Button bracelet

My Mom gave me the idea for this bracelet. She saw a button necklace and I started playing around and came up with this idea for a bracelet, you could make it bigger and make a collar necklace.

 

The hardest part is threading the buttons and then trying to crochet them into the pattern. The buttons kept getting tangled up. I will have to think of a way to keep that from happening.

 

black and white bracelet

My Mom gave me some black, white and clear pony beads, so I was playing with them and came up with this bracelet.

 

I copied a bracelet I got from Avon.

 

I like the button closure. It is very easy to make. Contact me if you want to know how to do it.

Peacock ripple afghan

I made this for my dear friend  Misty. She is like the daughter I never had.

I got the pattern out one of my ripple afghan books.
It is very delicate because of the triple and double triple crochet stitches but I think it turned out beautiful. Misty loved it and so do I.

The last baby blanket

This is the last baby blanket I am making for someone I know, at least until someone else gets pregnant.
I made this blanket for some dear friends who are going to be first time grandparents.

I got the pattern from a blog I follow The Crochet Dude, he calls it the Monet Afghan. (It is not a baby blanket but a full size adult blanket.) I just used sport weight baby yarn.

http://www.lulu.com/shop/drew-emborsky/free-pattern-monet-afghan/ebook/product-267539.html

This is an easy pattern to follow and a cool way to crochet blocks together. I didn't crochet it together the way he does because I didn't want a lot of holes for the baby's fingers and toes to get hung up in.
It is quite large for a baby blanket if you wanted to make it smaller you could do 9 blocks instead of 12.

I plan on using this same pattern for another blanket sometime in the future. My next project is an afghan I am making for my son.

Redneck Wine Glasses

My Mom and I saw some redneck wine glasses at a truck stop here in Texas a couple of months ago and she just had a fit over them. The price on them was $30, a little high in our opinion so for her birthday I made her a couple. These cost $3.25 not including the beads, which I had leftover from other projects.

The G is etched using a glass etching solution I got from Hobby Lobby. I found a font I liked printed it and taped it to contact paper, cut out the G then put the contact paper on the glass and applied the solution.

I remembered we had seen these when Ann posted about hers here.

Quilt style blanket

I made this blanket for my friend Jeanne who is going to be a first time Grandma in October.

I love the bright colors, you could do so many different varieties of color patterns.
She did not want the typical "baby" blanket. I used sport weight yarns and some baby yarns that I had left over from other blankets. I think it turned out really pretty.

White Basketweave Baby Afghan

I made this afghan for my supervisor's daughter. Her baby is due next month. Congratulations Jennifer and Dan!

I love this design. But man does it take a long time to crochet. Each row took me 15 minutes to crochet. 165 rows = 41 hours

Butterfly time

It's time for butterflies!

These guys are all over my place.

This is a cool shot because it's wings are closed.

Wings open!

Mary had a little lamb

Once upon a time "Mary had a little lamb" and maybe he looked a little like this guy.

So very cute!

My Mom took this picture. I forgot to take any before I gave it away.  D'OH!

My Mom's twin is having another Great Grandbaby! Congrats Aunt Billie.

Baby Boy Walton baby blanket

I made this baby blanket for my Big Boss's grandbaby.

Me at work showing off the blanket. Busy, busy, work, work, work!

                                                    I really love how this one turned out.

It's backwards!

The edging is really cool. You crochet it going left to right. You single crochet chain 2 skip a stitch then single crochet. It really makes a cool looking edge.

Dr Seuss baby blanket

A friend of mine had a baby girl last week.

This is the baby blanket I made for little Cadence.

She is decorating the baby's room with the Dr Seuss characters.

I had to order the fabric through Amazon because none of the fabric stores in my area had anything with Dr. Seuss on it.

I crocheted the border in a variegated yarn with all the colors that are on the fabric. I just got lucky on that one.

I got the pattern from a booklet by Terry Kimbrough.

For the back I used a bright yellow flannel fabric that I got a JoAnn's Fabric Store. I sewed the two pieces together and then started on the border. It took me a week to get the first row done because I was having to make a hole with an upholstery needle then stick my crochet needle through to pull the yarn out and crochet one stitch then make another hole over and over and over again. Each side of the blanket has over 200 stitches. It would have been easier if it had only been one thickness but I didn't like the plain back on the printed fabric which is also flannel.
It should keep the baby warm and is big enough she can use it until she is at least a toddler.

Brown and Ivory afghan

My boss bought this afghan for her daughter through our yearly United Way drive. We have an auction to raise money. I donated my time and my boss donated the yarn and the cash.

It is made with double thread so it is really heavy and very warm. Just what you need on cold Texas night. It works up pretty fast, it took me about 3 weeks to make. I didn't work on it every day so it could have been finished in about a week.

the diet

Okay, so it's been a little over a week since my last post about dieting. I lost a pound! Yeah! It has not been easy but at least I am going down the right path.

I have added some extra steps to my daily routine. They say to walk 10000 steps a day, I don't know who "they" are but I would rather sit on my butt watching TV than walk on my treadmill watching TV. Anyway I walked on the dreadful thing twice this week. Another thing I am doing to add steps is at least 5 times a day I walk around the loop at my work. I work in a laboratory and we have a set of labs that have hallways all the way around them, that's my loop. 250 steps per loop.

10000 steps a day is like 5 miles. Yuck no way I get 5 miles in a day.

Enough whining! Time to make a loop.

Next post will be about crafting I promise!

Dieting

I know this isn't a diet blog but I have not posted anything in months and today I thought I would start putting down in words what I think about dieting.
In a word it "sucks". But I have to start thinking of it as not  ugh a diet but as a new way of thinking about food.
Wish me luck on that comment.
I started watching what I was putting into my pie hole the week after Christmas and it was not pretty. Chocolate, cookies, chocolate, cake, chocolate... the list goes on. So I got rid of the cookies, tossed out the cake and cut the chocolate back to two small bite size pieces a day (baby steps). Actually I will never stop eating chocolate, moderation is the key, so they tell me.
I am not going to do any of the traditional or non traditional diets like Weight Watchers or Quick Weight Loss both of which I have tried and been successful at. I just didn't keep it off.
I started writing down everything I eat and am drinking at least 32oz of water.
I have lost a pound and a half in 3 days. My goal is to lose 15 to 20 pounds.
More later on the ups and downs of trying to lose weight after the age of fifty.