No pictures

I do not have any pictures to post today, but I have been working. On top secret projects. Well, not quite, but I spent quite a bit of time working on a package to send in to a magazine. I don't know if that will come to anything but I'm glad I'm trying. Once I got everything put together, I almost didn't send off the package because I was too scared! I guess the worse that can happen is they send it back and I send it to another magazine, and so on until I figure out that nobody likes my stuff, therefore I decide to not crochet for money and have more time to make things for me!

I do have one FO that I haven't taken pictures of, and a couple more things almost done. I have found another craft to take up my time though and that is clothing reconstruction! I have spent the last 2 days working on a coat. I should have that done soon. I have a couple more projects in mind for this but I don't think I'll have time to do as much as I'd like if I want to focus on crocheting. Now that the baby is crawling, well scooting, I spend much of my crafting time getting up every few minutes taking her out of the computer desk and pulling small toys out of her mouth! I'm sure it will only get worse from here on out, until she's 3 or so. She really is very good though, and I'm sure most mothers of 9 month old babies get much less done than I do!

Finished some things! And took pictures!

Here's a dress I made to sell to a lady I met in Wal-mart. I have enough fabric to make another.
Here are some new mary janes for my niece.
And here is a shrug I made for Elisa. It will help stretch her wardrobe into fall I hope.
Here she is modeling. Isn't she so cute!

What I've been up to

Well, it's been a busy summer and I haven't updated in a bit but I have still been busy crocheting! I made 2 baby sweaters for cousins who are having babies this fall but I forgot to take a picture! Maybe they'll send me one later. I also made a baby blanket for my new nephew born during our family reunion! I caught a cold the next day so I couldn't go to the hopital to see him, but I've got lots of pictures my sister sent. I have also finished the shrug that's been sitting in my WIP basket all summer, and I made some new Mary Janes for my preemie niece. I am slowly finishing the pink flower motif dress but I've got to get on it or it won't be done before the end of summer! I also am finishing a dress made out of Sinfonia that is turning out very well. I also am about done with a dress that is crochet on the top with the skirt out of fabric, something like the pink jumper I made for my niece. All that said, I don't have any pictures for you today! I will do that soon and I am also hoping to redo the pattern of the thread mary janes a little. I want to add the directions for the left shoe, and add better pictures, and I also noticed a couple of small mistakes. So now I have said it I will have to do it! Check back soon!

Noelle's painting

Here's a paining Noelle did on a real canvas!

Second pink tiedye jumper and a hat

Here's the second pink tiedye jumper, with a head band.

Here's a hat I designed using Sugar 'n Cream. I wanted it to be breezy on the top so as not to make your head hot. It will be a birthday present for my dd's friend. My dd, Noelle is modeling.

Pink tiedye dress

Here's the pink dress all done! It turned out pretty well, but I'm not too great at the sewing part. Thanks for the advice on that, mom! The top is sugar n cream, the bottom is a light denim remnant I got at Joann.

Lots of pink!

Here's the top for a dress I crocheted, and you can see the fabric below that I am going to add for a skirt. I hope to finish that tomorrow so that she can wear it to church Sunday!

Here's my progress with the hexagon motif dress. About 1/3 done! The ends are going to be horrific though. I'm not really sure what I'm doing with the top of this dress yet either.

Eureka!!!!

Well, I think so anyways. It all happened because I goofed and made a five sided motif and I was pretending it had six and using it to lay some of them out to try and figure this out when I thought "What if I use it like it is?" and there it was! The answer! It remains to be seen if this will work in reality and not on paper, but I think so. I will use a row of 5 sided motifs for the top of the skirt and then hexagons for the rest! So, I'll have to make some 5 petaled flowers now but not too many! That brings the number of motifs down to 80. Still a lot but doable!

Breakthrough?

Well, I think I may have made a breakthrough with the hexagon motifs. It's just a matter of thinking 3 dimensionally instead of 2. So I'm cutting and taping together little pieces of hexagon graph paper. I have a migraine today so we'll see if I can get this worked out, and if it still seems to work after the migraine is over....

Design crisis!

I have worked so hard on this dress trying to figure out how to do it. I have to figure out how to make the skirt of this dress in hexagon motifs and thought I had it figured out but I just did some math and found that the circumference of the bottom of the skirt was going to be 56"!!!! That's for a 12 month size! So I don't think that's going to work. So, back to the hexagon shaped graph paper. I am determined to do this! The main problem is that I have to join these as I go so I really have to have it figured out before I start! But I have a bunch of dishes to was so will have to do this later.... I'll let you know when I've got it figured out!

Flowers, flowers everywhere!

So, I have finally finished the Van Gogh round ripple! Yeah! It's been a very long time since I made a baby blanket!Now, I need to get to work on the motif dress in sunset colors for my dd. Here are the peach flowers all done.
And the yellow ones with 6 extra! Not sure why I did that!
And the darker yellow ones, I just need 4 more of these. Then I need 30 orange ones.
Here's the overview with the 3 motif's I did to see what it looked like, and the orange thread. That's a lot of flowers and it's going to be a lot of motif's! 100 in all when I'm done!

My latest FO's and WIP's

Okay, I'm really not very good at loading these pictures. At least they are here! Here is a round ripple I'm making for a friend's baby. I'm using 2 strands of Bernat Baby Coordinates and blending the colors.Here's some motifs that I'm going to make into a dress. I have to make 132 motifs!

Here is the purple swing top, finished. I'm very happy with the way it turned out!
Here is my plastic bag holder, made of plarn.
Here are some more pink mary janes made for a friend who had a baby girl. The gauge wasn't coming out the same as the pattern so I ended up doing just 3 rounds on the bottom. They came out just a little smaller than the other ones, which is just fine for a newborn.

Here's the 2 baby dresses with accessories, on the babies! They were made for my BIL's wedding. The babies are cousins born 2 days apart but the one on the left was a preemie and the one on the right (mine) was overdue and huge!

Here's some hats I made for some birthday presents for a friends 2 little boys, one turning 3 and one turning 1. Here the bigger one is modeled by my son.

Here's a top I'm making for my baby out of fingering weight yarn. You can see the detail of the stitch below, it's called Daisy Lace and is out of the Crochet Stitch Bible.

Here is a shrug I'm making for my baby out of polyester thread. It's softer than cotton. The stitch is a double trellis.




Here is a plastic bag holder I'm making out of plastic bags. I was too cheap to buy the yarn and then I found out you can crochet with plastic bags and I've got plenty of those! It's a little wide so I guess it will be a short fat bag holder instead of long and skinny.

Better pictures for the crochet baby mary janes

Here's better pictures of the crocheted pink baby mary janes I posted the pattern for previously. The last ones are made a little differently than the pattern but I wanted you to see the flower.

Two crochet baby dresses and other WIP

Here's the two baby dresses!!! Yeah!!!! It really didn't take as long as I thought it would once I got the top part figured out. The second one went really fast! These are for 2 babies to wear to my BIL's wedding. Although the smaller baby might not even be there. Oh well, at least she will have a nice dress! The colors are the wedding colors but the orange shows up brighter than it is and the aqua not as bright.
This is the beginning of what I'm going to call my "Red Hot Potholder." It's a gift for a wedding. I hope to make some jar lid covers too, if I have time. I'm using some yarn I frogged from a knit sweater.



Here is a close up of dress I've worked on a little but I'm thinking about frogging it and using larger hook, it's kind of stiff. I love the colors but I don't have a lot of thread. This is vintage thread that I got from my Mamaw!

crochet pattern for baby mary jane booties

I have added the directions for the right shoe and fixed some errors. 8/16/07

Supplies:
size 10 cotton thread
size 7 hook, or a larger hook to make it larger.
button

Gauge:
9 st per inch
4 dc rows per inch

dcdec = (yo, insert hook in next st and pull up a loop, pull through 2 loops on hook) 2x, yo and pull through all 3 loops on hook
beg dc dec = ch 2, dc in next st
3 dc cluster = (yo, insert hook in next st and pull up a loop, pull through 2 loops on hook) 3x, yo and pull through all 4 loops on hook

Left shoe:
Sole of shoe
Ch 14
rnd 1: ch 3 (counts as first dc now and throughout), 7 dc in 4th ch from hook, dc in next 12 ch, 8 dc in last ch, dc in bottom loops of next 12 ch, join with sl st to 1st dc. You should now have an oval with 40 dc total.

rnd 2: ch 3, dc in same st, 2 dc in each of next 7 sts, dc in next 12 st, 2 dc in each of next 8 sts, dc in next 12 sts, join with sl st to first dc. 56 dc total.

rnd 3: ch 3, dc in same st, dc in next 2 sts, (2 dc in next st, dc in next 2 sts)4x, 2 dc in next st, dc in next 12 st, (2 dc in next st, dc in next 2 sts)5x, 2 dc in next st, dc in next 12 st, join with sl st to 1st dc. 68 dc total.

rnd 4: ch 3, dc in same st, dc in next 2 sts, (2 dc in next st, dc in next 2 sts)6x, 2 dc in next st, dc in next 12 st, (2 dc in next st, dc in next 2 sts)7x, 2 dc in next st, dc in next 12 st, join with sl st to back loop of 1st dc. 84 dc total.

Top of shoe
rnd 5: working in back loops only, work starting dc dec, dc in next 2 st, (dc dec, dc in next 2 st)6x, dc dec, dc in next 12 st, work 15 dc dec over next 30 st, dc in next 12 st, join with sl st to both loops of 1st dc. 61 st total.

rnd 6: working in both loops, dc in next 34 st, (work dc dec, dc in next st)2x, work 3 dc cluster, (dc in next st, work dc dec)2x, dc in next 12 dc, join with sl st to 1st dc. 55 st total

rnd 7: dc in next 34 st, work dc dec, dc in next st, work dc dec, beginning in same stich as 2nd leg of last dec, work dc dec, dc in next st, work dc dec, dc in next 12 dc, join with sl st to 1st dc. 52 st total

rnd 8: dc in next 22 st, hdc, sc in next 28 st, hdc, join with slip st to 1st dc. 52 st total.

Strap: turn, sl st in hdc and next sc, ch 18, tr in back loop of 5th ch from hook and in next 13 ch, join with sl st to 2nd dc in last rnd. tie off.


For right shoe: Work the same as left through 1st row, then turn to work rest of rows.

rnd 2: ch 3, dc in next 11 st, 2 dc in each of next 8 sts, dc in next 12 sts, 2 dc in each of next 8 sts, join with sl st to first dc. 56 dc total.

rnd 3: ch 3, dc in next 11 st, (2 dc in next st, dc in next 2 sts)5x, 2 dc in next st, dc in next 12 st, (2 dc in next st, dc in next 2 sts)5x, 2 dc in next st, join with sl st to 1st dc. 68 dc total.

rnd 4: ch 3, dc in next 11 st, (2 dc in next st, dc in next 2 sts)7x, 2 dc in next st, dc in next 12 st, (2 dc in next st, dc in next 2 sts)7x, 2 dc in next st, join with sl st to back loop of 1st dc. 84 dc total.

Top of shoe
rnd 5: working in back loops only, ch 3, dc in next 11 st, work 15 dc dec over next 30 st, dc in next 12 st, (dc dec, dc in next 2 st)7x, join with sl st to both loops of 1st dc. 61 st total.

rnd 6: working in both loops, ch 3, dc in next 11 dc, (work dc dec, dc in next st)2x, work 3 dc cluster, (dc in next st, work dc dec)2x, dc in next 34 st, join with sl st to 1st dc. 55 st total

rnd 7: ch 3, dc in next 11 st, work dc dec, dc in next st, work dc dec, beginning in same stich as 2nd leg of last dec, work dc dec, dc in next st, work dc dec, dc in next 34 dc, join with sl st to 1st dc. 52 st total

rnd 8: ch 2, sc in next 28 st, hdc, dc in next 22 st, join with slip st to beginning ch 2. 52 st total.

Strap: sl st in next sc, ch 18, tr in back loop of 5th ch from hook and in next 13 ch, turn, skip 2 st, join with sl st to next dc. Tie off.

You can sl st around the top of the shoe and strap and around where the sole meets the top of the shoe using the front loop of rnd 4. I recommend doing this at least around the top since it keeps the shoe from stretching out.


Preemie mary janes
Here is a pattern for preemie mary janes. It starts the same as above, but only has 3 rounds to the sole. Using a size 3 steel hook, it comes out just a bit smaller than the other mary janes worked with a size 7 steel hook.

Left foot:
Sole of shoe
Ch 14
rnd 1: ch 3 (counts as first dc now and throughout), 7 dc in 4th ch from hook, dc in next 12 ch, 8 dc in last ch, dc in bottom loops of next 12 ch, join with sl st to 1st dc. You should now have an oval with 40 dc total.

rnd 2: ch 3, dc in same st, 2 dc in each of next 7 sts, dc in next 12 st, 2 dc in each of next 8 sts, dc in next 12 sts, join with sl st to first dc. 56 dc total.

rnd 3: ch 3, dc in same st, dc in next 2 sts, (2 dc in next st, dc in next 2 sts)4x, 2 dc in next st, dc in next 12 st, (2 dc in next st, dc in next 2 sts)5x, 2 dc in next st, dc in next 12 st, join with sl st to back loop of 1st dc. 68 dc total.

Top of shoe
rnd 4: working in back loops only, work starting dc dec, dc in next 2 st, (dc dec, dc in next 2 st)4x, dc dec, dc in next 12 st, work 11 dc dec over next 22 st, dc in next 12 st, join with sl st to both loops of 1st dc dec. 51 st total.

rnd 5: working in both loops, ch 3, dc in next 26 st, dc dec, dc in next st, dc dec, work 3 dc cluster, dc dec, dc in next st, dc dec, dc in next 11 dc, join with sl st to 1st dc. 45 st total

rnd 6: ch 3, dc in next 25 st, work 2 dc dec, dc in next st, work 2 dc dec, dc in next 10 dc, join with sl st to 1st dc. 41 st total

rnd 7: dc in next 16 st, hdc, sc in next 23 st, hdc, join with slip st to 1st dc. 41 st total.

Strap: turn, sl st in hdc and next sc, ch 18, tr in back loop of 5th ch from hook and in next 13 ch, join with sl st to 2nd dc in last rnd. tie off.


For right shoe: Work the same as left through 1st row, then turn to work rest of rows.

rnd 2: ch 3, dc in next 11 sts, 2 dc in each of next 8 sts, dc in next 12 st, 2 dc in each of next 8 sts, join with sl st to first dc. 56 dc total.

rnd 3: ch 3, dc in next 11 st, (2 dc in next st, dc in next 2 sts)5x, 2 dc in next st, dc in next 12 sts, (2 dc in next st, dc in next 2 sts)5x, 2 dc in next st, join with sl st to back loop of 1st dc. 68 dc total.


Top of shoe
rnd 4: working in back loops only, ch 3, dc in next 11 st, (dc dec, dc in next 2 st)5x, dc dec, dc in next 12 st, work 11 dc dec over next 22 st, join with sl st to both loops of 1st dc. 51 st total.

rnd 5: working in both loops, ch 3, dc in next 10 st, dc dec, dc in next st, dc dec, work 3 dc cluster, dc dec, dc in next st, dc dec, dc in next 27 st, join with sl st to 1st dc. 45 st total

rnd 6: ch 3, dc in next 9 st, work 2 dc dec, dc in next st, work 2 dc dec, dc in next 26 dc, join with sl st to 1st dc. 41 st total

rnd 7: ch 2, sc in next 23 st, hdc, dc in next 16 st, join with slip st to 1st ch 2. 41 st total.

Strap: sl st in next 2 sc, ch 18, tr in back loop of 5th ch from hook and in next 13 ch, turn, skip 2 st, join with sl st to next dc. Tie off.


You can sl st around the top of the shoe and strap in the back loops only, and around where the sole meets the top of the shoe using the front loop of rnd 3. I recommend doing this at least around the top since it keeps the shoe from stretching out.

My first blog!

OK, this is my first blog! This blog is to be primarily a showcase for my crocheting and patterns but I will add some personal stuff at times so will do something of an introduction here. I am a SAHM with 3 kids, Noelle 5, Jacob 3, and Elisa 4 1/2 months at this time (born Dec. 13, 2006). My husband has a degree in pastoral studies but is not yet a pastor! We are working on that! Right now we are considering moving to Surprise, AZ and becoming part of a church there with the goal of starting a satellite church for them. I will keep you posted on that. I am working towards having my own business designing crochet patterns and I especially love thread crochet. I will be focusing primarily on baby clothing. So, even though there's not much here now keep coming back!

Liz