motif #109

This is motif #109 from a favorite book of mine:

This adorable block involves edc(extended double crochet) and a leaning tower stitch and a partial leaning tower stitch ~which I have never done before~ but! it gives the block a unique, stacked stitch that is really quite easy to do (and nope - I will not share the pattern...Seriously! get this book! It is a must-buy-for-your-crochet-shelf!)

I am just using scraps of yarn & a G hook.

And having learned from past granny square making...

....I am weaving the ends of all those color changes as I finish each block.

Because waiting until the end when you stacks & stacks of blocks ...

Um. Not a good thing.

the tale of 2 dolls

This is doll #1 that I started knitting eons ago.  Read -->long before Christmas.


The pattern is from this book that I found while scrounging at the thrift store.

So cute & so scrappy !  I couldn't wait to get it done and have it sitting on the shelf in the living room looking all festive & lovely during the Christmas season.

There was a just a bit of a teeny problem.

The obvious of course is that Christmas has already come & gone and look! this doll still has no arms attached and is totally faceless.  And doggone it! I am so close to being done.  But I am trying to come to grips with the very real, very cold reality I may never get to finish this doll.

Why?

Scroll back a few stories and I was being very witty about playing tennis.  Not real tennis of course, but I was injecting humor in my very catastrophic inability to knit or crochet because of 'tennis elbow'.  (And please also note ----> I am feeling extremely foolish for being so whiny about this.  I mean!  Seriously!  I know that there are people out there having to deal with waaaaay more serious stuff than this...)

So my bag of knitting sits next to me all silent.  And I wonder if I will ever be able to knit or crochet again.  The possibility stuns me.  Really?  It can't be!  And take it back out & knit a few stitches only to shove it back into the bag because my. elbow. hurts. way. too. much.

What's left?

Feel sorry for myself?  Tried that and my kids & husband were ready to throw my out on my backside.  Seriously, Mom?  It's just knitting! (Plus that gets real old, real fast.)

I started paging through this same COUNTRY DOLLS book and there are lots of cute patterns...oh, look! a pattern to sew a doll...using scraps of fabric and my sewing machine.

Well, it HAS been a bazillion years since I did anything like that...

...but here she is.  Doll #2

I must say, I had forgotten what a treasure it is to sew.  And when she came out looking like this?

...I knew that all is not lost.

enthusiasm

Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm. 

Sir Winston Churchill

It seemed no matter what I attempted I was met with failure.

Crochet.

Knitting.

Any type of stitching.

Fail.

Fail.

Fail.

And my enthusiasm died.

But then I picked up this book for the 1,000,000th time and wondered for the 1,000,001th time if I could possibly make something from all of these beautiful patterns...

101 Designer one-skein WONDERS by Judith Durant

I kept coming back to the Horseshoe Cable Socks.  They were more than yummy and way out league as far as what I could attempt.

Heh.  heh.

Until I tried them.

What?

These are easy.  

And so utterly beautiful (and if I have to tip my hat to Tonia who has the greatest technique for knitting these horseshoe cables WITHOUT a cable needle!)

I  couldn't believe it!  These were flying off of my needles!  

No failure.  Just complete, satisfying success.

And so now I once again have something in my hands.  

And I am once again enthusiastic about sticks and yarn.

a cherry tomato scarf

Our tomato plants are sagging under the weight of plump cherry tomatoes.  It is such a joy to walk out to the garden and see so many of them just waiting to be picked and eaten right there on the spot.

And when I am not in the garden, I have a hook, shuttle or knitting needles in my hands.  

As of late, it has been the needles that are occupying my time --- and trying to find something that is not too difficult, but something that grabs my attention.

And I found a pattern & just loved the way the stitch looked in the book.

The booklet is Variety is the Spice of Knitting & found while scrounging at the thrift store. It is missing some pages --- along with the cover --- but filled with over 100 patterns of super delightful knitted patterns.




And now that I actually finished this experiment of

"Wow!  I wonder if I can even knit that?!" 

it reminded me of the cherry tomatoes that seem to be taking over the garden.

 

I just love the intricacy of knitted lace and am completely floored that with just a few ssk & yo --- voila! you have knitted lace!  And then by repeating that same pattern over and over again, you have just made a scarf.

A cherry tomato scarf. 

Perfect for the approaching autumn season.

a treasure in tatting

This pillowcase is a treasure that I recently found at the thrift store.  Minus the edging.

(btw--when I see items like this with $.25 price tag attached it is such a bittersweet feeling --- sweet because it is now in my possession, but bitter because the time & love that must have gone into embroidering this pillowcase...well, it is a shame that it ended up tossed in a bargain bin at the local thrift store.)

And since I have been practicing with this tatted 'swatch' of edging

that I found in this book from Annie's Attic:

I knew this edging would look so splendid on the pillowcase. 

In pink!

So I tatted & tatted & tatted inches and inches of pink edging for this pillow; attached it by hand-sewing it with needle & thread right to the very edge of the pillowcase.

Such a lovely treasure.

such a rosey finish

A finish.

A rosey finish!  Complete with lacey pineapples and pearls.

It is from this book:

And even tho I ran into some major snafus....

...I have come away smitten by the simple beauty that can come from a mere size 7 hook and size 10 crochet thread. 

Yup. Just give me a crochet project, sleeping kitties, flowers, stacked dishes, etc...

...and chaos just seems to disappear.

Hello to a quiet world filled with sweet, simple things.

For awhile anyway.....

strawberries & a ladybug

I am hopeless when it comes to actually growing a garden filled with strawberries. 
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And I have the most vivid memories of picking them by the pails-full in my Aunt Anna Mae's garden.  Row after row I would walk, diving for the big, red heart-shaped fruit.  Of course, my pail was pretty near empty as I would devour almost all of them.
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So.  I can't grow 'em, but Lesley Stanfield can sure design a pattern that looks like the real thing.  And her book is just filled with oodles & oodles of the cutest, buggy-flowery-almost-edible looking delights....

Adding tiny seed beads to mimic the seeds of the strawberry? --- beyond cute.

I used Debbie Stoller's Stitch Nation yarn (which I looooove, btw.  Soft from the get-go & the most fabulous of colors) and fluctuated between using my F & G hook.

Lesley's leaf pattern is my most favorite of leaf patterns & seeing all of the adorable 'little beasts' that she includes in her book -- I just had to crocheted her ladybug. 
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Adorable.
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So adorable that between our golden retriever puppy (naughty boy that he is) and the cats --- sheesh!  those furry, little rascals were/are under the impression that these stuffed items are actually toys intended only for them.  You can not believe how many times when crocheting the last details, the strawberries & ladybug would disappear from the sofa cushion only to find them in the mouth of some very guilty looking pets.

Now, on to her butterfly pattern.  Or caterpillar pattern.  Or Bachelor's Button flower...



.......

monet marigold

These have to be my most  f.a.v.o.r.i.t.e. colors all placed onto one skein of yarn. 

But when you use the word 'monet' to describe a color combination, well --- that alone conjures up all sorts of softly hewed images.

The yarn is Red Heart in Monet.

And the marigold flower pattern is from here:

I used my I hook and just oohed and ahhed over these colors!

Super fast & super easy pattern.

How just one simple skein of very inexpensive yarn can become a fabulous, frou-frou flower....

...it's just so lovely!