Before an hour and a half was up, she understood the concept of a single crochet and chain. She still wasn’t quite ready to go to another stitch or start from the beginning. But I did send her on her way with a hook and the yarn and told her to practice until she felt really comfortable with both of them. Hopefully she will bring it back, and we’ll start on a half double and then a double.

Shhh! Don’t tell her, but I think I’ll get her the I Can’t Believe I’m Crocheting dvd and book for Christmas. I can’t wait to see all the cool color combinations she’ll come up with. Tell me about someone you’ve taught to crochet.

Free Pattern Friday: Merry Door Mates Crochet Patterns

I’ve got two patterns for you this week, a rug and a doorhanger. Since it is December, I thought I’d better get into the Christmas spirit, so I decided to try my hand at this cute Santa crochet pattern. I know it says to use fabric strips for the whole thing, but you know me, I had to try something different. I chose to use some medium worsted weight yarn that was left over from my granny square swap for his face, hat, nose, and pompom. Then I decided to use different colors of strips of fabric for his beard instead of plain muslin. It reminds me of a scrappy quilt.

This was a fun and easy project especially if you ask your husband to help you cut the strips while you tie them on to Santa’s face. (Well he was watching me cut the strips and was not doing anything else, so I asked him if he wanted to help, and being the thoughtful, kind husband that he is, he agreed.) Ha! Ha!

I think Santa looks cute on my purple front door. What do you think?

Mess Up on Cloud-Soft Cover-Up

Ok. I’m to the end of my Cloud-Soft Cover-Up afghan from a past Free Pattern Friday. I plan on giving this our new grandson in Oklahoma. I really thought I had the pattern memorized, but apparently not. When I folded it in half look what happens……

I forgot to add the 1 chain between each of the puff stitches on about half of the afghan. UGH! Do I frog it or just continue on with the edging and get it done? Please tell me what you would do!

Thanksgiving 2009

This year, my mom decided to have Thanksgiving on Friday instead of Thursday. So I got to spend Thanksgiving Day alone at my house with my little family. We had a very non-traditional lunch with Chicken Tortilla soup and spaghetti and ate those leftovers for dinner also. My Megan got to come to my house, too, as Jennifer usually has to work and her dad takes her for the weekend.

Joshua decided to be a kind teenager and play a board game with Megan, and they had fun. It was great watching them play together as Megan is growing older.

Jennifer came over without anything to crochet, so I gave her the Kid’s Cover-up afghan that I’ve been working on to crochet on. She got 16 rows done for me. and it’s looking really good.

Since Megan was able to be with us for Thanksgiving this year, I decided it was about time to get the four generation picture that has never been taken. When my mom says that we’ll be eating around noon, you really need to be at her house by 11:00 because she may decide that she wants to eat anywhere between 11:00 and noon. This year was no exception; we started at 11:40. There were approximately 35 or 40 people there and food for 50.

I wish I would’ve taken a picture of the mashed potato pan. Oh my gosh, my mom makes the best mashed potatoes of anyone I know. Of course, I think all of her food is the best, and she just says that “it’s just because I didn’t have to make it myself” and maybe she’s right. She had a hard time this year with mashing the potatoes, for some reason her potato masher was not working, and my sister and brother were trying to help her and tried different things. She finally got the electric mixer out, but my brother didn’t like that method because he says that “if there aren’t chunks in the potatoes then they aren’t real mashed potatoes.” I have always thought the same thing as my mom never used an electric mixer to mash her potatoes. The potatoes were great by the way.

Everything turned out very well and my mom put my dad down for a nap before lunch, and she got to enjoy her food along with everyone else. She also mentioned that she had invited a friend of the family to join us but the friend had to turn her down as she wasn’t feeling well and besides that she was concerned about adding one more person to the lunch. My mom commented and said that she had told the friend, "What are you talking about? The more the merrier!” I laughed inside and thought about what I told you earlier about what she says about extra people coming to dinner.

This is Sarah, her sister-in-law Jessica, and baby William (one of my great nephews and one of their cousins). I asked Sarah if she continued with crocheting from last year, and she said she did right at first and had made a hat, but she ran out of yarn and hadn’t picked it up for a long time. She tried again sometime later and had forgotten, so I told her that there are lots of on-line videos that she could watch if she needed to until we could get together again, and I could go over it with her. I didn’t have a chance to ask my other niece Jessica if she continued.

I have to mention my nephew Keegan. He’s 6 months younger than Joshua, and it's always been a tradition on Thanksgiving for Keegan to stay all night with us, and this year was no exception. I couldn’t believe how tall he had gotten since the last time I saw him. He mentioned also that he can bench press 300 lbs. I bet he is a great asset to his football team, too. What do you think?

My daughter usually doesn’t go anywhere without her crochet, and she seems to be able to crochet anywhere, even when this much commotion going on. I took my crochet bag but didn’t ever take it out. I just enjoyed sitting and watching the babies and children for a while with nothing to do and, of course, I love watching Jennifer crochet.

It was a wonderful Thanksgiving, and I stayed to help Mom with the cleanup and NO, she doesn’t have a dishwasher, but all I left her with was the potato pan soaking. Ha! Ha!