Patriotic T P Cover

I finished crocheting this toilet paper roll cover a few days ago but finally got the stars sewn on the top. If I make another I think I will use beads or something to secure the center of the star sequins as I am not as happy with the thread showing as I had hoped I would be. Ah well.

I have one more patriotic set I am working on and then I think I will have it out of my system. I am moving along with that so photos will follow soon.

Backgrounds

As many of you have discovered over the last day or two the backgrounds for some blogs had to be edited to avoid having them dropped by Photobucket. Not much warning and a busy schedule made this poor timing. So with a push from my friend Darlene I made the changes to my other blogs but left this one just to see what it would look like when the sky fell. Yep blackness! LOL

I had actually been ready for a change for some time but always being busy had kept me from taking the time to do anything about it. So prompted by the black staring back at me I made these changes. I hope you like them.

And now back to finishing the latest crochet project and posting photos.

Another Crocheted Tote Bag

Another bag finished. This one just seems to stretch and stretch and stretch.

The pattern was a free one from Michael's.

I have fun making bags but I think it is time to move on to something else.

Crocheted Thread Tote Bag

Here is the latest tote bag. I've been at it awhile as the thread makes my hands ache any more so I cannot work on it very long at a time. It isn't as large as the hobo bag but a bit more delicate.

Pompon or Pompom?

Here at last is the afghan I began ages ago it seems.

This is one mom has on her bed (only in different colors) that she made possibly in the 70's since it is those colors. We could not find the pattern when I was there almost two years ago, just the swatch, so I brought that home and figured it out on my own. Except I could not remember if there was an edging or not so when I got to that point I set it aside until I could go look at mom's. Of course when I went to look at hers this month there was the pattern, tucked into the afghan! I made a copy this time and discovered that while I came out the same I did not crochet it in quite the same manner. Oh well. It looks OK.

And no wonder I could not find the pattern the first time as it is called "Crocheted Afghan with Pompons". Really? No wonder I passed over that instruction. Do you see any pompons? Me neither. But then I discovered mom put fringe on the ends instead of the pompons it called for!

And just for the record I always thought they were called pompoms. Do you suppose that was a typo or do other people call them pompons? Post a comment and let me know what you think. By the way this was taken from some unknown magazine and used 5 or 6 different colors in the sample and mom's afghan.

Crocheted Hobo Bag

This is the Hobo Bag I crocheted while visiting my mother this past week.

It was a project I had gotten the cotton yarn for but never started last year - or maybe the year before. Anyway, it made up into a large firm bag in all double crochet. A nice mindless pattern for working on while chatting with family.

Unlike the one I am working on here at home. I have eight of the thirteen squares finished for that one but then again it is out of thread so slower going.

Wristlets

My wrists/hands are slowly improving as long as I am careful and do not spend much time on the computer! So here is the pair of wristlets I just finished for my son's girl friend's birthday. (I do not think she knows about this blog - hope not or I have spoiled the surprise.) It is from a pattern at Caron which you can see here.

Spool Knitted Medallion

I finally felt up to working on the medallion. My first try I had cord left over and discovered I had to resize the pattern. This worked out much better though not perfect. I guess it is OK for a first try with sore hands. I just laid the pattern on a piece of foam core and trimmed to fit. That made it easy to pin and yet free to turn to weave in proper places.

Here it is completed with the 'chain' added.

You can almost see the sparkle in the yarn.

I feel like it should be a firmer cord.

But this was a fun project to learn 2 peg spool knitting.

Spool knitting revisited

Remember spool knitting? Take an old wooden spool (now they are plastic and hollow) and hammer 4 evenly spaced nails in one end then wrap, lift, tug around and around and eventually a knitted tube appears out the other end of the middle of the spool. The long tubes were often referred to as horse reins (can't you picture the kids playing?).

Well I recently watched a video tutorial by Noreen Crone-Findlay on 2 peg spool knitting. Now that was news to me. It forms a flatish braid and goes much faster! I cannot find that old wooden spool anywhere (it will turn up eventually) so I found a nice 4 peg one and a 5 peg version at the store that are made from plastic with metal 'nails' that are larger and more comfortable to hold and gave it a try. The 2 peg version that is; by only using 2 of the pegs.

Lion Brand Yarn is offering one of Noreen's patterns for free and I just had to try that out so while getting the spool I also picked up some of that lovely Vanna's glamour yarn and quickly 'knitted' the pieces. Now I really should not have been doing this as I am trying to recover from some tree trimming last week that set off my Carpal Tunnel so this just really aggravated it and set me back. But what's a crafter to do? Sit and watch TV with IDLE HANDS?

I will post some photos when I manage to finish this.

Back to the Wreath

Remember the wreath I made earlier this spring when I pruned the grapevine? You can see it here if you missed it. Well, today while my tall grandson was here I had him get down the box with some decorations that I made and just never use. I think they go well on this wreath for a quick job. The neat thing is I will probably be able to make a new one each year and get quite a variety. In the meantime I am busy turning the grape leaves into jewelry. But that is a story for another day.