Update on the Granny Squares

I now have 9 Granny Squares made.  I only show 8 here because they are the ones I have begun sewing together. According to my calculations I need 144 squares to complete an afghan, only 135 more to go, hahahaha.  I have a long way to go.

I usually dont like to do a large project it gets tedious and I can get frustrated with it.  So you see the small things i enjoy making and I can usually complete in a few hours over a couple of days.

I decided to look at this afghan as a journey not a destination.  I will make granny squares as I have time and spare bits of yarn. It might take me half the year to complete, but I am not in a hurry.

When I travel I like to stop and see the interesting sites along the way and stop at unique restaurants and enjoy the culture of the different places I might visit.  So if I look at this afghan as a little side trip and enjoy each moment I can add another square, I won’t feel the pressure to finish it and when it is complete, it will be like I have arrived home after an enjoyable vacation.

If you are like me and get bogged down on a large project look at is as a journey not a destination and enjoy accomplishing each part of the project.  It’s all in our minds.

 

It’s fun that it works this way!

Remember the post I made a few days ago…Hello Kitty.  Well I made another one. I went to visit my daughter who is in a therapeutic group home this past week.  She is doing well and is expected to graduate on to her next placement after the end of school this year.  If all goes well she will be accepted into an independent living facility where she can continue to learn the life skills and receive the therapy she needs to continue in the positive direction she is going.

But while I was visiting her I was showing her my blog and some pictures of things I have been doing.  We came to the Hello Kitty and she thought of a girl in her group home that just loves Hello Kitty.  So she showed her the picture and the young girl flipped out.  So I decided to come home and make this young woman a smaller size Hello Kitty so it is easy to move with her from place to place.

I think it is great with the medium of yarn and hooks you can take one pattern and make it in all different sizes just based on the size hook and yarn you choose.  I enjoy doing all kinds of handy crafts and I sew and have done a little woodworking and I can’t off-hand think of any other craft projects that automatically calculate the size of your project just from the tools you use.  I know that all of you seasoned needle workers out there may think I have simplistic view on this, but I think it is cool!  I did not know at first that you could do this, until I really started working with these tools.  So I just used a smaller hook and crochet thread and made this smaller version of the same Hello Kitty I made the other day.

I think it is fun that it works that way, and that I went to visit my daughter and found another way to use my hobby to be of service to another young girl in the same situation as my child, It’s fun it works this way!

 

 

Still working the wire…

Catchy title huh? …I guess it means I am trying to walk and keep my balance on the “high wire” between being “mom” and “me”.  It has been a trying few days.  Teens can be a bit trying on their own, but teens that are adopted, or have experienced loss of a parent, and have come to us at ages that they have already developed their personalities and characters and have gone through loss and tragedy can be particularly tedious at best at times. So to try to balance the needs of these kiddos and my basic need of sanity I work on my crochet and do other things I enjoy. To try to give each day something pleasant that I can look back on the day and say, “This one was a toughie, but at the end of it, I did accomplish such and such, and so and so was pleased with me today.”

You know maybe the best part of having 20 children other than the great number of grandbabies we may have, is the fact that at the end of each day SOMEONE still likes me.  I mean I can’t possibly, as a mother, alienate all 20 children in one day! So no matter what happens in our current home of 4 teens, There is still a chance that I will get pleasant phone calls and visits each day, from some of the adult children that have since moved past the teen stage into adulthood and have found that Mom is pretty bright and they have gratitude for the manner in which they were raised and the overall knowledge that they actually use what they were taught.  When as teens they thought it was all hooey, just as these last four think.

So in the midst of the chaos of raising teens, I am also still working on the wire crochet projects.  I have not completed a project yet, but here is a necklace I am currently working on.  The pattern is still the daisy drop earring pattern I gave you the link to a couple of weeks ago.  I just didn’t add the drop and I am linking the daisies into a necklace.

I am using copper wire and actual turquoise beads that I have on hand.  I chose copper for the obvious reason…price.  I would use silver but I am still learning the techniques so until I get better copper is a more financially sound decision.  And if my project works out copper and turquoise jewelry can make a nice gift.

You will see in this next picture I have a crocheted butterfly.  I used the crochet thread size 3 for this one.  I was doing some research to make a wire crochet butterfly.  I searched the internet for just the right pattern; the link is in my resources.  The pattern could not be the usually fold over crochet butterfly wire would not work well for that pattern.  The pattern needed to be an appliqué type, but not too intricate, too many bends and the wire breaks, this pattern will be just right I think.

I made it first out of crochet tread so I could learn the stitches and see how the process works before I did it in wire and made lots of mistakes.  The new stitches in this pattern for me were the”picot” and the double treble (Dtr).

So to all you adoptive and step-moms out there who like me, deal with the challenges that come with these children, don’t despair get out your crochet hooks, recipes, sewing machines, paint brushes or poetry books, genealogy, go to school, etc. and “work the wire” with me.  Find the balance to be “mom” and “you”.  Because at the end of it all the kids are going to grow up and go out into the world and you will still have you.  Take the time to develop you and be of value to your fellow-man.  It will make you smile!

 

I sew too, we made Pioneer Bonnets

Yesterday was Wednesday and each Wednesday we have our youth meetings at the church. I am a Young Women’s leader and part of my responsibility is to help provide fun, spiritual activities for the girls. Last night’s activity was a fun one that I thought I would share with you.

There may be others of you out there that could use this information. At the end of May this year our youth are going on a 26 mile pioneer trek in the mountains of Arizona. For three days, they will live as the pioneers did. So everyone is getting their things ready and doing extra walking to prepare. Last night I had prepared the things we needed for my class to make these pioneer bonnets.

If you have not noticed by now, most of the things I learn and use and post have come from research to find the easiest prettiest patterns and methods. This bonnet pattern is just that, simple and cute! After the girls helped make these bonnets last night, they could not take them off. And these are some of the same girls that hated the idea of having to wear one.

I personally can make one of these bonnets in an hour.  last night there were three sewing machines, seven girls and three adult leaders working and we were able to produce the 8 bonnets our class needed in an hour and 15 minutes. of course, I did do prep work ahead.  I had all the pieces cut and the gathering stitching all done and the casing stitching finished also the brims were put together.  So I guess I made the kits.  When the girls all got together, they had to do the gathering and pinning all the components together and then have them sewn together on the machines.

I had one young woman who her whole job was to sew all the ties. I had them cut out but she made them all into the ties for he bonnets.  It was nice to hear her after she had finished and I told her we could not have completed the project with out her ability to use tha machine, she learned this skill working on a Personal Progress Value Project last year, she said, “wow, I feel so accomplished!”  it was very heart warming to see this young woman beam at her accomplishment and feel the joy of serving all of the girls in her class.  As she was sewing all of the straps and I was giving aid and direction to the other girls I also worked on and finished her bonnet.

In the pattern the lady gives dimensions for different sizes and she states that she has not made all the sizes so she was not sure really if her dimensions were accurate. So I will tell you that the 20×20 square that she actually has you working for your experiment, fit me and all of our 15-year-old young women.

The link to the pattern is in my resources to the left. If you have a youth group going on a pioneer trek or you have a little girl who likes to play dress up or maybe you are a doll maker who needs a bonnet pattern, I hope this pattern I found will sit your purpose.

 

Look! Hello Kitty

This weekend I was visiting my daughter’ family for my birthday dinner and I noticed my granddaughter was playing with a Hello Kitty doll.  She seemed to really like the doll and my daughter said that, my grand-daughter really enjoys the Hello Kitty.

My granddaughter wanted to come spend the night with grandma after dinner so we got everything together and she came along, we had a very nice visit.  she came in and immediately went to the play kitchen I have set up  in the family room and she put on her chef  hat and apron and began cooking for her teenage aunt and uncle, they were watching TV.

I went upstairs and began searching for a pattern for Hello Kitty.  This pattern I used was again a very simple one to follow.  I liked it because the artist was able to get the features correct and that does make all the difference.  And I liked it because it was a simple pattern.

I tweaked it a little, as I did not have safety eyes so I embroidered the eyes, and I used a satin ribbon and I made the dress different.  My little granddaughters like the frills and ruffles, so I just added to the dress making it more full like a party dress.

As always the link to the pattern is listed under my resources.  Armina’s Ani-mals.

I began the doll Sunday morning before church, went to church 3 hours, came home did lunch, put the baby down for nap and worked on the doll some more, then made dinner, and visited with my daughter who came to pick up her daughter, then I worked on it some more, I finished it about 8:30 that evening.  I suppose it took me about 5 hours.  Is that too slow?  I don’t know… Hello Kitty is about 4 inches tall.  I think I will make a couple more one in a purple dress and one in a red dress.

 

It’s My Birthday!

Today I am 51 years old, I am having a very nice day.  I have had well wishes from friends and family.

Do any of you out there have an ornery younger sister?  hahaha You know the one you bossed around when you were all young and now you are all older now and she is always out to get you, especially now, while you are in your old age?!

I have just one of those sisters.  So what if I used to tell her she was adopted, so what if since I was the oldest I was in charge of our room, so what if when we were doing the dishes if she let me get three dishes in the dish rack before she could get them dry I would slug her in the arm (she was really slow at drying dishes), so what if she ended up on the floor sometimes because we had to share a bed (the top bunk), so what if she always had to ride in the middle seat and not by the window on long family trips, so what if I always served her stewd tomatoes when we had macaroni and tomatoes for dinner and she hated stewed tomatoes. Does that mean she should post this picture on Facebook of me on my birthday?! hahahaha

I was about 14 maybe, our family was doing a talent show for church and I was to be Clementine…Dee, I’m telling mom! But the upside is as you see in this photo the color of my hair a lovely brown.  Well as you see in the following more recent pictures I have the same lovely hair color, all natural. I won’t comment on my sister’s hair color…hehehe.

This is me and my granddaughter at Bahama Bucks

 

 

 

 

 

 

This one is me and my daughter Elizabeth, who manages my blog cause I’m not too bright.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This one is me and my husband

 

 

 

 

 

This one is me and my son James

Well, I am glad my sister remembered my birthday and loves me very much, because if she does this because she loves me, oh brother what if she didn’t, hahaha.  My baby sister is the nice one, huh, Jeannie?

 

Granny Squares

I have collected things over the years, Blue willow China, small tea sets, I have many river rocks with holes that go all the way through.  My collections were started from things that have touched me in my life.

But if I were to begin another collection it would be Granny Square Afghans.  I have two that I purchased from garage sales years ago.  I just love the colors and the idea that they were made from just bits of left over yarns from other projects these women have made through their lives.  I guess it is the history and the stories that can be told from the bits of colored yarn.

I have always wished I could make these little squares. So with my new-found ability to crochet and my new batch of left over yarns from my projects, I decided to give it a try this week. I searched for tutorials and patterns that would be easy for me to follow.  I looked at different ones for a couple of days in my off time from tax preparations.

This pattern I used for the basic Granny-Square was easy to follow as it had simple directions and also photos that were easy to see the steps.  I usually like the video tutorials but this time I wanted to try to just follow a written pattern to practice doing that.  What if I were suddenly without my computer and I wanted to crochet something?! I need to know how to read the patterns better. ( I heard my mother saying this to me in the back of my head.)  She feels it is important for us to learn the old way “just in case”,  then use the technology we are given after we have learned.  I guess that is why I have my kids learn to make whipped cream by hand before they get to use the mixer, lol.

Anyway, I posted the link to the pattern I used to the left under  my resources, Purlbee.  I hope this information will be useful for those of you who, like me need easy to follow steps to these fun little squares.

Now, as I crochet and save my bits of yarn, I have a purpose for the little bits and maybe one day I will have enough granny squares made to make the afghan that my daughters will fight over after I have “gone into the other room” , hahaha!