Thursday, July 15, 2010

crochet adventures

So in the last post I talked about learning to crochet and knit.  It all started cause my two year old learned how to open the dead bolt on the front door.  She learned how to open door knobs before that but as long and she couldn't go on walk about on her own, it wasn't too much of a big deal. There are several options for door knob covers and I am not a fan of the ugly plastic ones. I have friends that said ah yeah I can make you come crochet door knob covers.  I finally got tired of hounding them when bebe girl tried to follow me out the door as I left for work.    I went to the store,  I got some pretty yarn, I got some hooks and I sat down with you tube vids and figured it out.  have to love you tube they have videos for everything.  I make 4 door knob covers, figuring it was a good number of them to try.  I go over to my moms house and we put a couple on doors there we don't want the bebe going through.  10 minutes,  10 minutes I am telling you,  was all it took for the bebekins to figure out how to defeat the door knob covers.  if you pinch the door knob between your hand and you wrist and hang off the door knob the door opens.  Well that was the end of that for the attempt at crochet door knob covers.  I had to break down and go to the hardware store and get the plastic door knob covers.  It took bebekins about 4 hours to figure out how to defeat the plastic ones.   you stick you fingers in the openings and dangle off of the door knob cover and it pops right off.  Between keeping them on the doors every time she pulls them off and a tube of super glue to glue the halves together we are doing better.  so after her figureing out how to defeat the crochet door knob covers, I had yarn left over so what to do with the yarn.  find something else to make with it. crochet is pretty easy.  knitting a bit more challenging for me to pick up but I think I got it now.  just took some practice. and some diffrent yarn.  the first yarn, spa by naturally caron, is a fine weight yarn and heavily plyed so really easy to split your stiches and to keep you knitting even.  so I then tried cotton-ease by lion brand, have the back of a hooded bebe poncho knitted up for bebekins.  Cotton-ease much easier to work with initially while learning to knit.  I will go back to the spa yarn cause I love the feel of it and think it would make a wonderful knit top once I get some practice under my belt.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Bad Blogger

I have been a very very bad blogger, and I don't have a good excuse.  though it has been summer and hot and it is fun to watch the bebekins play in her wading pool or taker her swimming.  I also have been learning to knit and crochet and that on some levels is easier than breaking out the sewing machine and make a huge mess in the living room.  I have made a couple crochet bags.  they have turned out fairly well  this doesn't count the fact that I have unraveled several pieces I was not happy with..  I am making a little knit poncho for the bebekins.  the pattern is written for a 3t size.  and  I am looking at the fact that I have to go buy new shoes for the bebe girl half way through summer.   I went ahead and enlarged the pattern a big and hopefully come fall when she can use it, it will fit her.  bebekins is the youngest in her preschool class and the tallest in her class.  if the poncho comes out like I hope it will i may make two smaller ones for my niece and nephew for when the temperatures might one day drop below 100 degrees at mid day. my daughter has the most abysmal taste in yarn.  she likes the super soft and fluffy stuff like mohair or red hear butter cup of the fur yarn.  how the heck am I supposed to learn with it.  she will grab a skein while we are in the store and cuddle up with it like a stuffed animal.  or she will shake it to death and being thre responsible parent working on the you broke it your bought it philosphy the skein comes home with me and  I spend the hour untangeling it and balling it up.  while it is fun to play with the ball of yarn I need to work with it and that is hard.  I finally came up with a really really simple afghan pattern for the stupid mohair yarn.  and now that I am on ball 4 of the afghan and I will need something like 18-20.  yeah  it might end up a baby sized afghan when I get tired of it.  it is quite lovely so far and I have 10 skeins of yarn for it so it will end up that large at least.  last project I am working on with the yarn is a tank top for me.  I love the naturally caron spa yarn.  I love the reflectivity of it.  and the sock weightness of it.  I am not a big bulky yarn person.  but when you use a really fine yarn it takes that much longer to make said project.

that doesn't mean I haven't been sewing.  I finally found the binding for the bebekins quilt.  and got it sewn on  I still have to sew the hanging tube on the back down but we are making progress.  I have made several insulated lunch totes for the bebekins to take to preschool and the husband to take to work.  eventually I will get mine done as well.  Preschool has also been a big change in june.  she started preschool and it is a big transition for wee ones.  and cold after cold that she has brought home.  I made a lovely applique block carrier as well.  I had some problems with the binding on it, but I also learned putting binding on when you are really stressed you break alot of threads. Stash busted for carrier, used up alot of scraps.   I started a quilt for my husbands cousin son who was diagnosed with leukemia back in may.  I was doing really well on it  even after he started to have really really bad reactions to the chemo.  I have lost motivation to finish it when he died.  it is very very tragic to lose a 5 year old in such a terrible way.  I feel I need to finish the quilt and give it to the family. but it hard to work on it.

I guess in the end it is hard to blog about quilty goodness when I am not feeling quilty goodness.

though I am going to have to get some sewing mojo going.  I had my purse stolen this morning with the current block I am hand piecing. and my nook and the sewing project for bebegirls preschool and my quilting design note and and and like everything else important.  so items I need to make/redo to recover from this.  need a new purse.  need to find a pattern for a purse. preferably one that I don't have to order as it will be 7-10 business days till I get a new card.  I think I will stash bust for my new purse and I have a stash I might as well  use it.  then I need to make a new hand sewing carrying case.  so I can carry my thread and scissors and thread heaven and block pieces in it.  then I need to get more castle peeps for bebekins preschool project.  then after than I need to cut out new pieces for the block that was in my purse.  I can say this about my missing purse.  1) my cell phone wasn't in it.  2) my ipod wasn't in it.  3) my small lappy wasn't in it  they took the purse out of the car when I turned around to stop the bebe from running into traffic but left the laptop in its case sitting right next to it.