Amigurumi Dog Finished

Here is Jasmine all finished. Sort of a little patchwork pooch. But she is done and my kid loves her. Since it is both mine and my daughters first attempt at Amigurumi it isn't totally awful. But I can see where improvement can be made. For one thing don't have a kid read the instructions to you or you will end up with two different size eyes and 2 different types of paws also it needs tighter stitches so stuffing doesn't show anywhere. Better embroidery on the nose will take practice the yarn just kept swallowing the thread used. Trial and error learning experience all the same. At least we made this before we made the doll so it should be better the second go round.

Making an Amigurumi Dog

My middle daughter really loves the Free Spirit Amigurumi doll and wants one for Christmas. Not sure I have time to make it so she started about making this puppy instead in a few scraps that we have so it doesn't look exactly like the pattern as we didn't have enough of any one scrap to make it solid in color and because she started late at night on Saturday we also didn't have the right eyes for it so she found blue buttons. I helped her with this. She stitched things together and made the eyes, ears and a few other things such as stuffing the toy I made the rest as you can see it isn't done yet. So I hope she will make more of it she still needs three more legs and her nose and mouth stitched in place.

There was a dog she, my middle daughter, fell in love with when we last visited California that she named Jasmine but she was unable to keep it. The dog had been dumped and seemed to have brain damage from being tossed from the car. I don't know why people do this but growing up in the country that is how we got most of our pets those that others tossed away. To was a sweet little Labrador, Chow mix ( had traits of both like purple tongue and things of that sort, not really sure what it was). My cousin decided it wasn't safe and took it to the pound to the sadness of all my children and his own. Since then any stuffed animal that looks like a dog is named Jasmine thus the name of this toy. The dog had blue eyes so she likes that it has blue buttons.

Black on Black neck warmer

Added four new scarves to the store today. They are black on black with a real nice big red button accent.

Kid fun... Happy Thanksgiving

The kids had fun picking out some buttons for the scarfs the oldest daughter and I made. These are for the kids teachers at school. Well some of them as we ran out of yarn in this color and definitely only the girl teachers I am pretty sure the guys wouldn't be caught dead in these. May make more or something else. As there are 12 female teachers and only 8 scarfs here plus we have 2 male teachers too. Candy is always good for a guy teacher in my opinion anyway. The scarfs all have their own personality even if they are very similar. The colors shapes and number of buttons on each one is different all the buttons are vintage the yarn is all new. The scarfs came out in thanksgiving colors funny as that is the day we finished them but they are for Christmas.

Carved Turkey

Here is her finished product with some help from mom as the pumpkin started to have issues with her cutting skills.

Carving Turkey Day Pumpkin

If you remember my middle daughter did not want to carve her pumpkin at Halloween. The reason was she wanted to carve it for Thanksgiving instead. So at Halloween she just poked in plastic Mr. Potato Head type stuff to decorate hers. It has been sitting on our front porch all this time with snow and the like. So the weird face you see isn't because it is slimy it is because it is screaming cold inside that pumpkin well probably a little slimy too.

A little tricky at first...

The bonnet takes a little getting use to since I don't use European crochet terms all the time. But once I got use to it, it flowed pretty quick. If you do get the pattern I recommend looking at the picture a lot to figure out a few of the concepts. Like I said this is written the old way you have to know a little to get it to work. In the process of doing this I am changing the way it climbs out of each round as there are more modern techniques that are cleaner to look at but if you want to to old do it as the pattern reads either way is pretty.

Baby Bonnet Pattern Antique

Here is a $1.50 pattern for you to purchase if you like baby bonnets. I don't care if you sell items from this just do not sell the pattern please just link people back to here thanks . Just thought it would be fun for people to use. Now it is in old terms and you do have to know about crochet and traveling from one level to another but with practice I think you can get it just fine. You will need to download it from Ravelry. Please let me know if that link works ( the buy now at the bottom of this post) I think it is my first time I am trying that maybe not can't remember if I did that on the caplet or the orange shirt. The pattern is circa 1862 just a little after it as it has reference in the leaflet to the London exhibit ( i.e. world fair) The authoress of this pattern is also from London ( Cloudesley Square to be exact) so these are in European terms of crochet.

To see other Blog Sale Items follow this link.

Sunday Pile-up and crochet

The girls felt like dog piling the oldest Sunday. That was before the younger two got sick yesterday so now I am home with two little sick kids hopeful I don't get sick. The thought of getting sick and coughing with stitches is just an unbearable thing at the moment. I am a mom and that is what happens, I am happy to have company any way better than staring at four walls alone. I have also been working on some crochet.

Lavender Embroidery image

I went looking on line for an image I could use for embroidery on my sachet. I found this one. It was pretty close to what I wanted. Since my sachet is already 1/2 full I free hand drew this on the bag. So it isn't exactly like the image. But I don't care. I have one more stem on mine than the original image. But like I said I wasn't trying to be identical just wanted a reference for my starting point. I didn't do any prep work for the drawing just sat down with a permanent ultra fine tip sharpie marker and just started drawing. Now all that is left to do is embroider it.

UPDATE

all finished Not my best work but I just wanted a simple no brainier activity for me and the girls and since this sits in a drawer smelling good (and no one sees it other than here of course who cares). It is still nicer than it was and the girls like it. They have already asked if they collect rose petals will I embroider roses on the next one I said sure oh boy what have I started. They have already started talking of daisies too.

Found another...

Sorry but I am trying to enjoy my summer flowers as long as I can and in photos I get them indefinitely. While picking lavender the girls found another rose on one of the bushes.

Lavender Sachet

The children wanted something to do this morning so I sent them out to pick lavender. Our little bush doesn't have much left on it at this time of year but there was some. It probably has none now that the girls have had their hands on it. During the summer months I would just pick the flowers and seeds off and drop them in other spots in the yard so we would have more lavender in the future. After all that was left on the plant was picked and florets removed from the stems there wasn't much just enough for about 1/2 bag.

I am not able to lift my sewing machine at the moment to the table so we looked around for a cloth bag we could use. Then I remembered that Anthropologie uses cloth bags to put your receipt in when they mail you items, I had purchased two crinoline slips recently. So I just happen to have a little bag on hand. The nice thing about their little bags are that they have a real light weave so air can go in and out of their bags with ease. But the other nice thing is the weave is a tight enough weave that the little lavender seeds don't fall out either.

So in the process of getting my children something to do I received a nice little sachet. They want to pick more next summer so that they can all have little sachet bags in their clothes drawers. Can I say I just love having little girls. The girls suggested that I embroider on the bag. You know that isn't a bad idea maybe a few sprigs of lavender on the outside of the bag would be real cute.

A rose is a rose...

Except when they are the roses that have survived being snowed on and things of that sort. I am not sure but these may be the last of the roses for the season from my yard. For being the last of the roses I think they have such pretty color.

14+ yards of garland

I had tons of green yoyos sitting around and about 1 year ago I made short garlands out of them. Well yesterday I decided that they are not very useful in short lengths so I joined them all together to make this one very long garland that is over 14 yards in length. Now to figure out where to hang it for the holidays and hey it would work for St. Patricks day too.

Here is a cute Christmas tree made out of yoyos and some Easter eggs too.

Help wanted... crochet computer program

I am looking for a software program that will let me make symbol crochet patterns to make things easier for my readers and my self does any one know of such a thing ( if it is even in existence) . If so please post a link in the comments so I can check it out thanks a ton. See picture above something that can do layout and symbols like in this piece of a pattern I have. Sorry I only posted a small portion of the piece as I don't want any one mad at me for copy write issues. I just needed an example of what I wanted the software to be able to do.

yoyo neckwarmer

Here is the neck warmer I promised to show the other day. It has mother of pearl buttons as closures. This is real soft and has a nice drape to it.

kid hook yarn fingerless glove

My middle daughter set to work making Christmas without me knowing what she was doing. Part way through I figured it out not hard when she asks you to try it on. This is her first attempt at making her own pattern and executing it, she is ten years old. Not to bad I might add she already has requests from both sisters to make them a set. I guess her Christmas shopping is almost done as she didn't have to think to hard on this one. I was told I could take a picture but couldn't have it till Christmas. Cute kid. On a side note they actually fit.

It's near advent...

Click on the image to go to the tutorial on how to make an advent wreath using yoyos. Now the posts will be in reverse order with the first one being last in the list and visa versa. I am pretty sure everyone can handle that.

Please if you make any of these items I would love to see them added to the flickr pool all about this. Thanks and happy crafting.

Fall yoyo pilllow

Remember that pile of yarn I have to work my way through for a special order. Well I get to keep the scraps from the projects. I had this pillow in my house that I made when I was 16 years old it had seen better days. I removed the fabric cover made a new liner and covered it with crochet yoyos for the fall season. There wasn't much of this yarn left when I had finished making the customer's items but not much is needed for such a little project. Which has been true of all the yarns. I also have a new neck warmer from scraps from one of the other projects too. I forgot to post it maybe later I will remember and post that. There are a few more projects to do for this order then I will be back to normal posting.

Loading Speed issues

I have removed some stuff from the side bar of my blog in the hopes of making it load quicker for people please let me know if it worked or not.

Flowers...

As most know I use to be a florist and if you follow the blog you also know I had to go to the hospital recently for surgery. I am home after 4 days in the hospital wont go into the details as it wasn't fun. But I am with family and have a 3 month recovery all will be well soon so to speak. While in the hospital I received flowers from my family in California never got a picture of them due to not feeling well. After getting home I received flowers from my old bosses and co-workers put a smile on my face not to often a florist gets flowers. I hope they cheer your day too.