It's Monday Again

Good Morning. I have another long week ahead of me, as I am sure most of you do too. Yesterday was a nice an releaxing day for J and I. We went for a bike ride around our community and we also ventured outside our community to enjoy the nice weather and check out ponds in the area, mostly look to see if there were fish in the other ponds. About two year a ago, my husband (J) and I traveled up to the northern part of Florida when we first moved in and stocked our community ponds with catfish. The catfish grew to be quite large. After come very cold days this winter, we no longer see the catfish in our backyard pond, or any other fish for that matter. Over the summer when we would feed the fishies, it would look like this. Lately, we see nothing.

Today I am also sending off the baby blanket to my dear friend Gina. Her baby girl is due February 26th. I started making this blanket as soon as I heard she was pregnant. Of course it still took me many months to complete because I did not work on it each day. Today I will send it off to her in Tampa FL so she can put it in the baby's room with the rest of her stuff as we all wait for her arrival!!! 


This is the blanket that got me back into crocheting again!

 

Folded up and read to go



Morning Sun

Good Morning! I took this photo yesterday while I was on my way to the science fair. When I first noticed the beautiful sunrise, I didn't have my camera ready to take a photo, so while this does not capture the best shot, it will hopefully brighten your day if you are sun-less and snowbound.

Our day today will be filled with outdoor activities. We are going to play tennis and do a little BBQ-ing for dinner on the lanai. I also wanted to note to anyone who is crochet, the craft store A.C.Moore has Vanna's Choice Lion Brand yarn on sale for only $1.99!!!! This is a great deal. I will be going out and stocking up.



Another one beginning

I am up bright and early this Saturday morning to be a judge in a regional science fair. I can't wait to see what the kids came up with this year! It will be a long morning/afternoon, but good for the kids. After I get out I plan to write some more of one of the manuscripts I am working on, and sneak in some crocheting too.

I wanted to share a little glimpse of another project I've started - I will try to do a little bit each day...

 I always enjoyed the granny sqaure every since I first learned to crochet. These look like circles now but when I do the final round they will become squares!

More soon.

Happy Saturday!

Rippling into the Weekend

It looks like we are in for a perfect winter weekend in Florida - not too warm with highs in the low 70's and cooler nights. Perfect for playing tennis and reading on the lanai. This is my favorite time of the year in Florida, the sun feels the best when it is January and you can smell the fresh air. Spring really is around the corner here! As I walked from the parking lot to my office building on campus, I could smell the fresh cut grass. The smell always reminds me of elementary school - I can picture my third grade classroom, sitting at my little desk and looking out the window while the custodian cut the grass. It reminds me of spring!

I'll be working on my ripple blanket this weekend. Hopefully it will double in size! At some points the pattern seems to be a little off due to the flipping of the front to back.

When I am done, I may play around with the number of stitches in between each curve. For now, I think the curves are turning out all right! I am using Lion Brand Vanna's Choice and I must say, I really like the feeling of it. The blanket feels nice and soft. 

Cupcake Caps!!! - More Caps for Good

After seeing my co-worker Gil's knitted cupcake cap, I searched http://www.raverly.com/ for a pattern I could crochet. I found a pattern on raverly and made a little cupcake hat.

For the bottom of the hat, the pattern does not specify the wide or length. I chained 8, and added one (+1), then sc across (8 sc for each row). If you have a child in mind, you should measure his/her head and then do about an inch less (the yarn will stretch some) so you have a nice fit. I used H/8 - 5.00mm hook, and the Red Heart Super Saver yarn as suggested in the pattern.    

I chained 8, and added one (+1), then sc across (8 sc for each row, then chain 1 flip and 8 sc across)

If you have a child in mind, you should measure his/her head and then do about an inch less (the yarn will stretch some) so you have a nice fit. I completed 38 rows for the hat I made. For the sprinkles: I used short pieces (~ 6 inches) of yarn and chained three, connect the first chain to the third with a slip stitch and then pulled the yarn through making a sloppy shapped piece. I connect the sprinkles with three knots inside the hat. AND...topped the cupcake with a cherry on top making a red pom pom.

Happy stitching!!  



Ripple/Wave Blanket

Hello Friends,
After last night's storms here and tornado watches (tornado watches in central Florida - luckily we are further south), today is a warm and sunny day. After working all morning and afternoon, I headed out to the farmer's market to get some yummy organic produce for the rest of the week. Then it was back to work.

Lately I've become obssessed with checking out other crocheter's projects on their blogs and I absolutely love Lucy's Blog - Attic 24's  and her many projects over the years. I decided to start with her ripple blanket pattern: http://attic24.typepad.com/weblog/.

Lucy's pattern uses 14 stiches for each "set" which is an up and down ripple. I decided to do 7 sets to have a blanket wide enough for two people to snuggle under on a cold day or night :)

First day!

Hello Friends, I learned to crochet many years ago and now that I finished my doctoral dissertation, I finally have time to get back into it. I am keeping a blog to share my projects with friends and family who do not live near by and share information with other crocheters.

My first completed project from this weekend is a little green cap, for the Caps for Good charity (http://www.goodgoes.org/caps#&slider1=3). My colleague Gil has gathered the crocheters and knitters in our college to work on another great charity project. 

For this cap, I followed the crochet pattern provided in the Caps for Good instructions. The flower embellishment was made using the Rosa Crochet Pattern from via raverly.com here is the pattern: http://hookhound.blogspot.com/p/rosa-crochet-flower.html 

I thought the babies in Africa would love a little flower :)