cherry pie potholder

Cherry pie has to be my most favorite pie.

And I got it in my head that I would make one. From scratch. So after pitting about 400 cherries & smelling the pie bake in the oven I couldn't wait to cut a slice & enjoy this delicious treat.

After pulling it out of the oven I realized something extremely obvious.

This was not going to be a delicious pie because the cherries were swimming in red water. Yes, bobbing up & down like apples in a wash basin at Halloween time. Ugh. I mean! --it was awful all the way down to saturating the crust into a wet, soggy mess....

Okay. So making a cherry pie in my kitchen is just not happening. But.....I could crochet a potholder that looks an awful lot like a cherry pie, right?

n

.v

This didn't start out as a 'hey! why don't I make a potholder that resembles a cherry pie?!'


It just began with putting colors together from scraps of cotton in my stash & using a G hook...


.

....and of course, I had to look up a motif in one of my most favorite books:


.

..and did you know? Edie Eckman has another you-must-add-this-to-your-collection book:





So I sat and paged thru these 2 delightful books, & decided on motif # 24 & border #21.

.
Then by continuing to crochet round after round in either red, white or butter yellow, this became 'potholder-size' rather quickly.
n
And the back of this cherry pie potholder was just as easy -- simple sc, hdc or dc crocheted in a circular pattern.
.

My culinary skills may be lacking, but hey! ---> I can replicate a cherry pie with just plain ol' crochet cotton & a hook.

it's a petunia purse

,
The ripples are done and whip-stitched to the african flower hexies to make ---
,


Ta-da!
/

My petunia purse.

.

.
I found one of my old purses that fit right into the main part of the crocheted piece and after removing the strap from that old purse --
.
/



I crocheted around a plastic ring & attached that to the main portion of the bag for the strap.
.
And yes, I had to nix the zipper idea -- the teeth of the zipper would have frayed (and basically eaten) the rippled edge.
.

But nevertheless, it is a smashing petunia bag that both of my daughters think they're going to use before I do..........

.,

Not.

,

Happening.

hexies & ripples = a purse, of course

l,

My utmost thanks to Aisyah, who directed me to this tutorial for crocheting African Flowers. I have seen these on ravelry & flickr and AbSoLuTeLy love them.

.

.

And yes, putting aside all other projects, I sat by the pool & began these delightful hexies.

But what to do with them?

.

.

Aha. Of course -- a purse.

,

.
But what to do for the body of the purse? How 'bout crocheted ripples?

.

.

I have plans to attach a zipper to the upper edge and my wants-to-be-a-fashion-designer-daughter was adamant that I add some sort of strap.

.

.

Of course this is all still in the planning stages, but even if this does not turn out how I envision it -- just the formation of these african flowers and making ripples is keen enough for me.

.

soft as a lamb's ear

lamb's ear:

,

With fuzzy, silvery green, soft as suede leaves, Lamb's Ears are favored for their foliage, rather than their flowers. They flower on tall spikes in shades of pinkish purple or white, in the late spring or early summer. Some gardeners's find the flower spikes charming and others cut them off to encourage the foliage, as with Hosta. Bees are not so fussy and love the slightly fragrant flowers.

~~~~~

I have another lovely work on my hook. It's one of Mary Werst's doilies ---> Exquisite from her gorgeous book:

,

.

I am using my most favorite crochet thread: Aunt Lydia's Bamboo crochet thread, & yes, I almost let out a squeal of delight when I saw that they now offer shades other than white & cream.

This pure pink color is so downy-- it reminds me of the lamb's ear that we have growing in our garden.

.

,

It is the softest, most mesmerizing thread that just seems to quietly sing with each stitch.

,m

No.

Not a word to my husband that I am now hearing thread sing to me.....

Because honestly -- it's quite like therapy to feel the uber-creaminess of these stitches forming into this delicate doily.

sugar'n cream flower power rug

Flower power.

Ahhhh---that phrase always conjures up Marcia Brady -- who I wanted to be when I grew up. She was groovy. Her clothes were groovy and oh, man! I faithfully watched the Brady Brunch whenever it was on prime-time TV. And today? Well, of course, we own the DVD series and I can watch it all of the time.

Anyway, when I saw this rug on the Lily's Sugar'n Cream website, it brought back that flower-power-I-wanna-be-just-like-marcia-brady-feeling & I knew I had to make it.

The flower block is easy and I lOvE the dimensional effect of each petal.
.
I used my G hook and of course, the Sugar'n cream crochet thread in their gorgeous, groovy (ahem) colors.
.


Oh, ya. A pretty groovy rug.


And yes, my kids hate it when I say groovy....

.

'That's just so cheezy, Mom.'

strappy & oh, so colorful

Wow.

Who knew straps could just bring it all together.

This is my Oda Bag.

And after weaving in & snipping about 40 million little ends.....

....I got this super-delightful, colorful carry-all

and

...'Cool! Can you make me one?!' response from our soon-to-be-senior daughter.

Solveig's tutorial is so straightforward -- okay, so I did glean a little help from the kids as to how this all went together. (Puzzles/geometric shapes just freeze me up every time. Think freshman algebra & yes! eyes glazed over when faced with putting a puzzle together....)

.

But now that is all done -- I just simply love it.

i heart grannies

.

There is something simply so endearing about a crocheted granny square that -- ohhhh, I don't know -- it just delights me to no end.

.

.

And since I am forever browsing this book & loving every motif that she has designed, I had to whip up Edie Eckman's motif #30 from her super-duper-gotta-have-this-book:

.

.

I used scraps & leftovers from my yarn stash and came up with this color palette.

m

n
.

Love the way the colors just seem to pop, but in a very quiet, whimsical sort of way.

n

.
Whenever my day strays toward uncontrollalbe chaos -- yes, that does happen a lot -- I just picture these blocks in my mind or sometimes quickly run over to the ottoman to just look & behold how just a piece of yarn can make something so soothing to look at.

O
Crazy, I know. But you know -- my husband gets that faraway gleam in his eye when looking at John Deere tractors -- but me...

>

.

...it's that unexplainable-gotta-do-it-passion-can't-begin-to-explain-it-to-my-husband (think John Deere, dear) to recreate what both my grandmas did so many years ago.

b

Yes, I really do heart grannies.

.b