Let it snow ..let it snow...

Yes, that is right; we have the first snow of the season today. These photos where taken after only about 10 minutes of snow.

As you can see, it wasn't a light snow, either, and it is still falling. Yes, all those things in the air are the snow flakes falling, and they are the size of silver dollars.

Color Play

I was asked about 1 1/2 weeks ago to pull a pattern off of a pair of gauntlets. Let's just say the person backed out after she found out how many hours are involved and the cost of doing such a thing. So about two days ago, she asked for her gauntlets back ( wristlets, sleeves, cuffs, wrist warmers whatever you want to call them). This item was something the lady in question had purchased about 10 or 13 years ago in Europe. Long story short, she was trying to pattern an item that is already under copyright by someone else. Not sure how she thinks that works, but I don't think it will work. Any way, in the time that I had the item I was having fun playing with the color changes in the pattern on them. Above is the original item, quiet dirty to say the least; I was a little grossed out putting it on for photo documentation. Below is the start of my version of what I saw. To make the items as the lady wanted them would have taken 7 hours per gauntlet. Wondering now how much she paid for 14 hours of someone's life. My guess is, probably not enough.
Front of work

Back of work

There is alot going on in these photos, even though it doesn't look like it. Every row has hidden threads running through it so you can do the color changes at the end of a row. It is interesting how the front looks so much different than the back of the work.

Hex skirt or blanket?!

I started to make another hex item the other day using the scraps from this and this project, using the same pattern I used here. I have not fully decided if this will be a skirt, vest, or blanket. Currently, I am just having fun making hexes out of the tiniest scraps of crochet thread; doesn't take much to make those center two rows at all. This is being made out of 100% vintage and antique scraps from other projects.

As for the random-looking layout, since I am using scraps up as I go and am not very far into this project, I am trying to spread the colors out as far as possible to start; thus the weird layout. As more and more pieces are added, they will automatically be far from each other; but for now this is how I work. I have never assembled anything in a way that's logical to other people; no sense in starting now.

Flowers Abound

Picked up an old project over the weekend while I was still fighting the fever. Thought it might be of interest to some. The plan is to make 3 twin-size afghans for my three girls; I have quite the ways to go, still. The thread is antique thread left over from other projects, so I never know how many blooms I will get from one left over project. It may be as many as five or as few as one or none. If none, then the smaller scrapes go into these other two projects that I am working on. The second spare scrap project is using the pattern linked to with the word "project," but it is using thread, not chenille, and I think I am going to make a skirt out of it.

Once I make the blooms, I use left-over green to surround the flowers. After that, I use left- over cream and white thread to border the flowers. So, there aren't any two blocks exactly the same, color-wise. The blocks alternate, white and some form of cream/ecru. I am hoping my children like these when they are done. I am debating if I have to make five and not three because we have two bedrooms that have two twin beds in them. Then I would have to make one more so each daughter ended up with two blankets apiece. This project may be getting bigger than I want it. Who knows, maybe I will make 1 real large one for my king-size bed and forget the rest of the idea. I never know 'till I get done what I will actually do with some projects, and this is one of that type of project. These, of course, are a type of granny square.

The flowers are made out of size 10 thread and knit cro sheen and any other 100% type thread that is that type of weight; even pearl cottons are in the mix. The hook is a size 6 steel hook.

UPDATE:
I was asked for the pattern; here is where to find it:
The flowers are under copyright, still. They come from a book called "The Crochet Yearbook, Volume 2" by American School of Needlework, book 1336, page 135, ISBN 1-59012-003-5

The pattern calls for flowers ever other square and a solid colored background, not alternating cream and white. But that was just too boring and not enough color, so I threw out the blank blocks and made them all flower blocks.

Just playing with abc's

If you would like to play with abc's, too, go here. It is kind of neat what you can come up with, with just a few clicks on the mouse. I did not take these photos of letters they are pulled off flickr from a mixer on the link above. Just type in the words you want to see where it reads "Spell," and have fun.

Squared up Yoyo Tutorial

So you want to know what I do on a day when I have over 100 degree temp I make a yoyo tutorial. So now you know why I was able to do this other wise I would have been helping out at my kids school. Oh well I hope I feel better tomorrow as this was a miserable day. If you are cutting your own instead of buying a charm pack these are 5 inches square.

I was at a local fabric store in the last week and they had these charm squares for sale and a lovely quilt on display they had made with them. But I decided I wanted to try my hand at a square yoyo again and make a tutorial I have made a few square ones in the past but never showed them on my blog so I thought this was a good idea. The squares I used are all dye cut so they are all the exact same size you can cut them with a rotary cutter though or scissors if you want to go that route too.

1. Thread and knot needle place about 1 to 2 inches from corner with 1/4 edge turned down do a running stitch two corner flip corner down and continue around square do not back stitch at corners or you will not be able to close your squared up yoyo.
2. Draw up thread carefully so as not to get knots in your thread.
3. Close yoyo all the way and go through all the gathers again I like to do this to give my yoyo added strength you can also double your thread up. I have done this both ways and the whole in the middle is smaller the way I do it now but it takes a tiny bit longer to make. this whole is before I went around a second time.
4. Finish yoyo with a figure 8 knot make loop pass needle through loop twice draw up knot..
5. pass needle through gathers one more time and cut thread. This whole is after I have gone around twice see the size difference.

Play with the layout and even mix in a few round yoyos or even some hearts in to the mix have fun with this. Make a garland or table runner or some thing unique. The round yoyos use a standard cd as a template for size reference.

Update Sep 22 7:39 a.m.
After I finished making this tutorial I decided to go on line and see if I could find other square yoyos out there. Here is what I found. A template with a lot of work involved in it but gives a real nice square. There is a wall hanging quilt made out of square yoyos on this site.

Constitution Day

constitution day, originally uploaded by sunshine's creations.

Today is Constitution Day. Do you know anything about this important document? My children and myself spent the entire day at their school reading reports they did on this great document and reenacting the signing of it. They also played a game of trivia questions all about it. It may not sound like they had fun, but fun was had by all. Then we went to Provo where another Constitution Day party was being held. Too bad I didn't have my camera charged and with me then.

Start of Halloween Yoyo swap

start of halloween yoyos, originally uploaded by sunshine's creations.

Here are my circles, all cut to start my yoyos for the Halloween swap at MJF. If you want to join, sign ups are still open. I am thinking maybe a garland or a center piece for my table for Halloween.

Check out the flickr pool for yoyo creations and such.

September 11 Remembered

Just some thoughts on the day. I remember going to the doctor the day the towers fell. I heard about it while sitting in the doctor's waiting room. Then I went in to see our doctor and was put on bed rest 'till our baby would be born in November. I wasn't getting enough oxygen to the baby due to asthma and pneumonia ,and she was close to having oxygen deprivation. I was threatened with being put under an oxygen tent from then 'till delivery if I didn't follow doctors orders.

So I went home and rested on the couch in the family room where my other two children had their toys so I could watch them easily and take care of them without having to chase them much. Also so I could sleep sitting up, which made it easier for me to breath. I wanted to be able to watch kid cartoons with them, but everything on the television was about the events of September 11 for the entire time I was on bed rest. Needless to say, it was the most depressing thing to turn on the television.

Then, too, I was so worried I might miscarry my baby or damage her brain due to lack of oxygen in my blood stream. It was hard to think of myself and baby with so much happening in the world. So now, every time September 11 rolls around, all I can think of is how grateful I am for the miracle of my last daughter and that everything with her is fine and normal. With all the tragedy that was happening then, I was trying so hard to see the positives -- that my little one would be fine and that the future was bright as God and nature continue on, no matter what we do.

This is hard to put into words after a few miscarriages and all three daughters almost dying at birth. I do see miracles in the modern day and although they are not the Red Sea parting, they are enough to let me know we walk in the light of God and that their is beauty all around even in dark times.

I know this isn't my normal post with no pictures; I think enough pictures have been shown related to this event that I just wanted people to think of their most cherished family and friends and think of them fondly.

Part 1 Halloween swap at MJF

Below are the people that participated in the first swap at MJF for Halloween; there are two swaps. I will post the other one after I get them all in. I was in charge of both; it is always fun to see what everyone does.

createmyworld swap 1: cat pins.botanical bath swap 1: pumpkin juice body lotions.Bonne swap 1: samhain soaps.
Cheryl swap 1: yoyo cats.britchickny swap 1: mini pillows.
mima swap 1: hand glittered cards with beaded fringe.
Smoothiejuice swap 1: candles with decorated clothes pins.Gaias Rose swap 1: samhain pins.


From Sewgirlie swap 1: felt ornaments and embroidered tea towels.


sunshine's items swap 1: hand-crank imagination machine knit hats and boa scarves made on Mattel hand-crank knitting machine; you know, that toy from when you where a kid. Yeah, that one.

Z is for....

ZZZZZZ...... I finally caught some Z's the last two days. With school starting, and it being so far away, I spend most of my day driving to and from school or running errands in the other county. I have been getting about 4 to 5 hours of sleep per night. I made that up yesterday, and I will get some more tonight. I also did a little bit of tatting.

This is copy of a piece of tatted lace I saw at an antique store on Friday. I bought the spool of thread (at the same store). I just love the size of that wood spool of thread. Anyone who knows what size a shuttle is knows that that is very big spool of thread for $3.00, and I decided I would tat the pattern I saw instead of buying the lace. For some reason, I kept making mistakes on my rings and chains; I think it is from lack of sleep. Hopefully, the rest will look much neater.

The pattern is as follows:

Rings are : 4ds, picot 4 ds, 4picot ( with 1 ds between each of them), 4 ds, picot, 4 ds. close ring joins on first and last picot
chain: 4 ds, 4 picots (with 1 ds between each of them) 4 ds

I will add this piece to the 25 motif challenge; this will be item 10 for the challenge.

Y is for ....

Yoyos.....819 yoyos to be exact!

This project was completed yesterday. It just sort of kept growing till I ran out of yoyos in this size. So, it has 819 yoyos, total, and I have 9 yoyos left that wouldn't work into this very easily.

Finished measurements are 21 1/4 x 41 1/4 inches.

X is for ...

X-tra yoyos made into a yoyo runner. Started on Sept 2; finished on September 3. You can also see one of my hex afghans underway, next to the bench in the yellow basket. I also made the braided rug you see in the bottom of the photo.

I had a bag of yoyos from swaps, and ones I made that were just collecting, and it seemed like they were spawning in that bag. They were not being used, so yesterday I decided I would make a runner out of them to use who knows where. I may add to it at a later time, or I may not. There is a diamond pattern in this mini quilt that is a cluster of four different hues in the same color family. These are laid out more as I would hexagons and not yoyos, but it makes a pretty close solid piece of cloth. I'm wishing I had done this with my daughter's blanket. Instead of having each yoyo only touch four other yoyos, here they touch six others. It would have made a stronger blanket for a kid, but since that started out as a table topper, I didn't know it would end up a blanket.

I had a hay fever sinus headache yesterday; that is what started this project. I wanted something to do that was quick and that wouldn't involve being outside at all.

September block of the month tutorial

Join block of the month

1. Cut 9 squares 4 1/4 inches square.
2. Lay-out for placement; flip middle column on top of left column.
3. Stack with bottom-most row on bottom of stack; take to machine to sew. Sew these in the continuous chain method that was demonstrated in the block of the month tutorial for Aug.
4. Take your chain back to your layout table and open up. Lay right-most column on top of middle column and chain stitch. Again, do not cut any of your chain stitching. Press seams in opposite directions from row to row so they will nest when sewing the next set of seams.
5. Take this piece of half-sewn cloth to the machine and sew the next two seams and press again.
6. Take back to cutting board; true up and cut in half, both directions.
7. Play with placement of blocks.
8. Once you find the lay out you want, flip right sides together like in step number 2.
   
9. Sew last two seams, press in between the sewing of the first and second seam.
   
10. Press and true up again to 10 1/2 inches.
11. Done!
    

W is for..

What are you waiting for? Sign ups are now! Head on over to the group's home page and get signed up for the block of the month swap on flickr. Below are some samples of the blocks that have been made and swapped thus far.Please feel free to check out the group just to see the pretty blocks made so far. You are welcome to join the group and not swap, too. If you happen to make the block, you are welcome to post it, even if you don't swap it.

V is for...

Visiting yoyos. These are all the yoyo's I have received so far for the swap at MJF. There are 5 more packages coming in the mail; I will post them as they come in. These are just visiting my home because I have to swap them out and send them back to the swappers, but it was fun to see them all for a short time.

1. the rustic cottage yoyos for swap, 2. pearlsandjeans yoyos for swap, 3. janetinva123 yoyos for swap, 4. levisgrammy yoyos for swap, 5. shannanstitches yoyos for swap, 6. patricia's yoyos for swap at MJF, 7. yarnmama's yoyos for swap, 8. shannanstitches yoyos for swap, 9. PlumCreekMama yoyos for swap, 10. carol sue yoyos for swap, 11. CKH's yoyos for swap, 12. PTH's and ASH's yoyo's for swap, 13. Mary Jane Lee yoyo's for swap, 14. cheryl's yoyo's for swap, 15. owwlady yoyos for yoyoswap at MJF, 16. suzyhomemakers yoyos for swap