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back at last?

  • Posted on January 14, 2017 at 9:35 am

please forgive me for my long absence, these last few months have been challenging to say the least. my middle child has had some serious health issues that have taken up most of my time. we are hoping/praying that he is stable right now and i may be able to get back to making doll stuff and checking in to my various forums on the net, at least a little bit, anyway.

so one of my favorite yarn stores eatsleepknit is having their yearly yarnathon, and this year looks like a winner as far as i’m concerned. they are allowing us to add projects together for the kals, cals and booster club prizes, so i can work on my doll stuff and actually have it count! 🙂 🙂 🙂

i’ve started a new blanket for the girls couch. i’m only being cautiously optimistic ’cause i started a christmas one O_O. and i’m working on some shawls that will hopefully get done in time to wear before summer hits. everything is being done in malabrigo lace so far. its the softest lace yarn i know of that doesn’t have cashmere in it, and eatsleepknit has tons of colors!

here’s a sneak peek at my christmas blankie.
snowflakes on a snowy road
i worked on it over the holidays, so took my “on the road” pic already in hopes that they have that badge again this year. if not it seemed appropriate anyway to do a snowflake afghan in the snow.

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a long haul but i’m finally done….maybe

  • Posted on May 20, 2016 at 1:30 pm

i’ve been working on this afghan for a couple of years, including a stop when i ran out of yarn and had to order more! i really wanted to do at least one blanket in a really fine scale, so this is done in cobweb weight yarn using a 1mm hook.
Cobweb weight afghan
now i’m just trying to decide whether it is done and can be blocked as is, or do i need a border to really make it look finished.

what do you think?

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realfee houndstooth dress

  • Posted on May 19, 2016 at 5:23 pm

i saw a picture of a black and white herringbone knit blanket with a red ruffle and it instantly inspired me to make a dress using the same colorway. i decided to do the bodice and sleeves in solid red since the increases in the houndstooth would look kind of “smooshy” and then do the skirt the plaid and add a narrow band of paid near the cuffs to tie it together. doing the ruffle on the skirt the same as the neck/sleeve ruffles caused the skirt to curl too much so i ripped it out and did a mock pleat using a 3×2 rib instead…. much better!

the bodice and sleeves are knit on 1.5mm needles. i switched to 1.75 mm when i started the houndstooth skirt, to add fullness and counteract the natural tightness of the slip stitch pattern.

Herringbone dress
i had all 24 ends sewn in and the sleeve seam sewn, when i suddenly decided i didn’t like the cuffs after all.. too floofy! so i carefully cut the right one off and re-knit it in the round, since i didn’t want to even try and unstitch that whole seam without wrecking it. now i like it much better. i will be doing the same to the second sleeve.
Re-knit cuffs
and here it is with both cuffs re-done. the pile of yarn at the top is all the bits of cut off/unravelled yarn from the original cuffs.

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may cal complete!

  • Posted on May 18, 2016 at 8:24 am

i finished up my may cal. it went together pretty fast in spite of being laceweight, probably because i loved the colors and couldn’t quit working on it.
here is meg lying under it for scale on my bed.
May Cal done
can you tell those are some of my favorite colors?

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do you crochet when you travel?

  • Posted on May 12, 2016 at 7:19 am

i am a somewhat obsessive crafter, so i always have a bag of stitching to take with me on a moments notice. we went on a day trip to jasper and banff and i took along my current cal to work on in the car. here we are stopped at abraham lake where i a took a “beach shot” on the shore line. i love the contrast of the bright clear colors against the misty background

At the beach

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a new cal for may

  • Posted on May 11, 2016 at 4:22 pm

just in case i didn’t have enough blankets for my girls, i decided to make another one for the may cal. i’m using three colors of malbrigo laceweight from eat sleep knit – azul bolito (dark blue),jewel blue (light blue), and sauterne (yellow) i just loved these three colors together so couldn’t resist. it took a lot of crocheting and frogging, but finally i decided on the design. here are all the centers done and a few of them put together.
New kal/cal this one is for my dolls
i love the way the colors go together. what do you think?

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all part of the process

  • Posted on April 24, 2016 at 11:54 am

i decided to knit my realfees some striped sweaters, and crochet coordinating funky hats. i wanted something that would be more suitable for the boys, or at least unisex. i tried, as much as possible, to carry the ends along so i’d have less to sew in, but i still ended up with this!
What was I thinking?

after sewing in all the ends i ended up with a pile of yarn bits almost as big as the pile of sweaters/hats

The finished piles

i still have to add snaps and make some pants to go with them so my dolls aren’t indecently exposed 😉 but then i’ll take more pictures and eventually one of each color will end up in my etsy store.

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New chair, new bear

  • Posted on February 17, 2016 at 2:21 pm

amber takes a break from test fitting her new hat to checkout the bargain chair we got in the clearance section of pier one (it’s a cell phone holder and was marked down from $23 to less than $6 so we snagged both of them 😉 )

New chair, new bear

she is also cuddling a new bear by honeythorpe, the little girls were much more excited with that parcel than my usual purchases and are having battles over who gets the bear. last i saw they were drawing up time sheets!
we may have to have another lesson on sharing :lol but amber got first dibs as her reward for patiently sitting and letting me try my new crochet hat pattern on her. i still have to sew ends in, crochet the trim and block the flaps to take out some of the curl….so it actually sits like it is in the picture.

i’ve got patterns worked out for my pukifee, littlefee and minifee sizes now, but am running into a snag on the realfee size. they have such big elf/animal ears that the ear flaps just look silly and plain caps are too boring so i’m still trying to decide what to do for them. i’ve done lacey berets before but i wanted something that was a closer fit.

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fireplace final installment

  • Posted on December 23, 2015 at 5:19 pm

grate painted black looks like a well used cast iron grate.
Black grate
thread fire led lights through logs btw i ended up painted the lags with my ultra matte varnish because the ash kept getting all over my hands at this step Lol
Thread fire led lights through logs
put crumpled cellophane over the lights. this was included in the kit and just needed to be cut. i’d have preferred something more orange but couldn’t find any.
Cellophane over lights
punch holes for wires in back wall. i couldn’t find my awl so i used a large yarn needle and put in three small holes instead of one larger one. it really didn’t matter in the end.
Punch holes for wires in back wall
back view of wires threaded through
Back view
attach wires red to red, black to black
Attach wires red to red, black to black
tape everything down. the little white thing is an on off switch so the lights don’t go continuously.
Tape everything down
finished!
Finished!

i took a video of the fireplace with the lights flickering and it looks awesome. but apparently i can’t upload video to flickr, so i’ll have to figure out another place to upload it and then add it in.

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working on the fire

  • Posted on December 22, 2015 at 4:52 pm

i want i light saber! we just saw star wars last night and they made cutting wood look so easy. this took far too long, i broke my pull saw and froze my fingers cutting these tiny things :(. then of course i forgot to take out a tape measure and had to guess on the size.. i like the look of the bigger logs better, but they ended up being too big. the smaller logs are just perfect. so i’ll be using them. i’ll save the bigger logs for another fireplace that i plan to do later.
Logs for the fireplace
i want my logs to look like they have really burnt so i am charring them in the flame of a candle. notice that i hold them with metal tongs and burn them in my kitchen sink just in case they decide to burn more than i planned! not likely since this wood is green and fairly wet from all the snow, but you never know…
Charing the logs for realism
here’s what one of the logs look like done.
A charred log
and the pile of finished logs. i wet them down thoroughly to make sure there were no sparks since the glue i’m using is flammable. so now i have to wait for them to dry before i can proceed.
Charred logs cooling and drying

my dh is building me a grate for my fireplace out of 2-1/2″ finishing nails. he still has to add the top rack. he designed it and did all the bending and cutting with his much stronger hands :o)
The start of a grate
and with the cross pieces added.
Grate!
just waiting for the glue to harden so i can paint it black

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