Tuesday, July 30, 2013

A little spooky


I've done another little Halloween cross stitch.  I don't know what got me in the Halloween mood this summer, except all the time I've spent on Pinterest.  You can find the free pattern for this one here.  It's from a Hungarian blog called The Snowflower Diaries.  She has a lot of great designs.

Maybe I'm just dreaming of cooler days.  Or maybe I'm procrastinating on some of the bigger projects I want to get done.  Or maybe I just really like Halloween.

Thursday, July 25, 2013

How to Crochet a Spider Web Afghan


I just made this afghan for Halloween.  It was a lot of fun to make and I'm looking forward to getting cozy in it when Fall  comes.  Of course I found a picture on Pinterest.  Which led me to Ravelry, which finally led me to this great pattern from Stitch 'n Frog.

I modified the spiderman colors to make it a plain spider web.  If you would like to do the same, here is what I did:

Use black for the first 6 rounds.  Then switch to white and proceed as written for row 7 except use single crochets instead of double crochet.  The white rounds always need to be skinny.

You will do the next two rows in black double crochet, with the double shell, then a single shell row, then two more double shells.  Finish off black

Next row is a single shell, single crochet in white.  Finish off.  Then the five black rows double-single-double.

Keep going until the afghan is the size you want.  My girls wanted it really big for cuddling in.  My final row around had 30 stitches on each side of each point.

I had to rip out rows a few times while I was deciding which row I was going to make the first white one.  Then I was merrily on my way.  I was watching a movie and laughing with the kids and my fingers were flying.  I got quite a bit done the first evening.  I looked at it the next morning and noticed something.

Do you see it?  No?  Good.  It only has 11 points.  But it lies perfectly flat, so I have no idea what happened there.  Apparently in all my ripping I reduced the number of stitches in a row.  If you can actually count to 12, yours will turn out even better.  But apparently 11 works just fine too. 

I used Super Saver Soft and needed 9 balls of black and one of white.


Here's a shot of Hestia, who really wanted to curl up in my lap on the afghan while I was working on it.  Made it difficult to work since I had to keep rotating it.  She'd just re-settle and go back to sleep each time I disturbed her.

Friday, July 12, 2013

Something New

Well this came out of nowhere.  Wasabi Girl asked for a ride to her old middle school yesterday.  She had made arrangements to take French horn lessons from her former band teacher.  She is going to pay him by working - she transcribes flute parts for him.  She's done that for him before.  He has some extra horns that aren't being rented out over the summer and he's letting her try one out.

She already plays the saxophone, which isn't anything like a French horn as far as technique.  She came right home from her first lesson and spent a long time practicing. After a while she figured out how to play "Yo Ho, A Pirate's Life for Me" from the ride at Disneyland. 

I have to admire her initiative, and her interest.  I'm not sure where she's going with this, but I'm proud how she figured out how to pursue this idea almost all on her own.  I wont mind a few trips in the car for lessons.  She's almost 15 1/2 so she promises she'll be driving soon.

Our living room is turning into quite the music room, with the harp, piano, trumpet, saxophone, various recorders, guitars, and now a French horn.  I love it, even if it is a bit cluttered.

Thursday, July 11, 2013

Yo Yo Days of Summer


I always have a lot of energy in the summer.  I love the longer days and bounce around between projects and shuttling kids to their various activities.  When I sit down for a few minutes I like to do something quick.  Lately I've been inspired by all the beautiful yo yo quilts on Pinterest so I've started making them out of my 1930s fabrics.  It takes me as long to cut them out as it does to stitch them, which is more about how fast I am at stitching them up.

The family is back to the pattern of never knowing whether we'll have 8 people for dinner or none.  I'm just trying to keep food in the house and go with the flow.  I think my husband gets disappointed when he barbecues and there are a lot of leftovers.  I just love having other kids over. 

Drama Girl is getting serious about looking at colleges and we're exploring scholarship opportunities together.  It's all a bit overwhelming.  There are already deadlines coming up for some of these scholarship essays.  I never went through any of this when I applied to schools.

Check out my Pinterest board full of yo yo goodies here.

Thursday, July 4, 2013

Happy Fourth!


I've had a nice break from the usual chaos for the last couple of days and managed to stitch up another little mini-sampler.





This is from an old free pattern from The Sampler Girl and I don't think it's available any more.  I have a lot of patterns I've downloaded to my computer.  I really do think that someday I'll get to all of them.  Pinterest, on the other hand, has more great ideas than I'll ever do in one lifetime.  I have a whole board full of patriotic cross stitch patterns here.

Have a great, safe holiday!

Monday, July 1, 2013

Patriotic Quilt finished


I finished quilting and binding my little quilt made from fabrics given out at the shop hop.  I think it turned out pretty cute.  I did some freehand swags around the border.

The window is pretty bright, but I think this picture shows the curlicues I put in each pinwheel.

This quilt will live on this little table in the corner of the living room for now.  I still have the mini chairs the kids used when they were little.  I made toile slipcovers for them.

Outside the window, we've had some deer hanging out in the front yard.  Not one, but three bucks are trying to stay cool in the shade.


They don't seem shy at all.  I think they're just so hot they hardly care that we're banging car doors in the driveway right next to them.  If you look carefully at the picture you can see that they each have a nice set of antlers.

Linking up today to Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times.

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