Lunch bag pink or teal?

I have not been doing very well with my New Year's resolution so we will just toss that out the window.
Swish-There now that's out of the way. On to more crafty stuff.

I have been wanting to get back into sewing so bought myself a how to book or actually it's called "The Bag Making Bible" by Lisa Lam.

Some of the instructions are hard to understand but I'm getting there. I haven't really sewn in years, just little things here and there.

But I just love this little bag. It's reversible, bright and very lightweight. It is not meant to hold much weight, but how much lunch do I need? I also carry coupons, bills, tape measure, etc.


                                                           The Pink Side! My fav.

 

The inside. My second fav.

 

The other outside!

 

I made my Mom a book bag to carry her Bible in and forgot to take a picture. D'OH!

 I'll get right on that.

 

 

Baby Ben's Blanket

Baby Ben is going to be grandbaby #2 for my friend Susan.

This is Susan's daughter Kelly (who I put to bed with her shoes on when she was a wee baby.)

So much for blogging once a week. Maybe I can manage once a month!
I have made other things, I just didn't blog about them. Oh well as long as I keep trying.
I have another project in the works so here's hoping....

New year new resolution

My resolution this year is to blog once a week. I never make resolutions because I can never seem to keep them. Hopefully this year will be different.

So here we go.

My first post of 2013 is for a scarf I made from Redheart Boutique Ribbons yarn. I got mine at JoAnn's. One skein will make this scarf, it is about 60" long. I got the instructions on how to crochet the ribbon yarn on youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7ZMs3ao1Sc


I tried to put a picture on but it is not letting me right now.  Anyway it is fairly simple but you do need to have some experience with crocheting. The yarn snags easily so make sure your fuzzy friends don't get a hold of it.

Happy New Year!

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.

Lap Afghan

This is my latest lap afghan I made to give to the seniors in my area.

I can't remember where I saw one made similar to this one, there wasn't a pattern I think I just saw a picture and thought it looked cool.

I need to find a better way to photograph my afghans. They look so blah just laying on my bed.

So Ann, if you have any good ideas I would love to hear them.

Closet redo

It's been a while since I posted anything just because I'm lazy about posting, not because I've been sitting around doing nothing.( My inner child is going ya huh!)

This long Labor Day weekend was anything but labor free. I know you're supposed to take time off to relax and recharge, but we don't seem to follow any of the hard fast rules of life so why start now?

Any who this is what we did.

This is after we removed everything and knocked down the wall. Forgot to take a before pic. Duh!

When we remodeled the laundry room we decided this little area would be better if accessed from the closet. (meaning it was easier than trying to make what we had look good.)

Removed 2x4's on floor and walls then put up sheetrock on back wall where 2x4's used to be and now it looks like it was done this way on purpose. HA!

Then we painted everything and put the floor down.

Put old shelves back in, not freshly painted, because I didn't want to wait a week before setting anything on them. Besides you won't be able to see them when I am done anyway.

Are you ready for this?

This is what was in that 5' x 5' closet minus the bed.

Yes there is a bed in there and a coffee table and a chair and a night stand.

See! There is the bed.






So here it is all filled up.

Ta Da!

And that's how you relax at the Miskell residence!


Have a wonderful labor day, no matter how you spend it.

Laundry remodel

We finished remodeling the laundry room this last week.

It was ugly.

          Now it is not.

I have been living with this for about 6 years. The floor had that peel and stick tile and while it is great for some purposes, it doesn't always do well on older pier and beam homes. Many cracked, many did not stick and very many stuck too well.

                       My DH is going to build me a screen to hide the water heater.

  This has been the pantry since I was a little girl. Then after we remodeled the kitchen it became the storage    area for small appliances and extra stuff. And the place where my dogs spend the night.

We closed in that area and bought a new cabinet to put my small appliances in the top and all the dog stuff in the bottom.
We are going to reclaim that space in the closet on the other side of that wall.

This is what I am most proud of, my beautiful floor. It looks just like the kitchen and dining room, and someday the living room.( I can't wait!).