Slow week, but good work anyway

As of August 22nd

I intended to work on more than just the blanket this week. . . . I didn't get around to anything else, but I'm around third of the way done with the squares. So happy dance. I've been keeping track in a note book about what I've done on what days. I figure it will give me a good timeline of how long it really takes me to do one of these for future possible orders. I've also gotten it down to just under fifteen minutes a square if I'm focused on one. Oddly I'm not bored yet of making these, even after 96 of them (so far 3 for the day). 

I want to get to work on the two Rag Dolls I have on the order list this week. Crossing my fingers that I get to them. Which means I should see about getting some yarn from home.

At a new house sitting job. So happy to spend this week with Zeva (K-9) and Lucy (Feline). They're a great pair.

Zeva was being silly. My flash always gives me demon dog.

Pretty standered slow week for me. Although I've seemed to have tweaked something in my back again. Which has got me decided on starting back exercises to help with this sort of thing. Walking has been a chore this week because of the tweak. Somethings just gotta be done to try to help it.  

Oh, been binge watching Doctor Who, or rather re-watching. Netflix just got season 8 and the newest season starts September 19th. Super excited about it starting up again. 

So back to the blanket for the night and Rag Dolls later this week.

As always you guys can find me on Etsy 
and don't forget to like me on Facebook 

Happy Crafting!

Woodstock gets a hat

For starters one of my Christmas orders it calls for a themed Woodstock. It's to go with a Snoopy I made last year. The Snoop has a red and green scarf so I gave Woodstock a similar hat. The stripping is different on both of them but I think they will still look quite nice together.

I decided that Woodstock needed a an elf hat and since I couldn't find a pattern for a doll I made one myself. I've said before that I'm not overly fond of making my own patterns, but this one was fairly simple. I used Double Crochet stitches (Dc) to get the wide strips and not a stiff piece. Mostly played it by ear till it was a good length and then to fit his head properly. But I was smart and wrote what I did down as I was doing it. In the past I've made the mistake of not doing that and having to try and recreate what I did again. Its a pain and a lesson learned the hard way. So this project is done and only a Rag Doll left on that particular order.

What I have so far of the TARDIS blanket (as of 8/11)

The Blanket is going well. I have 57 of the 273 squares done up until now. Thats about 21% complete if I did my math right. Ive also knocked the time it takes me to complete a square down to about 15 minutes rather than the 20 I had last week. They are just supper easy, even if there is a lot of them. Almost four of the six colors are complete. I'm close to done with the navy square, after that its the royal blue and a cream left. Can't wait to put this together. 

I found a new app after getting one of those new inkjoy stylus pens. Love the pen, it even writes like a dream. But I got a sketching app, the Autodesk Sketchbook app,  and I've been finding it really fun. So I did some messing about on the app just doodling and then I did a new sketch of something I posted a month or two back out of my art journal. (Art Journal Post). There isn't much of a change up in the doodle, but looking at it this way and giving it a bigger view is refreshing. I think its more polished this way and maybe I'll finally do something with it, who knows. I plan to do more from that page of my journal.

From the journal

Meet Billy.

 Then my sister and her man came over to get a few things from the garage and brought along little Billy the kid. He's part of a new litter in the house and I think he may be staying there. He is part of the second litter since Lugnuts. Same mommy and possibly same father. But who knows. This should be the mama dogs last littler. Hopefully they get her fixed, she's getting a bit old to do this.

And finally I'm at the first of two house sitting gigs that span till the end of the month. Not gonna lie I kinda miss my own bed and cuddling with my own pups. But I do love this job. Right now I'm with a couple of grey hounds that are just delightful. I'm here till the end of the week and straight on to the next house with a lovely pup I haven't had the pleasure of hanging with and Lucy the cat who I've gotten quite fond of. 

Well back to the yarn minds. Oh the lovely fiber that it is.

 As always you guys can find me on Etsy
and don't forget to like me on Facebook 

Happy Crafting!

Green once again

As I stated in my last post I'm going to go over the elephant snuggle pattern(s).

First up for review is the Granny Square. I got this pattern off of my Color-Bay blanket, pattern by Cat Mazza. I snagged this particular pattern out of the book Stitch 'N Bitch Crochet: The Happy Hooker. Love the square pattern for this one. Not sure why I didn't think of this when I was looking for a good and simple granny square to make for this blanket, but I'm glad I finally thought of it.

I originally went looking for a pattern for two reasons; 1) there wasn't really a readable one attached to the pattern for the elephant or attached to another pattern similar to this one and 2) the pattern was translated into broken english or a general 'this is how it should look'. Although one was a solid attempt (the broken english one) and the other had pictures, I decided I need a crash course in granny squares and a pattern that was super simple to follow. And I found that in this square.

▪ Pattern Readability - 5 Yarn Balls. Although there isn't a skill rating on this pattern I would give it and A+ for being simple to read and understand.
 

▪ Ease of Pattern - 5 Yarn Balls. Again the ease of this pattern is great. I can whip out this three round square in an average of 20 minutes. This isn't complicated at all.
 

▪ Adjustments - 5 Yarn Balls. I only changed the chain (ch) 6 at the beginning to a Magic Ring (MR) the first round. I found that simpler.
 

▪ Final Product - 5 Yarn Balls. Simplistic and good looking Granny Square.
 

▪ Personal - 5 Yarn Balls. I will be using this square whenever I can.
 

▪Overall Score - A Perfect 5 Yarn Balls.

Next the Elephant Snuggle pattern. Saw this ages ago on Pinterest or somewhere and a dozen times since. Found a similar concept on Ravelry with a few more variations like a little girl, an owl, a sheep, and so forth. Loved this idea of a stuffed animal and blanket combination. So glad I got to make one and I want to do more. Saw a Doctor Who version on Etsy the other day and I about died.

▪ Pattern Readability - 4 Yarn Balls. Only because of the attached granny square pattern. Other wise I think the elephant itself was easy to read and follow.
 

▪ Ease of Pattern - 4 Yarn Balls. Again since the granny square pattern is attached it lowers the score. The Elephant is very simple to whip up though.
 

▪ Adjustments - 4 Yarn Balls. I feel like a broken record at this point, but other than changing the blanket pattern I have no adjustments.
 

▪ Final Product - 5 Yarn Balls. Its cute and cuddly.
 

▪ Personal - 5 Yarn Balls. I want to make a bunch. So want to find a way to make some geeky ones like with Yoshi and what not on them too. The possibilities are endless if you have an open mind.
 

▪Overall Score - 4.4 Yarn Balls

 Now that the reviews are over. . . .  Other than finishing that order, (and I'm happy to say that the woman this is going to had her baby. About a month early from what I understand, but it is a healthy baby boy named Homer. Thats about all I know on the subject) and starting on the TARDIS blanket after picking up all the yarn Wednesday, I finally got around to making a new watch band for myself. 

A while back the band I had had started to come apart and one of the little tabs to keep the extra band laying flat came off. Well I glued things back together and they seemed to hold up till the end of my trip back in June. A few days before I came back from Arizona the other little tab busted and the band was really just bagging to be replaced. So I stopped wearing my watch and decided instead of trying to find a band that would fit my watch face I would just get my craft on and make one out of macrame or something similar. This week I had a little relaxing time and decided I wanted my watch back Damn It! I pulled out a bunch of my hemp and beading rope ( I think thats what it was called), dusted off my friendship bracelet skills, and got down to it. I have to admit I needed some internet help to get started. It has been I while since I weaved like this, but once I did that I just blazed through it. I picked black and tan hemp pieces and the green beading rope. I like the simple, yet very me color combination. For the clasp on this I made a button hole and picked one of my favorite metal buttons out of my stash. I could never find the right project for this button and truth be told I didn't want to use it on anything I was going to sell or give away. And now I don't have to. I really like how this came out and it doubles as a super cute bracelet if it happens to turn on my wrist, which it does frequently. I don't mind though, its one of the reasons I picked a very cute and stylish button.  

This was a fun and simple project that I think I'll be happy with for some time to come. 

 Another thing I'm Super Duper happy about . . . . . . I got my hair dyed this week too. I'm green again and I couldn't be happier about it. Since April my hair had slowly faded to blond. Thankfully it was still plenty colored for Megs wedding and for a while after that. But in the last month it went to a pale green to almost completely gone. So I called up my girl Carson on Friday and we went and got it taken care of that day. Didn't expect to get it done that quickly when I talked to her, but we were both free so why not. Thank you, thank you, thank you Carson for doing my hair. I'm so much happier not to be blond. I don't really think it works for me, especially since my natural color was growing in (brown, my hair is actually brown). Plus I just love being green.


This week I'll be working on the start of Christmas orders. I've got the biggest project started and want to look into some of the others. Hopefully I'll have something interesting to post about next week.
Back to work on those granny squares.


As always you guys can find me on Etsy
and don't forget to like me on Facebook

Happy Crafting!

Swap Weekend

So if you follow me on Facebook you know I went to the Rose Bug In swap meet at Portland International Raceway Sunday. Thankfully the weather wasn't in the 90s like they thought it was gonna be. Comfortable 70s for us that day. But because that's what all the news stations were saying, there wasn't a lot of people out that day. So it made for a slow day. And I mean a really slow day.

I guess the positive for my day was that I got nearly half of an order done. The picture shows it with a few more rows than what I had done Sunday, but basically this is the blanket portion of an elephant snuggle. This order is for a soon to be mom my father knows. She liked the idea of an elephant but when I saw the snuggle pattern on Pinterest, and a few other places, I though this would be super cute for the new baby and she apparently liked the idea as well. The perks of a blanket and a stuffy all in one, who wouldn't want something like that. She wanted something gender neutral and picked green and yellow for the colors. Love this color combination and not just because its Oregon Duck colors. . . .  I really hope she likes the finished product.

It lays flat and everything

 I was so glad I finally found a granny square that worked for me because this was not the only order I needed them for. I grabbed one, easy pattern, from another blanket pattern I found ages back (its actually a really awesome design that I want to do up sometime). I'm in love with the ease of this square.
So I have this crazy, AWESOME! blanket that I need these squares for as well and need to crank out by Christmas. Jess from my friend Meg's wedding asked if I'd do a TARDIS blanket. I jumped on it, being the Whovian that I am. I finally got the time to work out the logistics of making it and today bought all the yarn. So Jess no turning back now I've got the yarn and this thing is so totally happening.

Ruff sketch of what its gonna look like and the dimensions. (4in x 4in squares)

Its gonna be a big project and figuring out shipping is going to be interesting as well. But its not the only order I have with a near Christmas deadline. So I'm getting a jump on all my orders and working on the blanket as well as a few of the others at the same time.
Shipping to Arizona is a Rag Doll, the blanket, and a Bowzer (something I need to figure out as well). I have another Rag Doll order plus a x-mas themed Woodstock to finish. And a Giraffe and Stitch (again need to figure out this one too) order. Time to get working I guess.  It should be tones of fun. . . . fun fun fun fun.

Next post will have the run down on the Snuggle and a rating for the pattern(s). Since I finished one project this week I'm gonna work on the blanket probably and design of those Rag Dolls I talked about. I've got a good picture in my head for at least one of them already.

As always you guys can find me on Etsy 
and don't forget to like me on Facebook

Happy Crafting!

My Brother-in-law (right, in the pink) and his brother (left, in the purple). We went shopping for food for the swap meet and these are the goofs we went/put up with at the store. Good fun.