Tales the Hook Weaves

Hello! How are you doing? Good I hope! I'm doing good, just gearing up for the Christmas season. I actually started some of my Christmas projects last month, I don't want to be finishing up presents the night before Christmas. But I have things to show you! But first... After my post on Sunday, Elliott and Alyssa both went down for naps and Amelia and I went up to the store to get some stuff. As we were about to turn into the parking lot, I saw something up ahead.


Laying on it's side, tied to the ground was a hot hair balloon. One of the Mason temples was doing a fund raiser and they were calling it "Touch a Balloon." You got to go inside the acutal balloon and run around.


But I think the sheer size of the balloon terrified Amelia. She was crying and kept saying she needed to go home.


We didn't stay long, but it was neat and I wish Amelia would have enjoyed it more. Later she told me the fan (that was used to keep it inflated) was the thing that scared her. And since Monday after visiting the chiropractor, Elliott has been feeling a little better, still has some pain and stiffness, but he'll be better soon. I hope.


For starters, here's a little peek into my little nook, aka our bedroom. This is my night table with all of my crochet goodies. Along with my kindle, my big book of crochet techniques, and some delicious lotion. Plus my awesome lamp that Elliott named the porch light because it's always on when he comes home from work. Just thought I'd share that little piece of me.


Anyway, I've been hook, hook, hooking lately. Mostly with that bernat great value yarn that has consumed my life. I love it! It's a dream to work with and I can't wait to see how it washes up.


Of course you'll probably recognize this. It's Lucy's, from attic24.typepad.com, Blooming Flower cushion. I've been wanting to make one for awhile and Becca from beccadoodle.blogspot.com made one and I just couldn't stand it any longer! So I started one and I can't wait to do the back and get the round pillow insert for it. It's going to be lovely, I know it!


And this is the main reason I bought all that yarn. To make a blanket for the living room. I decided on a granny square because I'm obsessed with granny squares and just never found the time to make one. But now seemed like the best time. I'm being honest with the ends because I'm doing the join as you go method and seamless joins among the rounds. So hopefully, there will be a minimum amount, or none at all, of ends to weave in.


I just finished this little stroller blanket for a family friend's grandbaby.


The colors are not done justice in these pictures. They're very contemporary and girly and very bright. Ripples grow fast, but baby ripples grow fastest. I hope to give it to her before the baby is born, but that's not looking like it'll happen.


This is a hexagon blanket I'm working on for Amelia since she's the only one in the family without an "I Love This Yarn" blanket. I'm doing it by rows and completely random with the scraps of color from previous blankets (mine, Elliott's, and Alyssa's). The little hexies work up in no time and I join them with a slip stitch through the back loops as I go. It's so soft and is just Amelia's style.


By the way, did you know it's super hard to take pictures of things on the floor with kids and dogs? Just a little FYI. :-)
The first time she saw this she brought it to me and told me it was her blanket and that it was so pretty. I love that girl! She's quite possibly my biggest fan.


Then there's this, a Christmas present for someone I love. Not you, mom. This person doesn't read my blog, I don't think, but still I won't say who. It's worked up using Dottie Angel's ordinarily extraordinary blanket how to, http://dottieangel.blogspot.com/2010/06/ordinarily-extraordinary-blanket-how-to.html?m=1
It's grows fast too.


And last but not least, and most certainly not truly last really, there are other things I'm working on still. I have joined a crochet along on Ravelry. I've been a member of Ravelry for two years an have barely used it but lately I've been really into it. Epsecially since I want to branch out in the crochet community more. We're doing a CAL using Jan Eaton's book 200 Crochet Blocks, a booku brother bought me for my birthday last year, and we're doing roughly two squares a week starting officially on the 1st of September. So if you'd like to join there is still time! It's 200 blocks crochet with Rachell. The theme that was voted on was "cottage garden," and the colors are completely up to how you see it. I'm really loving it.


Here's my first block.


An my second. I'm using ther Bernat for my blocks too. I will definitely be blocking my blocks before I join them. I can a least do that much the right way since I don't gauge or swatch my yarns. So don't judge the wonkiness! Please.


I'm glad you stopped by, it was nice to see you. Have a wonderful rest of the week!

Sunday Morning

This morning I woke up to the usual. Amelia handing me Denny, the ankylasaurus, so she can get into bed with Daidai under her arm while I throw the covers over her. To the sudden realization that this child is yet again up before I'd like to be, but 7:30 is better than 6:30, and Alyssa wasn't up yet. Then I listened closely, there were no shrill cries of locust but the soft tweeter of finches in the yard. It's been raining, misting, and gray since yesterday. You know what else I saw yesterday? For the first time in weeks, I saw a robin with a worm in his mouth.


After Amelia watched her Loony Toons videos (about 2) on my phone, she hopped down and knocked down the baby gate to get to the kitchen and get into things. She has a Minnie Mouse lawn chair she drags around to climb on the counters.


How convienent for her that it's so light. We've taken it downstairs countless times. But she had only just gotten into the cabinet when I finally pulled myself out of bed.


Sometimes, if I get the camera just right, in pictures it looks like we don't have neighbors. After I picked up the bits Amelia did get into I looked out the back door. We have two hummingbird (honeybird if you ask Amelia) feeders and just had to put the oriole feeder back up. We got some in the beginning of summer but then they left, but because there's no food (I.e. Bugs) they've come back looking for food. Elliott had a theory they were back because one of the honeybird feeders was super low after early morning, not like it should have been. The same day he told me his theory, before he told me, I thought I heard the croak of an oriole. He was right about them getting into the feeders and when they flew off they would slosh "nectar" from the feeders.


This is the best picture I could get of him. Little fingers had smudged my camera on my phone and when I had cleared it, he was gone. The honeybirds have been going crazy lately too, Amelia and I sit out back and watch them after Alyssa goes to sleep at night.


After fixing Amelia up with her morning fruit and milk, I had a nice snuggle with Alyssa. I always lay my hand on her back if I'm not rubbing it. I love snuggle time. After I had bragged to you about the 11 hour night she had a major sleep regression and was waking ever 2-4 hours at night. But last night was the best night we've had for at least for a month. She even woke up at 530 and out herself back to sleep! Knocking on wood that it wasn't a one time thing though, she'll be 6 months on the 8th, and still only pre-crawling.


Elliott threw out his back last night and is laid up on the floor, but the girls don't mind. And if you don't mind the mess, it's a cute picture. So I don't think we'll be getting out of our jammies anytime soon. I hope you have a great Sunday and I'll be back hopefully tomorrow with some stuff to show you.


Happy days!

The Story of a Chair

Hello lovely people! How are you today? I'm alright, I have a bit of a tension headache, but I bet if I actually take something for it it'll go away. How's your weather? Here in my part of Kansas the sky has been a gray slate, threatening to rain since this morning. I took the laundry off the line because when I went to get a freshly washed Daisy Bear I was sprinkled on a bit and I didn't want to rush around getting hit with big raindrops trying to get towels and sheets down had it come to actual rain. Rain. *sigh* How you are sorely missed. Enough sucking wind, as my dad would say, which means quit scoffing if you didn't guess, I have things to show you!


Back in Winter sometime, my step-dad's sister gave Amelia this little rocking chair. We weren't too thrilled about it because we really didn't have anywhere to put it. It roamed around the living room for awhile before being placed in Amelia's room. She loved the chair! Loved to sit in it and watch Wild Kratts in her room and eat her morning fruit. I was just ok about it. It was heavy, but really solid, and outdated. Not very feminine at all. But for awhile it stayed.


Then after Alyssa reached a stage where she wasn't sleeping all day or eating every 30 minutes to an hour, I got tired of being inside by myself with the girls while Elliott worked on the shed outside. So I said, "Elliott, I'm going to refinish Amelia's chair."
"Do it," He said.
So I did.
He told me I would want to sand it before I painted it. Good call man. So I sanded it. Then I kilzed it, twice, then I painted it green, two coats. The same green that's in Amelia's room. I was going to use the purple we painted Alyssa's room but Elliott forgot he had used all of it. Then I picked out my fabric bundle to match and took measurements. But as you can see, I totally blew it and didn't take any pictures. And I ended up scraping the measurements too because they were wrong! Well, maybe they were right but I threw a wrench in my plans and used foam cushions instead of a layer of batting like I planned. Which I'm glad I did.


I did the seat first and it took forever! I had to sew things together, place on seat and measure, sew more on, measure. Then finally, hot glued the fabric over the cushion and under the seat.


Then today, when the girls were napping, I finished the back. That didn't take near as long as the seat did.


Which was good, but I still burnt my fingers just as many times and got hot glue on my pants. Oh well, at least it's done!


Overall, I'm really happy with how it turned out. And before I even started with the fabric I told Elliott I'd like to find a similar rocker to do the same thing for Alyssa. Granted, she won't be sitting in it anytime soon, but it doesn't hurt to look because you'll never know when you'll get lucky and find what you're looking for.


When I called Amelia out to see it she said, "whoa! That's so pretty!" and when I asked if she liked it, she said, "yeah, I do!"


She sat in it, touched the fabric, and rocked in it. Then she ran off to play with other things. After I get her room in order I'll be putting this back into it's rightful spot. And out of my craft area in the basement! There isn't much room in the corner as it is, butt was really hard to move around with the chair there.


That's about all I have for today, I have some other things to share, but I'll be back for that later. The chair is enough for now.

Fair Time

What happened?! I guess we were just having so much fun with the cooler weather, the fair, and each other, that I let the time pass me by and my blog is the one that suffered yet again.


I think these two and Elliott are worth the distraction though. Even if they destroy my house.


We went to the fair last week. Once as a family and once with just me and Amelia. My sister works for the sheriff's department and is awaiting her turn to go to the academy and she was patrolling the fair on Tuesday. She looked sharp! I'd never seen her on her uniform before so it was a treat for me. After she said hello she had to get back to work pretty quick. Amelia wasn't done with her aunt and followed her. My sister got a kick out of that.


Amelia and Elliott are both very much animal people. All animals! Amelia is currently stuck on frogs though. And I wish Amelia had a little more fear of things sometimes. She immediately went up to animals and stuck her hands through the bars.


Alyssa didn't really care. She was just happy to be outside. The weather was actually decent and there was no complaints from this mama! We got to the fair early to avoid crowds and lines on the rides. Amelia rode the carousel three time, the giant slide twice, and the flying elephants once. When we sat down for the first time on the slide Amelia tried to get up and she said, "I not wanna do it!" which is code for I'm scared, please let's go back! Looking down I got a little scared too, but the stairs going up were scarier than the actual slide.


We had some delicious, is delicious the right word?, fair food after our rides and the sky just grew darker and darker and the wind picked up. Elliott suggest we either leave or go look at the crafts. I was good with either one really. Then over the PA someone told us there was a storm close to our area and Elliott pushed forward into the display building. Just as we got to the craft area it down poured, and heavy too. We wouldn't have made it to the car. The rain didn't last long but Alyssa was hating the stroller by that point. I pulled her out and carried for awhile, until we got back outside then Elliott took over daddy duty.


There was a beautiful rainbow as we walked around in the cooler air with the damp cool breeze. It was very pleasant. We tried our first fried peach, it was so good, and shared Amelia's first funnel cake with her.


Alyssa fell asleep during dessert and then Amelia wanted to ride the carousel again. I love that Alyssa loves to fall asleep in Elliott's arms. Amelia would have none of that when she was a baby so I'm sure Elliott enjoys it too. Despite all the sugar Amelia ingested she went to bed really easy. As did Alyssa, and mommy and daddy. Having fun wears you out!


And in crochet news: I made my sister a mantis for her birthday.


It looked nice next to the one I made Amelia last summer. The colors are off though, my phone hasn't been working properly lately, so if you'd like to see the true colors its Hobby Lobby's I Love This Yarn in peacock and hot rose.


She loved it! Amelia did too, she kept trying to take it as her own.


And then we went home and Amelia showed off for her aunt and uncle. This is her impression of Puss in boots. It's really good and Elliott and I ask her to do it until she yells no at us.


Well, that's about all I have for right now. I don't want to overload you with anymore awesomeness. :-) I hope you all have a nice day!