Handmade Gift Exchange Linky Party!

It's that time!!  The time where all the handmade gifts are finally in their new owners hands.  Now we all want to share our new items so we've been busy taking pictures and uploading them in a linky party!   It is so exciting to rummage through all the links and see what people have come up with.  You can browse too just visit this this link to Craftaholics Anonymous.

First I want to show you what I gave to my partner.  She loves lots of colors just like I do so I thought it would be fun to put a little spring in her kitchen during these short winter days.

A lime green Wash Blossom (dish cloth), a bright pink ChrysanthePad (hot pad or trivet) and a bright blue Scrub Bud (pot scrubber).  The wash cloth and hot pad are both made with 100% cotton.  The pot scrubber is 100% nylon and works GREAT on pots, rough feet and getting the grim off your precious tire rims!

Now for my gift! :)  My partner did great at reading between the lines of our email conversations and picked up on the fact that I teach yoga.  So she gave me a yoga mat carrier, with POCKETS!!  I think the pockets are so cool because you can fit your yoga belt, keys, lip gloss, drivers license; all together in one and head to class.  How AWESOME is that??  Check it out!

Ready for class!

Check out the pockets...ALL THE WAY AROUND!
And you can see the pretty green material on the inside...super classy.

It was a hit!

I love the colors and just the idea that it's handmade.  I mean really...who would have thought to make a yoga mat bag??  MY PARTNER, THAT'S WHO!  Kudo's to my partner Jody...best handmade, surprise gift EVER!

Have you ever participated in a gift exchange for someone you didn't know?  If not I suggest you do!

2011 Handmade Gift Exchange

This looks like so much fun!  Hurry up, sign up ends Nov 7th, 2011!!

Commission Work Meanderings...

So I was reading through some of my favorite blogs the other day and I came across a post from Handmade Crafts Done While RVing about doing commission work and how it really can be a way of life.  I have never thought I could maintain a living (although secretly wanted to) based on my crafts and talents.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not fishing for compliments here, but who would want my stuff?  My crafts?  My talents?  Thankfully I have had some very satisfied customers and I feel sooo blessed when I can share my God given talents. 

I sat at a farmers market nearly every Wednesday afternoon this summer in a small mid-Kansas town.  I would say that over all I had minimal success.  I sat in the heat of the sun, chatting and crocheting.  But when I sold something my heart lept!  I was so thrilled and I almost felt guilty that I was getting money for something that made me so happy.  But no matter how happy I am, it doesn't feed the belly...ya know? 

Christmas is coming and there is a lull in sales....like zero in over a month.  I keep telling myself that it's the economy...but maybe it's not?!  Maybe my fear of no one wanting my stuff is coming true?  So I make more stuff, out of nervousness...and if any of you have ever been in an RV you know there is very little storage space....SO BUY MY STUFF!!  LOL 

I enjoy crochet so much that it consumes many hours in a day.  I probably give away more than I sell, but it all gives me joy.  I love to watch someone's eyes light up when they see their creations I made just for them.  I love the smell of a new skein of quality yarn.  I love the feel of the fibers sliding through my fingers.  I love creating and learning.  I love that God trusted me with this very special ability and no matter what I make, sell, or give away I hope that I never take it for granted.

When you shop this Christmas, think about shopping handmade.  Items made with love and passion reflect in handmade work.  Get a true one of a kind item instead of something that everyone on the block has.  Buy from your friends, from their friends, make a connection, feed a belly. I will do everything possible to make a customer happy, can you say that about the local chain store?

Some favorites I've made....

Child's Pom-Pom Hat

I love the soft colors of this shawl.

I can stay warm AND keep working!



Wash Blossom and Chrysanthepad



Child's Vest

Car Seat Star Cuddle - small enough to cover but not too bulky

Hair flowers

Ballerina Bear

Scrub Buds...yes I'm working on a flower theme for the kitchen!

Prayer Shroud for Pastor Terry Bullock

I know it has been FOREVER since I posted so I thought I would start with a custom project I did for a dear friend of ours.  He had placed a request on facebook for someone with sewing experience to make a prayer shroud for him with maybe a little embroidery on it.  Since I am NOT the sewer so much I offered to embroider if anyone wanted to do the sewing part.  After a time with no responses I offered to crochet a border on a piece of muslin material. 

So I began with this....

After some trial and error at exactly how I was going to accomplish such a feat.  I say that because I've never done a crochet edging on material before and I really wasn't sure how to go about it.  That first row seemed to take forever but once I got a good rhythm going it wasn't so bad.

Some details of the edging.

It turned out to be about 36 inches wide and about 63 inches long.  I found that the corners curled a bit more than I liked but other than that it is absolutely beautiful! ....if i do say so myself ;)  I will definitely be up for making more and can't wait to try this technique on a fleece blanket!!  Ya want one??  Send me a message and we can design something together!

I've completed so many projects for the grandbaby that I need to put up but we're in the process of packing up to head for Texas.  Much more to come though...stay tuned!



In A Creative Mood

I have been feeling unusually creative lately.  Not that I don't consider myself a creative person but it usually comes in small spurts one project at a time.  This post you'll see FOUR things I've come up with in the past week.  I have one more that is still in the ripping out, reworking, trying again stage but once it's done you can bet I'll post it!

As many of you know we bought a new car a couple of weeks ago.  Little miss short legs here has to have the seat up so far that the seat belt is extremely annoying on my neck when I wear a tank top.  Soooo I came up with this snazzy seat belt cover with some left over yarn I had.  I LOVE this yarn's color pattern.  And even better, it's not so girly that my husband won't use it.

Next, some flowers.  Originally I made these up and sent them to my granddaughter for her hair or bag or whatever she wanted.  Well after her mom posted a picture on FB with her wearing one I've had others interested.  So we're gonna give it a whirl at the Farmers Market and see how it goes! 

SCRUBBIES!!!  Everyone loves a good scrubbie and I really never thought about making any since I typically like to focus on wearables.  However....I had 3 different inquires as to whether I had any, or could make some.  After making these my husband liked it so much he asked for one to clean the grim off his truck rims....and all be darned they worked GREAT!!

This next item is still a bit of a work in progress.  I had some leftover yarn in the most adorable color verigation that I just had to use it.  My original thought was to make it long enough to wear both as a hippie/boho kinda head band or to tie around your waist as an oh so cute fashion statement. 

Keeping the fly aways at bay.

Wrapping up the bun....CUTE!

Darling boho belt.

So I'm still kicking this around because the yarn pictured is a very lightweight sock yarn.  If you use it as a belt it doesn't really hold anything up as it's just for fashion, yet if you want to put it on your head it's the lightweight makes it VERY comfortable and doesn't get too hot.  Either way you don't want to tie it too tight because of the lightweight.  I'm thinking I might use this same concept in a belt only style and add D rings to one end and use a heavier weight yarn....hmmmm, still thinking on that one.

How do you go through your creative process??

Driving, Crocheting and the "Yart"!



New Gloves!



Initially you will wonder what this post has to do with crochet but keep reading...it's a funny story!

Joe and I have been "kinda" looking at getting a new vehicle.  My Jeep Liberty has been a great vehicle but the gas mileage is not the best.  Miss Liberty peaked over 100K miles on our last trip to Kansas.  As if by clockwork things started going wrong.  A/C not all that great...a few hail dings here and there....2 windows wouldn't roll down anymore with out a heck of a lot of duct tape...and then the clutch went out.  After a couple of months of sitting in the driveway Miss Liberty went "under the knife" and got a new clutch...yeah!  But that still didn't help with the 15mpg and we really didn't know if we could fix, rig or ignore the next problem.  "Bulldog" Joseph spent hours online looking for just the right car.  Spaceous enough for just the two of us and our cleaning gear...high mpg...economical...manual transmission.  It's the last one that seemed to get us.  Saturday we got on the motorcycle with the plan to make this huge circle through KC, Lawrence and Topeka looking at some cars we found online.  Only one of those were manual....the first one we went to.  We already knew we wanted a manual transmission so why we went there first is beyond me but by the end of the day that's the only place we went to and came away with an appointment for Monday to bring in the Jeep for a trade-in estimate.  Then the craziness began.  "Bulldog" got back on the internet and found the almost exact same car in Omaha for $3,500 less...seriously how can we not jump on that?!  We called, they offered to hold it if we'd put some money down.  This was at closing time on Saturday night, they were closed on Sunday, if we played our cards right we could be there when they opened the doors on Monday morning...so we declined to put money down.  4:30 am Monday morning we are up, do our rounds and get on the road for a 4 hour drive.  We were within an hour of arriving and Joe thought he would call and let them know, leave a message, whatever.  Surprisingly it was answered and that's when we were told the car was already being sold.  WHAT??  Well apparently someone called after hours, got ahold of a salesman that was more then willing to take their deposit to hold it until Monday.  Well CRAP!!  On to plan B...we turn around and head to KC....but if any of your live near the Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa border you know there is some river flooding going on.  Needless to say we had to go out of our way a little to get the road we needed.  We called the KC dealer and said we could be there around noon...he was busy til 3.  We decided to keep cool in the movie theater.  FINALLY we make it to the dealer, wait, go through all the appraisal stuff, wait, sign papers, wait, and GET THE KEYS!  Ya wanna know how much we got for the Jeep???  $3,500  God sure has a sense of humor!  So we are the proud owners of a Toyota Yaris.  My husband thinks we could fit in inside our F350....and it looks like a go-cart so it has been tagged as the Yart.

On to the crochet portion!!  Since we were doing all this driving (we finally got home about 7:30 pm) I had time to crochet.  I've made these gloves on a a commission project for a friend and I really like how they turned out.  When I got this tiedyed, rainbow colored yarn I thought it would be a GREAT time to make another pair.  They are available on my Etsy.com store so get them while they're hot!



The last picture of me and Miss Liberty...crocheting away!



I'm guessing they took about 7 hours to complete these~

ECU (extreme close-up) purdy colors!



Available at my Etsy shop!



Got the keys and heading out!

Yart nose...

Yart butt...

Don'tcha think it would fit inside the truck??

SEE YA!!

Hanging on to the edge of the face of the earth....




Graduation Day!
Joe, Micah, Joseph (the GRAD!) and me.

 

Life has been a whirlwind since returning to the land of Oz in April.  I had tons of pictures and then an SD card that went bad...super frustrating mind you.    On to the news....

After returning to Kansas we went straight north to see little Micah.  She has gotten sooo big since our last visit in the fall.  It was so cold and windy and just completely uncomfortable our first month back.  I was really in a state of sadness and feeling a bit of cabin fever.  I would work on crochet projects to keep warm but nothing really had my hook on fire.  I made the cutest little dress for Grand-daughter Micah and now I don't have any pictures...:(  I will have to wait for her mommy to have a photo session with it...after they have found a place to stay as I'm sure it's boxed up right now.  It was made in a wonderful mercerized crochet cotton.  It has a drawstring neck so she will be able to wear it for a longer length of time...I hope.  I do believe she can wear it as a shirt as she grows.  It is a lovely periwinkle and spring green with flowers on the tie and I made an extra one for her hair.  It turned out so well and as I was making it I was thinking of adapting the pattern to make on my size!  It was absolutely wonderful to see Joe, Liz and Micah before they headed west again.  Dr. Joe finally graduated and Papa Joe as soooo proud!  He accepted a job back in Colorado so it sounds like that's were we will head this fall for a visit before going south for the winter.  Some more graduation pics.

Very Proud DAD!



Micah, Joseph & Liz




I just love this picture!

I also finished a beautiful Asymmetrical Wrap from a pattern I purchased on Etsy.  I made two, one for a friend of mine and one for display at the local Farmers Market that I've been vending at, more on that later.  I also made a couple of Super Star Slouchy hats for some friends of mine that own a "Rockstar" business.  I had to make her star with sparkle yarn because she really does shine!!  I was also honored by her husband that wants the hat I made to be his special performing hat when he rocks the piano!

ROCKSTAR HAT



Capelet



Then I bought this Pirate Sock Monkey pattern.  I just couldn't resist.  I originally bought it thinking I would make some for the Sippel family.  Then I had my Farmers Market Partner In Crime want to do a textile trade...heck yeah!



The towl on the left is from my awesome trade. Click here to see more where this came frome!



Speaking of Farmers Market....while here in KS I figured I would get out and meet some new people and try to brighten someone elses day with my crochet creations.  Every Wednesday morning bright and early I pack up the big truck with my goods and go sit on the court house lawn with about half a dozen other vendors that either have too much stuff or nothing else to do on a Wednesday morning.  I even came up with the cool idea of using my Ladder Ball ladders to help display some of my wares.  Even though I have everything from baby blankets to wearables the two biggest sellers so far are my Soft Necklaces and Wash Blossoms.  I oringinally called them Bum Blossoms (cute huh?) but my husband thought it a bit tacky.



Wash Blossoms - be happy when you wash dishes or bums!



The totally cool ladder display.



Yarn for gloves!

Finished fingerless gloves (aka texting gloves).



Special Order - A rewarding challenge!

 

Baby Cuddles - I just like this picture.



Soft Necklaces - made with ladder yarn and a single bead to slide up and down for sizing.