New Shawl Project

Here in the new shawl I am making. It is so pretty I cant wait to see it when it's done.  It is called Have Faith.

New Project aka Shawl #4

I finally decided what I wanted to start working on next. I was debating between an afghan, a shawl, or something completely different. I have decided on a shawl which I bought the yarn for quite awhile ago.

I'll post some pictures of the progress, the yarn I am using, and the books pictures tomorrow. :)
 

Afghan Stitch!

 

Today I received a package which I had completely forgot that I ordered. About a month ago my best friend's mom Mrs. Pat (who is like a second mother to me) gave me some crochet books. One of them was to make afghans using the afghan stitch. Well in order to do afghan stitch you need to have a special hook. I looked on Amazon and found these.



 I liked how long they were and they were a good price so I ordered them. I didn't realize they were coming from Hong Kong! ha ha. They took a month to get here which is why I had forgotten about them completely. Once my finals are finished with I am going to pick an afghan stitch pattern and get to work. I'm so excited! Thank you Mrs. Pat for the books! =D

Finals, cats, family, chores, the list goes on and on...

Finals have been stressing me out quite a bit the past few days, but I am managing better now. Only about two more weeks and then this semester ends; YAY! That is the main reason for my lack of crochet time. Although, there is another reason now. I have taken on a family of stray kitties. The mother cat had four kittens under a car at my husbands work Thursday night, so we decided to take care of them as fosters. They have taken quite a bit more time than I expected because we were concerned about the mom not eating. She is doing better now and things are cooling down. Hopefully this week I will get some times to relax and work on crochet.

Finals are consuming my life!

This last month of winter semester is driving me bananas! Studying nearly 24/7. My eyes and head hurt. My brain hurts. My back hurts. I can't think anymore. I can barely write this post.

The point is, I haven't had time to crochet... =(

Small Project

I pulled out my extra yarn that I have to play with last night, and started making a granny square. I figured out a way to make it a rectangle so that I can make it into a table runner. It worked great, so now I am adding detail to it. I'll post some pictures when it's done. :)

What to do next...

One of the hardest things I am finding with crochet, is choosing a project. Since I am just starting off there is so many types of projects I want to explore. When I think of my options they are endless. I wish I could work on 8 different project all at the same time haha! Since I finished Joshua's bunny pillow, I am trying to decide what I should work on next. I am going to Alabama soon so it would be great if I could bring presents to my family up there. However, I don't have enough time to make them all something unless I do small projects. I could also just choose one person to give a bigger project to, but then I have to leave out the others for now. Decisions, decisions... I did start another shawl which was going to be for me, but I think I will put that on hold for now.

I'll let you know when I have decided!

Jen

The Easter Project

If you read my previous post you already know that my Easter project for Joshua was not going well. However, thanks to some creative thinking and ambitious inklings the project was saved! I really loved the yarn I had bought because it was super soft, and I knew Joshua would want to cuddle with it. When we are at the store shopping for yarn he is always pulling it off the shelves or out of the cart to cuddle with it lol. Because the yarn was so thick and fluffy I was unable to continue with my original plan to make this bunny on the right...

However, I was able to come up with my own design. Yup! I created my very own piece with no pattern to guide me. I decided to make a bunny pillow with the yarn I bought, and it turned out great. Joshua was already cuddling with it today when I gave it to him. I finished it yesterday so it was just in time to give it to him for Easter. The only part that is not complete is I need to find a pillow to go inside, or cut some type of foam to fit inside. My original plan was to fill it with regular stuffing, but because I used double crochet stitches the stuffing could come out. That would not be good, so I will be doing some shopping to find something to finish it completely.

Here are some shots of the finished product. :)

 When I started I was writing down the pattern, but I soon grew tired of that and just kept stitching haha. If anyone would like to know the pattern I can probably give you a rough idea. :)

Change of Plans

The Easter project I chose for Joshua did not work out. The yarn I chose is really hard to see your stitches, and the instructions were very confusing. I didn't want to get rid of the yarn because it is so soft. I knew I could find something to use it for, but I really wanted to make Joshua an Easter gift. I finally thought of something and I am hoping it works out. So far it is going a lot better than the bunny did. Yay! I will give more info later, it is still a work in progress. :)

It is Finished!!!

Yay! I finally finished Nikki's shawl that I have been working on for a few weeks now. The shawl is called "Full Circle" and I got the pattern from my prayer shawl book that I posted about previously. The pictures of this shawl that are shown in the book really do not do it justice. Even the pictures I have taken do not show how pretty it is. Here are the book pictures to the right and below. They used a multi colored yarn which I could not find, so instead I used a dark green solid color yarn. What I did not know from looking at the picture was that the shawl is actually folded in half. That really confused me at the beginning because the instructions said you worked in a complete circle the entire time. However, I could not figure out how you would wear a circle as a shawl. DUH! Fold it in half and vuala you have a shawl lol.


I was really scared to make this shawl at first. It was 37 or so rows long and each row was different. The instructions stretched across 6 or so pages, and each row had about of paragraph of information. I told Nikki that I may or may not finish her shawl, but I would try. :)

Once I got started on the shawl I realized it may not be so bad. The rows were each different from the other, but it was usually only small changes made. Overall, the pattern was easy to follow, and I was able to watch my TV shows without messing up.

I did make one mistake that I had to rip out, and a few other small mistakes that no one will ever know but me MWAHAHAHAH!

The last 6 rows, especially the last 3 rows felt like they would never end. By then the rows were really long, and I was really ready to finish the shawl and give it to Nikki. Confession, part of me didn't want to give it away because it was so cool looking lol. I'll have to make one for myself one day.

Below are some pictures of the shawl. I wanted to get some shots of Nikki modeling it, but I forgot.  This mainly shows you the design, and detail. Enjoy!

 

These last two shots are the same, but with the flash on so you are able to see more of the detail in the shawl.

I would have posted all of this sooner, but blogger is really irritating when it comes to adding pictures to your post. I am thinking about looking at some other blog sites because this one is driving me a tad crazy. Any suggestions? As you can see the last two pictures show up on the left even though I have tried to center them. If I try to move them to the right they jump to the top of my post. It is very odd, and very frustrating.