Struggling with Cherry Blossoms

Tonight I did some crocheting as Tiger Daddy listened to music.  Finished another Easter Egg and then decided to try my hand a making a cherry blossom flower... hahaha!!!  FAIL!!!  I am trying to get the petals just right and boy am I struggling with it. If the petal looks right, the flower itself looks too squished and the center is ginormous.  If the flower isn't squished, then the petals just don't have the proportion I am looking for.  (I'll try to post some pictures tomorrow.  Right now I'm exhausted)

Well, on the bright side, for us Cherry Blossom ends this weekend with the (2nd) final weekend of the Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival.  So I fully accept that I will have nothing for this weekend.  I hadn't planned on it so, no big disappointment there.  So, I'll have a whole year to keep working on an original crochet pattern for a cherry blossom.

Variables to work with: Right now my blossoms are coming out looking chunky instead of delicate.   I am using worsted weight yarn.  I am thinking of trying out something lighter, not as chunky.  Play with hook size.

Yet another project to add to the list.

Reunited

I was reunited with my crochet bag this weekend.  Tiger Daddy inadvertently left it has his mother's house before we went to Reno in an attempt to be more space efficient.  So all of last week I had to fight the urge to buy some new hooks and yarn.  I knew that we would be visiting again this weekend to celebrate Tiger Daddy's grandmother's birthday, so I could not rationalize buying new equipment and yarn.

Since being reunited with my crochet bag I worked on some of Easy's Easter Eggs and Measured by the Heart's spring flowers:

 The eggs are for Nana Bear's class and hopefully I'll make plenty for the family as well.

The spring flowers are being sewn onto ponytail holders.  I had made a few just before vacation and gave them to Nana Bear and the Wild L's daughters, Red and Sosie.  I was afraid they might be too big in proportion to the girls' heads, but they looked fine.

My eggs don't hold a candle to Easy's, but I'm happy with them.  Dare Bear is very fond of them.  This afternoon he spent rolling them around his in little yellow school bus and squeezing them in and out of the door.  I think I'm going to invest in some yellow yarn and a multicolor yarn that is more suited for boys.

Tiger Daddy and I have been once again pondering my opening of an Etsy shop.  The problem is I need to finish some salable product.  I think I am going to start with my hand warmers and maybe some of the ponytail holders... I also need to start pricing.  Fingers crossed that we open shop in the next couple of months.

Linking this to:

My Creative Space: Easter Eggs

This week I have two creative spaces.  First is Easy Makes Me Happy's Easter Eggs:
Saw a link for these Easter Eggs at Easy Makes me Happy and liked them so much I just had to try it at lunch today. My results:

The lighting was not so good on this picture and I haven't had to time to weave in the ends, but I was so happy with the pattern from Easy Makes Me Happy that I had to share.  Per Easy's instructions, I used an F hook and I chose Red Heart Classic Worsted Weight Tropical Fruits yarn.  It's acylic, but the hardware store where I picked up the yarn only carries Red Heart and personally, I don't have a problem with acrylic yarn for my crafts... Now if it was for clothes, I'd probably be pickier, but I'm not that brave. I love how the yarn colors ended up being separated, which you can see in the above picture, - very Spring-y.  Thank you Easy for such a easy pattern.  I can't wait to keep making these. 

My two eggs: One with the Red Heart Tropic Fruits and the other with Rainbow Brights.

For more Creative Spaces, go to Kootoyoo.

More Progress: Shamrock Pattern

So I am slowly but surely working on this month's goals.  Nothing to completely cross off tonight, but progress as been made on two fronts: Nana Bear's blanket and Four Leaf Clover Key chains.

Tiger Daddy took the kids food shopping this evening, giving me unfettered access to the nice clean floor in the kids room.  At the moment, it's the only clean space, large enough for me to lay out the fabric for the blankets.  I am using a double sided, pink ultra cuddly fleece (from Fabric.com) and a make-up, girly pink flannel.  I do have a single-sided rose fleece, but this time I opted for the double-sided since Nana Bear runs cold (as do most women vs. men).  So got the pieces cut and now I just need to pin them together and sew.  Looks like I'll get it done before our trip.

For the key chains, I was going to use the pattern I found on the Lion's Brand Yarn site, but it calls for making the leaves individually and then chaining them together and, well, I just don't like having to fasten off so much.  So I remembered that Sarah at Sarahndipities had a pattern for a shamrock garland, which worked much better for me and my laziness.

The major changes to my pattern was 1) to chain 5 initially instead of 3 because I was having a hard time finding the center of the ring with just a chain 3 (pathetic, yeah?), 2) I wanted four leaf clovers, so I added a leaf, and 3) I lengthened the stem and single crocheted back towards the center and the slipped stitched to the center ring.  I made the stem thicker since I will be attaching the key ring to the end of the stem and wanted it to be stronger.

My Pattern:

Abbreviations:
Chain - Ch                              
Slip stitch -sl
Single crochet -sc
Double crochet - dc
Treble crochet - trc

Ch 5, sl to first ch to form a ring.
1 Leaf: Sl into ring, ch 3, trc, dc,  trc, ch 3, sl into ring *repeat to make as many leaves as you like - shamrocks have 3 leaves, and, of course, the mythical Four Leaf Clovers have 4

Stem: After last leaf is made, chain 10, sc into 3rd ch from hook and into each chain all the way back down the stem, sl to ring. Fasten off and weave in ends.

Thanks Sarahndipities for the pattern to work off of.

My Creative Space: Valentine's Day Insanity

Last night was another last minute scramble, this time to make sure that Nana Bear's Valentine's and class gifts were all ready for this morning.  We started on most things weeks ago, but really the final details and last minute ideas just bogged me down.  Nana Bear's homemade valentine's were simple enough: red construction paper folded in half and a white heart shaped doily glued down the middle inside.  Nana got to decorate the cover anyway she wanted.  We did 22 over three separate weekends.  She can only do 6 or 7 before she gets tired.  I had wanted her to do some for the family as well, but it was just too much for her overall.

I made the flower bracelets and was done with them a couple of weeks ago.  On Friday, I decided to make heart pins for the boys and the hearts were quick and easy to do.  However, the details - ironing the bracelets and hot gluing the pins to the hearts - I waited until 10pm last night to do.  Doh!

I had found a great Instructable to make paper flowers and with a modification or two, I embarked on making flowers bouquets for her teachers.  While the flowers were easy to make, when thinking of trying to do 24 of them at such a late hour, they became almost a herculean task.  I ended up doing 12 and saving the rest  to do today for my grandmother and mother.

But I am overall pleased with the results.

Happy Valentine's Day!  Hope it is filled with lots of love and crafting.

For more Creative Spaces, see Kirsty at kootoyoo.

My Creative Space: Practicing Loop Stitch

After a fun filled weekend, I loathed to go back to work and chores.  Instead I caught up on the craft blogs I follow.  At One Pretty Thing, I found this link to Craft Passion's Sheep Earmuffs.   The loops stitch intrigued me, so after watching her demonstration, I started practicing it.  Here is my result:

I made the loops with my index finger.  As you can see, the results are lacking... I'm still trying get my loops to be more uniform.  The middle stitches are bit more uniform, but the loops closer to the edge aren't.  But this was my first try, so I've lots of practicing to do.  I like learning a new stitch, but I'm not sure what I would make with it.  The earmuffs at Craft Passion are very cute.

For more Creative Spaces, visit Kirsty at kootoyoo.

My Creative Space: Chain of Hearts

I was purusing Kirsty's My Creative Space at kootooyoo the other day and found a blogger who had crocheted single hearts and stitched them to fabric and made a bunting out of them. She had made it for an auction for the floods. I am ashamed to say I cannot remember whose blog it was that linked to Meet Me at Mikes' tutorial to make Sweet Hearts. I had to mentally convert the directions for US crochet stitches, but eventually I figured it out. I am trying for a trickle effect and started with hearts crocheted 10 chains apart (3) and then 15 chains apart (2-3), 20 chains apart (3), 25 (3) chains apart and maybe even a couple 30 chains apart. I need to press the hearts so they don't curl in on themselves (as you can tell in the picture).

I am playing around with lengths and size of the hearts by changing how loose I crochet. The bottom most hearts are the tightest and I am trying loosen as I go up, so the hearts get bigger. Though, as I type, I think that I should make the bottom most hearts the loosest (biggest) and get tighter as I go up.

Not sure what I am going to do with the various chains. Maybe I'll attach them to a hoop and hang from the ceiling. Or attach to a rod, hang above the kids' bedroom door like a curtain. I'll take any suggestions.

For more (more beautiful) Creative Spaces, head to Kirsty's

Crocheting Flower Bracelets

One of the projects on my list is to embellish headband/hairclips with crocheted flowers. It was inspired by Creative Jewish Mom. So I googled Crochet flowers and found this link for three different flowers. I tried out the first one for a String of Flowers and decided I could modify it a bit and make flower bracelets in rainbow thread for Nana Bear's classmates.

Modification: I made it a five petal flower instead of the instructed four.  I chained 34 stitches to begin with to have enough room to tie in the end and chained 30 at the end for the same purpose. 

I gave one to Nana Bear to try on by tying it on like a friendship bracelet. Wondering what I can do to make a better "clasp"... will have to think on it a little. Looks good, though, and fits just right. They're fast and easy to make.

I'm thinking that I can sew it to a crocheted backing or felt and attach to a hair clip.  Ideas, ideas, ideas... so many ideas, so little time.