YoP I'm loving it

I am really loving this 2nd year of projects.  I seem to be much more organized this year and more focused on my list for the year.

This week did not see a whole lot of progress but I did do something on my list that has been sitting in project bag for the past 2 years.

This is a combination of patterns that I put together for my first ever fingerless mitt.  It was done on double point needles and this is the first time I have done a complete project on double points and I actually think I really am enjoying working with them.  I have started on the second mitt and should be finished this week yet.  That will take one item off my list for the year.

I did add to my stash this week.

Is this not the most wonderful yarn?  It is so soft and the sequins in it makes it totally ME!  I saw this on Jimmy Beans Wool Watcher and the prices was awesome.  I thought about it and then told myself that I could not buy it unless I had a pattern in with to make it.  So I quickly went onto Ravelry and started looking for shawl patterns for this weight of yarn.  I found "Dinner in the Eiffel Tower" and fell in love with all the lace and could just see this made into it.  So.........Now I am dying to put this on the needles but am waiting until I get a bit more of my YoP list completed before I start on something that is NOT on the list and I refuse to add to the list.

So here is a look at the list again:

Year Of Projects 2012-2013

Use up all cotton yarn for dishcloths  (should have 24-26 clothes when completed) (14 Done)
Complete 3 project bags (I have several bags labeled with the project they are to become)
Complete LaLa Shawl  (In progress)
Complete Comfort Cancer ribbon shawl (In progress)
Complete Color Affection Shawl (In progress and so close to being done)
Frilly scarf (In progress but not happy with it)
2 blooming pillows (1/4 done)
Use up 1/2 of sock yarn (Oh my, this could take a while)


Did I hear someone ask about the color affection shawl?  Well.....................I am on the finale part of it but...............................It takes me over 20 minutes just to do one row.  Hence the reason it is taking forever to do the 2" of edging that is in the pattern.  I think I have 3 rows of edging done at this point but it is going to take a bunch more than that to complete it.  I do love the way it is turning out but please be patient with me.  I will get it done but I just needed to work on something with a bit quicker gratification.  (fingerless mitt)


I ordered DPN's this week in sock sizes 0-3.  I think I am going to try my hand at doing socks on DPN's and see how I like it.  I got them from Knit Picks and I got the 5" needles as the 7" ones I am using now keep poking me in the tummy.  (stop laughing!)


This coming weekend we have a conference to go to.  It is Friday evening through Sunday evening.  This is one place I can take my crafts with me and work on them without being disturbed and no one cares.  So I will probably be taking my cancer ribbon shawl with me as I should be able to complete that while there.  If that gets completed then I will take dishcloths to work on since they are small and easy to carry.  At least that is the plan right now.


Until next time...............................


Happy Crafting!


PS:  I want to thank all of you that have been leaving comments for me.  I do read all of them and as some of you know I will reply via email if there are questions that need to be answered.

YoP Sunday

Here we are again on a lovely Sunday morning.  I love this time of day.  Hubby is still sleeping, dogs are all fed and sleeping and I have some quiet time to myself to get my blog up to day and plan my day out.

I made progress this week and have some pictures to prove it.  So let's get started.

I am now ready to do the last step in the Color Affection Shawl.  I am excited to finish it (hopefully this week) and get it off the needles so I can concentrate on something else for a while.  This is not the worlds greatest photo because it is all scrunched up on a 60" circular.  Once it is done I will have someone hold it up and out so you can get a true idea of the fun of it.

Another dishcloth finished.  Once again done in Granny's Favorite Dishcloth pattern.  It is simple and mindless to do.  Although I do believe my favorite pattern is still the double hump and will go back to that on the next ones that I do.

Walking through Walmart I found an entire rack of this fiber for under $5!  I grabbed one so I could practice making the ruffled scarves with it.  I have a much more expensive skein that will be done once I get the hang of this.  I am thinking of taking this one out and trying to crochet instead of knitting it.  I am not real fond of the way this is turning out at this point.

I did manage to get a picture of the American Girl doll dressed in her red outfit.  I am suppose to tell you that this is McKenna and she is the doll of the year for 2012.  My Grand Daughter is so excited to have this one.  She received it from her Auntie/Godmother for her birthday.  Anyway I do know that the hat is a bit too small and the dress is a bit too big but she will not let me frog any of it to make it fit better.

I don't know how many of you have ever seen a dust storm also known to us as a haboob.  We get them quite often here in the desert and it is kind of neat to watch.  This was taken around 4 in the afternoon.  The sky gets dark, the wind starts blowing and then the dust comes in and covers EVERYTHING.  It can last anywhere from 2-3 minutes to almost half an hour.  This one lasted for about half an hour and then the rain came afterwards to make sure there was mud on everything.  The wind reached about 60 miles an hour with this one and the temperature dropped about 15 degrees once the rain hit.

Speaking of temperatures............................See this little wonderful number?  The time on the clock was 4:52 in the afternoon.  I took this picture and as soon as I snapped it the temperature went up to 121F.  So when I hear all of my blogging friends complaining about the heat I just shake my head.  To top this off, I had been sitting outside on the cement for an hour watching my grand daughter take her first swim meet lesson.  I finished my bottle of water in about 20 minutes and my clothes were plastered to my body from sweat (yes I SWEAT!) and my hair was totally drenched also.  So the next time you think it is hot, think about those of us that live in the desert and deal with this kind of heat yearly.  Not even our swimming pool can cool us off as the temp of the water is 97F!  Whenever I think about complaining about the summer temperatures I stop my self and thank God that I have a home with A/C and a comfortable bed to sleep in and then thank him for our men and women in the armed forces that are in much hotter and less comfortable conditions overseas.

Until next week......................................

Happy Crafting!

Crafting and family

This post is picture laden and will include both my craft progress and my family time over the past week.  So sit back and relax.  I will do my craft progress in the first part so those of you who are only interested in that can skim through the rest of the blog to make your comments.  So let's get started.

Got another couple of dishcloths done.  The striped one on the right has already found a home with my mom.  She really liked the fact there is a loop on it to hang it up.  It is "grandma's favorite dishcloth" pattern.  The one on the left is another "double hump" dishcloth and is awaiting gift giving at Christmas time.

As for the doll clothes..........................I am once again a bad blogger.  I finished the red dress and made a hat, purse and shawl to match and failed to take a picture of the finished product.  I am hoping that the little girl will bring her American Girl doll over with her all dressed up in that outfit today.  If she does I will get a photo of it and post it next week.  So I managed to complete 2 tops, two skirts and the red outfit all in about 3 days.  Of course I was up until 11:30 the night before her birthday completing it and wrapped it all up and then remembered the camera.  Bad, bad blogger.

I worked a bit on the color affection shawl but not enough for you to notice in a picture.  I have about 8 more rows do to and then I will be in the final phase of it.  I will be happy to get it off the needles and more on to one of the other shawls that are patiently waiting to be finished too.  Not to mention the other projects on my YoP that need to be worked on pretty soon.

Ok, on to the family stuff.

We had a birthday this past week.  The pretty girl in the middle turned 7!  That is her with her Mommy and Grammie.  A pretty nice 3 generation picture if you ask me. 

This is her and my hubby who is called Pop Pop.  They have quite a relationship.  He has cared for her since she was born.  In fact he retired early from work just to be her 'playmate'.  He has loved every minute of it.

There were present to be opened.  This is the red outfit that I made for her American Girl doll.  I really want a picture if it on the doll!

We go to the same place every year for her family birthday party.  It is called Organ Stop.  There is a HUGE Wurlitzer organ there and they place all sorts of music.  So every year she dances with her daddy to some of the slow songs.  I think they both love this little daddy daughter time.

This is my mom.  We decided that last weekend we would have Christmas in July for her.

She had no idea what we had planned.  So she was pretty confused when we brought in a Christmas gift bag and a gave her a Christmas card.

She was absolutely thrilled though, when she saw the Kindle Fire inside.  She has been wanting one for some time now but they are so expensive.  We were going to get her one for Christmas this year as a family gift but my husband changed that.

This is my hubby.  He was recently in Las Vegas.  I had to clear that up before you thought we had slot machine in our home!  He was sitting quietly at Barley's watching a baseball game on TV when he heard that there was going to be a drawing for all those playing slots.  So he put some money in the slot machine and started playing when he looked up he saw that he was a winner of a brand new Kindle Fire.  He was amazed.  So he called me to tell that he had just gotten Mom's Christmas present!

And if you must know...............................yes, he also won $$$ on the slot machine.  It was a great day for him.

That is all the news for now from here.

Happy Crafting

Progress the hard way

  I did  make progress this week.  It was not the way I would have liked to do it.  I ended up taking 2.5 days off work with a nasty case of bronchitis.  As we all know there is NOTHING on the TV during the day so there really was not much that I could do, with out having coughing spasms, other than work on some fibery goodness.

First off..................I worked quite a bit on my color affection shawl.

I was not sure I was going to like the colors in it but it is growing on me now.  I am more than half way through the second part of the shawl and am looking forward to getting that done and on to the third part (which is the end of it)  I did it all in sock yarn and really am glad that went ahead and chose one of the variegated yarns to put in it.  Next time I am considering just using nothing but variegated for the whole thing.  I have several variegated that complement each other and some of you have suggested trying that.

There is a little girl that has just received her first American Girl Doll.  (this would be my grand daughter)  Her birthday is this coming Wednesday and since she really is not in 'need' of anything I decided to crochet up some clothes for said doll.  This is my first time at doing doll clothes and am loving it.  They are quick and easy to do.  This is a red dress that is still in progress and may have to frogged as it seems to be a bit large for the doll.  It is Red Heart Shimmer yarn and since it is raining outside I had to take indoor photos of it.  But this is a very faint gold thread that runs through the entire yarn.  I am also going to make a shawl, hat, purse and shoes to go with it out of the white shimmer yarn.

This is just a little bolero for the doll.  It is made out of Rowan cotton DK weight.  It was the first piece I tried.  I need to get buttons for it yet and then it will be done.

Gotta love baby pompadour yarn with it's shimmer in it.  This is a skirt for the doll.

Here is a top and skirt out of baby weight yarn.

I am not looking forward to frogging the red dress but since it is suppose to be a party dress for the doll I want it to fit very nicely.  I only spent about 3 hours on it already and most of that was trying to decipher instructions.  I finally gave up and just went with what I wanted it to look like and dumped the pattern and made my own from a combination of several put together.

I am feeling much better now and am looking forward to today which is our family day.  I have some cooking to do for it but it is always an enjoyable day for all of us.  Today is also a special day that I can not disclose yet but stay tuned this week for an update. (and more photos)

Happy Crafting!

Little Progress

There was little progress on my list this week.  My arthritis was acting up so I was not able to craft as much as I would have liked too.  So there are no pictures for this week.  Hopefully there will be something to show next week.

I did manage to complete the second section of my color affection shawl and am now working on the third section of the shawl.  I learned how to wrap and turn this week and have never done it before so it was kind of exciting for me.

I also managed to complete 2 more dish cloths and they left my house before I could snap a photo of them.  They were ecru and in the double hump pattern.  They went to live with my Mother in Law in Nevada.  DH took them up with him this past week.  I hope she likes them.

I did work on something that was not on my list.  I made a little sleeveless bolero for my Grand Daughters American Girl doll.  I want to make some more doll clothes for her in the next couple of weeks so I will have something for her birthday that she will love.  I am making crocheted clothes for the doll as her other Grandmother only knits and I am giving her full reign in that area.

Did not touch any of my other projects this week but hopefully will be able to make some progress on SOMETHING by next Sunday and will have pictures to show for it.

Happy Crafting!

Up and running

I feel so much better now that I have my banner for my blog.  I must have some OCD as it bothered me all week that I didn't have my Yop2 info on my blog page.

So let's get on with the progress this week.

Last week I went into my craft room and counted all the things I mentioned last week.  Here is what I found out.

Cotton Yarn:

Seems I have enough for 10-12 dish cloths.  I am currently working on a ecru one and am hoping to get a couple of ecru done this week.  Hubby is heading up to Las Vegas to see his mom and I noticed last time I was there, her dish cloths were more like dish rags.  So I really want to get a few done for her.  She likes to bleach her cloths so I didn't see any reason to make her any in the colored yarn.

I also counted my sock yarn and I have enough sock yarn to make 40-45 pairs of socks.  That comes to over 4000 yards of sock yarn!  That's 3658 meters of sock yarn for my metric blogging buddies!  That's a lot of sock yarn.  Now I am going to have to come up with a way to use up half of that amount by the end of YoP2.  This does not include the sock yarn I am using for my color affection shawl either!

Hello, my name is Leftycrafter and I am a yarn-o-holic.  It has been 2 months since I purchased any yarn.

I also decided to count my project bags.  16 of them are sitting proudly in my craft room.  Dang!  good thing I only proposed making 3 of them up in the next year.

Now is there other yarn in that room?  Of course there is.  Come on..................I already said I was a yarn-o-holic.  I can not even count the amount of loose yarn in there.  I have cotton thread, worsted weight, DK weight, nylon cording for purses and of course my scraps from projects that I could not bear to throw away.  And to think I gave away 9 -13 gallon bags of yarn at the beginning of YoP1 to a local church.

On to other pictures of my WIPs

Here is the color affection shawl.  I have now completed the second part of the shawl.  I had to lay it aside for a few days so I could get on the dish cloths.  I will pick it back up once the cloths are done.

The finished front of the blooming pillow.  Have not started on the other front yet or the backs.  Just need to have this done by Christmas.  It should not be a problem.  The front takes me 2 days to make and the backs I can complete in an evening after work.

Here is the La La's shawl.  It has been on my needles for over 2 years.  Love the color and the pattern is not that hard.  It will make a great shoulder warmer when done.  I may donate this to our cancer shawl ministry at church when finished.

Cancer ribbon shawl.  This is a quick crochet and I don't have a clue as to why I put it aside.  This too, like the La La has been in my WIP bag for about 2 years.  This will be going to the cancer ministry for sure at our church, when completed.

I did not put this on my YoP2 list.  But it is really something.  (no the picture is not blurry,  that is a angora/silk yarn)  This pattern is Eva's shawl.  This sucker is soooooo warm to work on.  It is even hard for me to work on it in the winter time.   I know it is going to be gorgeous when it is completed but I think I need to move to the north pole and sit outside and work on it there.  I have no idea who this will be gifted too.  It can not go to the cancer ministry since it is not acrylic.  So I need to find someone that gets chilled when it is 90 degrees outside.

Still only have the one log cabin square done.  This is 24 inches (61 cm) square.  There are only 4 square to the entire afghan so that makes it 48 inches (121.9cm) square and that is without the border around it.  My DD is going to use this as her bedspread/duvet.  She has a king sized bed so it is going to be a bit short all the way around but then I can always add more border on the thing to make it fit.

That about covers my fiber addiction for the week.  Now I need to get busy on those dish cloths for my MIL.

Happy Crafting!

YoP part two

I really need to get the YoP 2 banner for my blog but since I just got home last night from a nice vacation I have not had the time to go in and find it and load it to my pictures.  I promise by next week I will get that taken care of.

Any who......................I have had lots of people asking about the blooming pillows.  I got the pattern from Attic 24.  It is a fun pillow to make and you can use what ever colors strike your fancy.  Here is a picture of the ones I just finished and left back at the home of where we were staying for our vacation.

These match an afghan I made for them for Christmas.  The white is really pretty and since photos don't always show up the detail I will tell you that it is laced with gold metallic thread.

I have been working on my color affection shawl and have discovered that knitting and falling asleep do not go together.  I had to frog 10 rows of it because I had somehow made a wonderful hole in the middle of the shawl.  I am just about back to where I was when I made my little boo-boo and am still loving working on it.  I have heard a lot of people say that they can not stand doing this shawl because it is too much garter stitch.  But I find that soothing and relaxing.  It is an easy thing to do while talking to people or watching TV.

I have also finished the front of my next blooming pillow.  So I have one more front and 2 backs to do and those will be done. 

Today I will be counting all my sock yarn and my cotton yarns and will have a count of that for next weeks post.  I would have done that last night but I could have cared less about anything after flying for several hours, grocery shopping and unpacking our 3 suitcases.  I will have plenty of time for that later today while doing laundry and getting all my fruits and veggies cleaned for the next week of meals.

So until next week.........................

Happy Crafting!