Roll in December

Thanksgiving has come and gone and we are now in December, officially Christmas time!  My Sister asked for a headband in black and brown.  Man I love making these, they I super simple and I can whip one up in an evening.  This one was done in between pie making!  The only thing I don't care for is the band around the bow is not quite tight enough, I like the bow a bit more cinched.  My Sister liked it, so I guess that's all that matters.

another headband

Katlyn had to work on Thanksgiving until 6, so she didn't arrive until near dinnertime, but she put her turkey hat on so we could all giggle and take pictures.  Yellow flower hairpin is not attached, she wore it to work and left it in with the hat.

turkey hat in action

My Niece's son had his first round of shots and was a grumpy face about it, so I thought I'd make him a hat to cheer him up.  Just grabbed some yarn and took it with me on Thanksgiving.  

baby beanie

Thanksgiving over and I got the ham bone!  Oh sweet crockpot, beans, bone (with a substantial amount of meat still attached) and a bit of seasoning and tada...dinner is cooking!  I love crockpot cooking, so easy and the meal is always tasty!

using leftovers the right way

Made a cowl for Alysha's Christmas gift, or maybe her birthday, which is first and yikes in 6 days!  I best get it in the mail if it's for her birthday!

2 color cowl

Madison asked if I could make her a purple flower hairpin and since I didn't clarify what shade of purple she wanted, I made one in every bonbon shade I had.  Of course since Katlyn only had one purple one, I needed to make her some as well.  So a double batch of purple flowers was made!

a lot of purple

Had to buy more bobby pins to accommodate all of the new flowers. 

purple flowers

Katlyn then said she needed more, like one in every color I had....I have a lot of colors!  Guess how I spent my Black Friday??   Still in the making process, since I had to stop and make other things as well, but I have a whole card of bobby pins and I'm ready to go!

flower making

Other things I made in between flowers included, a coffee cozy (or 2).  My Son's girlfriend posted a picture on facebook of a coffee cozy with a heart that she loved, so I made one for her.  Another friend saw and loved it as well, so I made one for her as well.  I tried 2 different hearts out and played with the size of the cozy as well.  These were stupid quick to make up and I was able to pop them in the mail the next day.  

1st one

2nd one

Alysha and Brooke got their headbands and posted a picture for me to enjoy!  Yay, I like pictures of things I make in action!

headbands in action

Ok I think that about does it for now.  I have a few requests to get done and there will be more pictures soon.  Not sure how many people will be getting handmade Christmas items since I'm busy with requests right now, but I am enjoying the requests!

Listening to:  Someday by Nickelback

Thanksgiving time.

Now comes the present rush.  Things I of course should have been getting done instead of reading, but alas did not quite happen.  Today is the 26th of November.  Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I will be making pies today.  The boss is letting us go early today so yay!  Now on with the show!

A friend's daughter requested a floppy bunny ear hat, done in soft, fluffy yarn.  The yarn is crazy bulky, Bernat Baby Blanket.  Makes doing a hat very interesting being as it's so bulky and you cannot just whip it up without thinking!  I frogged it twice and did a lot of winging it just so it looked proper and that's just the beanie it self, I still need to add ears!

Waiting for ears

Less thinking and math is required on Brandon's very colorful scarf.  I just grab colors and go!

I love how colorful this is!

So next up in my mess of unfinished projects is a Minnie Mouse hat for my sister-in-law.  Has the base beanie done for quite awhile, but left without ears and a red bow.  I am not a fan of working with black yarn, so hard to see what I need to do. Made some nice round ears and started the bow.

near completion 

Katlyn wears bobby pins to keep her bangs from her face while she's working and asked if I could make her some flowers.  I whipped up a few to get her started.  She is going to have a drawer full of flowers soon!

3 flowers

Minnie Hat pieces done and completed, pet hair is included even!  

I like it!

Worked up the floppy bunny ears and got them attached.

so floppy!

Finally finished projects!  Whew.  Got an idea and went digging through my yarns to find a fuzzy black yarn to make a Soot Sprite.  These guys appear in Studio Ghibli films and are quite adorable.  Hooked up a small ball, added a little stuffing and hot glued googly eyes on it.  

Soot Sprite

I tend to find random things that catch my attention and amuse the heck out of me, so I of course have to make them!  

What's this...a turkey leg maybe?

Well actually, 2 turkey legs!  I made a Thanksgiving hat for Katlyn, she's thinks I'm weird (she said she'd wear it though!)

really hard to get a proper picture!

Now I've been coloring my hair for a very, very long time.  I am tired of doing so.  I do it myself and it has just become more hassle then I care to deal with.  So at 52 years of age, I have decided it's time to go gray, which judging from my roots will take no time at all (ok the growing out is obviously going to take time)   I made this decision on November 20th and took a picture.  I was planning to color my hair on the Saturday (the 22nd) and came up with the whole...growing it out thing.  Let's see how long I can last.  Katlyn thinks I'll look old, but said if I don't like it I can always go back to dying and I haven't told anyone else about it, but I'm going to go along and see how it turns out.  I am going to take a photo once a month to mark the growth, should be interesting.

decision made 11/20/14 

eek!!  a new adventure!

I get color combo ideas in my head and need to make them happen, what better way to do that then a beanie!  One birthday beanie coming up!

colors to delight me

Turkey hat done, Birthday beanie done

attempt to photograph

birthday beanie, not complete here

Alysha requested a head band with a bow in black.  Ok, I can do that.  Photographing it though is an entirely different story!  Black on black does not photograph well at all.   

assembly needed

Done but not really easy to tell. 

so hard to photograph black on black

I took it off  the styrofoam head and laid it out open in the sunshine and this is about the best I'm going to get. 

more defined

Katlyn laughs at me and my colorful calendars.  This one is at my desk and I have a planner that is more detailed but still very colorful.

November

Saw a few different crocheted bracelets on pinterest so I grabbed some of my cotton bonbons and whipped one up.  I like the rainbow of colors and added white buttons to represent clouds.

rainbow bracelet

Brooke requested a white hat with a pink bow, but both Katlyn and Alysha said she wouldn't wear it, so instead I made a headband with a bow in her requested colors.  

easier to photograph

So I think that's an update for now, though I have more done and more pictures!

waiting to become pie!

I actually finished typing this on December 1st so I hope it posts properly!

Listening to: Yogscast Charity Livestream

November updates

Trying to get back into things.  Working on it slowly and getting things finished up.  Of course the time change has now happened and that makes me very sleepy, very early in the evening....I can't wait to adjust to it so I am not going to bed at 9pm!  So now on with the few things I am doing or have done.

Seems innocent enough

unless there's yarn around

Katlyn and Kid (good thing she doesn't follow this blog)

The girl got a job and she's adjusting to standing on her feet for 8 hours at a time.

I'm kidding, she's really not a napper.  She's working hard though and loving having a steady paycheck.

I got to finishing up a couple of things recently.  After 3 (or was it 4) tries, I finally got the fox ears done well enough to satisfy Katlyn.  

Fox ears done and ready for attachment

I was asked by Katlyn to make a bunny hat for my Niece, not just a regular bunny hat mind you, but a very specific one.  A Louise from Bob's Burger hot pink bunny hat!  

Louise Belcher

 This was for Halloween and Katlyn picked the yarn and I got to making the hat.  Easy peasy of course, well except the yarn was a bit annoying.  Much too splity for me to hook with any decent speed.  

Vicki Howell's Sheepish in Hot Pink(ish)

in production

on the hook

Now that Katlyn has her fox scoodie, she wondered if I could make some fingerless gloves with paw prints to match.  Great except I didn't have enough yarn for 2 gloves.  Joann's didn't have any of the Lion Brand Wool Ease Chunky I used for the scoodie, but we found Bernat Roving that matched nicely enough that it all worked out.  Too bad I never took a picture of the finished project!  

finished 1 glove, but ran out of yarn and had to start over

Bunny hat base done.

Christopher sent my a picture of Brooke carving her pumpkin.  I really missed not being there for Halloween this year!

She even drew a sketch!

I bought Katlyn her favorite wrestler for her birthday this year, ok not him exactly but a life-sized cut out and when they say life-sized they aren't kidding!  Dean Ambrose is 6'4" in real life, this cutout is 6'3" and is huge! And while Katlyn loves it, the dogs do not! 

Not his permanent home!

Kids is growling and Max is getting ready to bark

Now the ear portion of the bunny hat.  I thought I could do these, I really did.  I bought pipe cleaners (chenille stems) to use in the making of them since they were so tall.  Took a lot of finagling but got them done. 

getting them done

nothing bothers him

almost there

So got them done and worked on attaching them and guess what??? They don't stand up!!!  Nothing I do will make them stand up!  Never have I failed to badly with a project, I was so very close to tears when I gave up, of course this giving up in the day before Halloween and it is now too late to do anything about getting a replacement.  Katlyn comes home and asks me how I'm going to fix them, to which I reply "I'm sure you 2 can figure something out" she wasn't thrilled with that answer, so we think it over and come up with a possible fix. We have buuny ears from ages ago when she was a bunny and those ears stand up just fine, maybe I can do something with them!  Of course I work on Halloween, so I guess I shall haul everything in with me!

the ears...ugh!!

I get to cutting off the offending ears and trying to figure out what in the world I am going to do to get this done all in time for the girls to go out in costume! (while at work!!)

cut and remove

So guess what?  I got everything to come together and ears to stand up and FORGOT TO TAKE PICTURES!! I am the worst!  Anyway, did a bit a crochet magic and basically did covers for the bunny ear headband.  I folded the headband ears, taped them so they stayed and slipped a hot pink bunny ear ever the entire ear, times 2!  Halloween successful! (except for the lack of pictures, maybe the girls have photos...)

That's it for now, I have 2 other finished hats (with photos) ready to blog about and a couple of little things done.  Will work on getting another post very soon.

Listening to: Hella Good by No Doubt

Here comes Fall, albeit rather slowly

I really need the weather to hurry up and become cooler!  I am so tired of hot!  I have never run my A/C more then I have this year.  At least being inside the air conditioned house I was able to deal with crocheting and having a blanket that needed to get completed by my Mom's birthday on the 27th.  Worked and worked and got it done!  Whew!  Don't have a full spread out looking lovely shot of the blanket, but have it in my lap while working on it and done a folded up with Max laying on top of it before I washed and wrapped it.

working hard!

A twin sized blanket which makes for a nice a snuggly lap blanket when sitting in her new chair while watching TV.  I used Red Heart Super Saver in Dark Orchid, Orchid and Soft White.  The pattern is from an old book of afghans I have had for years (which I cannot recall the name of said book) the pattern is called Coral Waves, (which is probably because of the colors they used) and super simple though looks fabulous!

Max likes it!

Brandon's requested scarf of many colors is coming along.  It's super easy peasy and portable for when I'm hanging out at my Sister's.  I just grab random yarns and toss them into my bag and crochet a stripe for a bit and then switch colors.  Just have to be mindful of yarn weight because even though I grab worsted weight when picking colors, they are not all the same when worked up and throws the scarf into a wonky spin of which I do not care for and have to rip out rows of work.  Normally not a huge deal but when I have a certain yarn I used waaaayyy back at the beginning and I thought I could get over it.....yeah nope couldn't and have to get rather creative with my ripping skills and then again with my repairing skills! 

progress so far

thought he didn't like me

Katlyn and I went to Disneyland

back at the happiest place on Earth

Halloween time again.  Enjoyed ourselves and the sights!

Halloween time again! 

This time we wandered around Downtown Disney and checked out the stores which we haven't done in the past.  Katlyn wanted to visit the Lego store that is there and she found Gandalf....this made her very happy.

Found Lego Gandalf

My Sister asked me to make her a large flower for a baby blanket she did.  She hands me the yarn and says make it big.  Done!

big fluffy flower

Working on Christmas gift ideas, Katlyn thinks I'm silly but hey everyone needs bath poufs and scrubbies right!  I was thinking and pouf, a couple of scrubbies and a couple of washclothes and a lovely bar soap all wrapped up together. I thought it was a great idea, but everyone made fun of the pouf so well then I'm not sure about this idea anymore.

Pouf (Katlyn says it looks like a brain)

scrubbie

Made a new dinner dish.  Chili and pasta bake!  Holy nuts!  So easy and so delicious!  Best of all I used chili that I stored in the freezer from when I made a batch 2 months ago!  Excellent usage of leftovers and tasty!

dinner

So we have come to the end of my ramblings for now.  I expect there will be more frequent ramblings with the cool weather coming....at least I hope it's coming, bringing out the need to play with yarn!  I'll leave off with my favorite weekend reading picture.  

 morning reading time

Listening to: Irreplacable by Beyonce