Wrapped in hugs wrap finished

I had hoped to complete this wrap created for the “Wrapped in Hugs” project a week ago.  Actually, I did finish it off, but then discovered that the piece which had been the right size somehow shrunk. Since it was a corner-to-corner pattern, I’m not sure what happened, but I got back to work adding more border. I suppose it is better to have a piece end up too small rather than too large.

Now, finally, it is truly complete; ends sewn in, and ready to ship off. The final size is 30″ x 60″.

I keep thinking that the weather is going to become too warm for large crochet pieces, but we had some snow here on Saturday. We had a very mild winter, aside from one big blizzard, so a few hours of April snow which was gone by the evening just meant spending the day cozy and crocheting.

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Crochet bar stitch

One of the things I like about crochet is that once you learn a handful of basic stitches, you have the foundation to make just about any stitch out there just by changing where they are placed or how they are combined.

In my crochet class this week we learned the bar stitch. This is a stitch that creates a right side with the ridges and a wrong side that is smooth. It is a dense stitch, but the vertical ridge gives it nice texture. It is a combination of single and front-post double crochets with the double going around the bar of the stitch two rows down.  The first set required some concentration as it needed to be worked into a row of single crochet, but after that, it was easy to see the bar created by the double crochet and know just where to place that stitch.

One thing we are doing in class now is to make our swatches in 8 inch squares. When the class is done, the instructor will join them all together to create a lapghan to donate. It provides motivation to finish the sample swatch, and also puts them to good use.

Some good online instructions can be found here.

 

Baby set

At the beginning of January, I started a baby blanket for my Father-in-Law’s home health aide.  The body of it was complete, but I was waiting to find out the gender of the baby before finishing it.  As you can see, it’s a boy!

When I was finished the border, I had some blue yarn left over, so a little beanie and set of booties seemed like a cute add on. Baby hats and booties seem so incredibly tiny, but I know they will get outgrown pretty quickly.

I was able to make all of this from stash yarn. There was a period a few years ago when I had to make a lot of baby blankets, but for some reason, there has been a lull lately.  The yarn is Loops & Threads Snuggly Wuggly which is sold by Michaels Crafts.

 

Hospice afghan completed

Thank you all for the kind words and thoughts over the past days. I had to step out of routine life for a while but am starting to resurface.

I have to admit, there were several days last week when I did not work on any creative projects at all. It is probably a time when it would have helped the most, but I’m giving myself a pass. This week I got back into it and pushed through to finish the hospice afghan I’d been working through.

The weather has turned decidedly spring-like, and I knew that once it got too warm, the idea of an afghan-in-progress on my lap would not be appealing. The body of the afghan turned out smaller than I anticipated, so I had to make up the difference with the border.

Many, many thanks to Simply Hooked for introducing me to this stitch. Because it is a dense stitch, I went up to a K/6.5 hook, and it is still nice and thick and cozy without being too heavy.  I even have enough yarn left over for a second afghan, but may watch the weather before I decide to start.

TAD 26: Lace scarf

I pulled out a bin of fabric today to look for something completely different, but came across a piece of lace. It had a tag on it that read “Piece of fabric, 50 cents”.  It doesn’t seem particularly old, but old enough the background has turned a darker shade while the flowers are still white.

A forgotten find. Add now it has been stitched up to be a decorative scarf.

TAD 25: Finger crocheted roving rug

I really like it when friends send me ideas for Thing-a-Day. If I have the materials I like give them a try.  A few days ago, a friend sent me this link.As luck would have it, I had a bag of roving in my stash (thanks to Terri) and had been looking for a way to use it.

I’ve finger crocheted a chain stitch before, but this was my first attempt at trying a real stitch. It is also the first time I’ve crocheted with roving.  This is done in rounds of single crochet and it took a couple of rounds to get the rhythm. Not using a hook makes it feel at first like you are wrestling with the fiber. Eventually, I figured out how to keep the yarn on my hand while still grabbing the feeder piece.

The roving is acrylic and is actually the roving that would be used for one of Lion Brand’s Homespun colors.

 

TAD 24: Honey bubble bath

It is a rainy, dreary day here today. Rather than put a large pot of something on the stove, I made some honey bubble bath.  I’ve found when I cook, I use recipes more as suggestions than law, and such is the case when mixing up care products too.

The original instructions called for baby oil, but I substituted mineral oil. I also did not add any vanilla extract to this since the soft soap I used already had a nice scent to it. Normally I would rather eat honey than use it for something like this, but an old jar of it had completely crystallized in the back of the pantry.

Now if I just had a personal maid to come in and draw me a bath…

TAD 23: Fabric-covered brick doorstop

My grandmother used to have a brick doorstop that was covered in needlepoint. In the summer, they kept all of the doors propped open to get a breeze through the house, and every door had some sort of doorstop since breezes can also lead to slamming doors.

While I love the look of the needlepoint versions, this one worked up much faster. The instructions and template were found here. I used woven strips of fabric since I had a jellyroll in my stash. It doesn’t really match the colors in my house, but the fabrics are fun.

TAD 22: Cork tic tac toe

I tried a different TAD early this morning and it was a big craft fail. I had seen cute votive holders on Pinterest made out of old CDs and since I have several of those ancient AOL CDs they used to give you pretty much everywhere, I thought I’d try it.

This was the result:

Not the look I was going for

I suppose I could count it as my thing for the day, even if it is a horrible botched thing, but I still had time, so I made something else instead.  Raiding my stash of champagne corks, a tic tac toe game was created. The original post where I got the idea had the corks decorated as a snowman and reindeer inspired by the Frozen movie. I may be the last person in America who has not seen the movie, and decided  to just paint them in solid colors.

They do need a second coat of paint, but the cats got too curious and I figured if I tried today there would be purple paw prints all over my house.

 

TAD 21: Needlepoint panel pillow

When I first started needlepoint, I would buy those cheap little kits at the craft store. I enjoyed working them up, they went quickly, but I never did anything with them when they were done. They live in a bin with other swatches and small finished projects.

Today I dug one of them out, and then in a further “use it up” idea, I backed it with the other half of the purple patchwork square left over from making the lavender sachet. It’s a tiny pillow, purely decorative in nature, but it means this early needlepoint project is finally seeing the light of day after probably 20+ years of being completed.