Work in Progress Wednesday

POSTED: 04/22/15 4:33 PM
FILED AS: Crochet

I finished my Daisy Afghan this week!!! I’m so proud of it hehe. I weaved in all the ends and then I started sewing them together on Friday, and I weaved in the ends after each piece was sewn. I actually had a system going lol. I finished it Friday night and I love it. I am debating putting a border on it, using the grey first with a round of dc then 3 rounds of sc in blue, pink & grey. Not too sure yet, everyone I ask seems to be 50/50 on it. I have enough yarn to do it so it’s not an issue on that. I actually have 2 balls of each colour left over. I’m going to make a swap square with them too.

I have Clue 9 finished for the Mystery CAL and I plan on taking it with me to finish (hopefully) at my conference in Vancouver this weekend. I don’t know if I’ll have enough of the yarn colours it needs but we’ll see. I need to get all that sorted out tomorrow when I’m packing. I might just leave it at home and bring yarn for swap squares or take my sisters blanket along with me.

Work in Progress Wednesday

POSTED: 04/15/15 4:04 PM
FILED AS: Crafts, Crochet

I’ve been super busy this week working on my Daisy Afghan, I’m almost done the hexagons 🙂 Only 4 more left to put the border on and then weave in the ends. I’m hoping to get the 4 done today and start weaving in too. Then I have to make the 6 squares that go between the rows. Those shouldn’t take me too long but you never know. I’m really happy with my progress so far though. Here are all the pictures of my progress that I’ve done so far:

I did work a little bit on my Mystery CAL this week but I only got 1 1/2 rounds of the border clue done for last weeks clue. This weeks clue is 4 rounds. The 2nd round of last weeks clue uses sooooo much yarn. It’s a 5dc cluster and then dc beside it repeat. Kinda boring! I’ll get it done though, I also need to weave in the ends for the joins and the borders before I post a good picture of it.

Work in Progress Wednesday

POSTED: 04/8/15 3:55 PM
FILED AS: Crafts, Crochet

I have done a few things this week, 2 swap squares and worked on my Daisy Afghan. I also did the border for my Mystery CAL last week but I haven’t started this weeks clue yet. I was going to start on it last night but I felt really sick so I stayed on the couch all evening and went to bed early. Turns out I ate moldy bread for lunch ._.

I’m going to be doing a private swap of 2 12 inch squares a month with another swapper on swap-bot. We both are in the public swaps for squares but find that there is very little interest in yarn craft swaps so we’re doing our own 🙂 I’m also doing a swap with Jessica but I’ve already shown her square in another post 🙂

I’m loving my Daisy afghan so far, it’s been fun to work on. I’m hoping it’ll only take me another week or 2 but I’m not setting an end goal for myself or I may not finish it. I’m also really looking forward to seeing how this Mystery CAL border turns out!! This weeks clue looks fantastic and I can’t wait to start it tonight.

Work in Progress Wednesday

POSTED: 04/1/15 7:00 AM
FILED AS: Crochet

Wow I’m actually posting another one of these this month! I did another swap square, 2 baby hats and started another afghan this week. Guess what?! The afghan is for me!! I finally started one for myself…I haven’t made one for me in a year. The baby hats I did for a friend who just had a great grand-daughter…but turns out the hats are too small 🙁 I followed the pattern to the T and they are still too small. *sigh* oh well. They were cute anyways.

Aren’t the little hats adorable?! Anyways, there is the first hexagon for my afghan done. I wanted to see how the colours I picked went together so I did one entirely and now I’m doing the rest in stages, like an assembly line. When I ordered the yarn the pink looked waaaaaay more purple in the picture but I think it looks alright. I’m hoping to work more on this over the Easter long weekend but we shall see. I have so many projects I want to work on this weekend so who knows what I’ll actually get done?

Work in Progress Wednesday

POSTED: 03/25/15 8:17 PM
FILED AS: Crafts, Crochet

I’m finally getting around to posting another one of these lol. I’ve been sick off an on for the last few weeks and right now I’m currently taking antibiotics for a bladder/kidney infection so I feel like utter crap right now. I’ve managed to get caught up on the Mystery CAL that’s going on and I’m currently just waiting for the border clue that’s to come out next week. They gave us 2 weeks for this current clue so that’s how I was able to get caught up. It was joining all the squares together with a braided join and it was slightly difficult. I had to rip out a lot of my borders because I kept making mistakes but in the end I think it looks nice.

I’m definitely going to run out of yarn but that’s ok, I’ll sub in one of the colours I have more of and it’ll be ok. I don’t plan on submitting a photo for the contest anyways so it’ll be fine. I’m in a few more swaps and I’ve done 2 squares so far, I still ned to make 1 more square and that’s for the April swap. I’m trying to get ahead so I don’t get overwhelmed and fall behind. I also have to make 2 cards for my April swap.

I’m really disappointed in my 8 inch square swap partner, I sent her really nice squares (you saw them in my old post) and she hasn’t logged into the site since February 18 and both me and the swap coordinator have tried contacting her and she’s not responded at all. I spent so much time on those squares for her and I thought they were wonderful 🙁 It just makes me upset that I could have gotten a different partner who would have appreciated them!

In other news I signed up to be a Stampin’ Up Demonstrator during their Sale-a-Bration event so I could get free stamp sets and extra products for less money. I love their products and I really enjoy all the classes I’ve been taking that uses their stuff. I don’t plan on making my minimums at all (you have to make $400 in 3 months to stay active) so once I drop I’ll go back to ordering from my demonstrator I go to classes with now. I do plan on ordering a bunch of things that I need for my crafting supplies but I won’t be going over board like I did with everything else I’ve ever signed up with. I don’t plan on selling, doing classes, or anything like that. Even though I’d probably be good at teaching classes I just don’t have the time or space for it. If people want to order from me until my time is up that’s fine too.

Work in Progress Wednesday

POSTED: 03/4/15 4:58 PM
FILED AS: Crafts, Crochet

Since it’s been almost a month since I’ve posted I have a few things to post with 😀 I’ve been working on a lot of swaps lately, and I am very pleased with them. I joined an 8 inch square swap, a bookmark swap, a few card swaps, tea & card swap, and another 12 inch square swap for this month. I’ve gotten 2 things ready for mailing already and I mailed out 2 things on the weekend. Here are the squares for the 8 inch swap, I used Jessicas square that I tested for her:

It took me a day to make each of the other squares, the basket weave one took me the longest because I had to fiddle with the join method and I ended up using my own sc join instead of what the pattern called for. I also added rounds to make it 8 inches. Same with the flower square, it was supposed to end with just the first white border but I added the other rounds.

I made the tea card in one evening and it opens up to hold a single tea bag in the package inside and the paper ribbon slides off to open the card. I think it looks cute. The bookmark took me longer to do because I got bored with it and let it sit for 2 weeks after I had finished the circles. I finished it yesterday and I really like it. I hope my swap partner does too.

I have the 2nd clue of the Mystery CAL done and I’m still working on Clue 3…and Clue 4 just came out yesterday. I’m going to be behind but that’s ok.

My friend needed a baby hat and beard for a shower gift so I worked on that last month. I couldn’t find a smaller beard pattern so she ended up giving that one to the mom and knitting a smaller beard for the hat. It went over really well at the shower so I’m happy about that.

That’s all for now!

Work in Progress Wednesday

POSTED: 02/11/15 6:31 PM
FILED AS: Crafts, Crochet

Well I didn’t post last week because I hadn’t done anything. I didn’t get my sisters blanket done on time so it’s now a Christmas gift. I screwed up one of the squares and got very frustrated and I haven’t picked it up since. I have done a few other things in the mean time though.

I joined swap-bot and one of the swaps I joined is a 12 inch square swap. I crocheted mine (you could knit or crochet) and I think it turned out great. I started it Friday night and I worked on it on the ferry over and back from Vancouver on Saturday and finished up the border at home that night. At first I wasn’t sure of the colours I had picked to go together but I think it turned out really nice!

I also have started working on the new Crochet Crowd CAL-KAL that Yarnspirations is helping host. The first clue was released yesterday and I’m halfway done the 20 granny squares for it. I’m considering also doing the knitted one too but I don’t have enough yarn unless I go buy more. I know I could go buy more yarn but I can’t buy anything until March now. I spent money at IKEA getting a few things for my mom and myself this weekend so all my extra month for the month is gone XD Here are the colours I picked and the squares I’ve done so far:

Hoping to get the rest of them done in the next day or so. I’m also working on a crochet border for a knit blanket a friend of mine made. She hasn’t crocheted in years so she asked me to help her. I was first going to teach her how to do it herself but she got intimidated and just asked me to do it and she’d pay me. I worked on the single crochet border round last night and I’ll be planning out the shell round tonight when I get home from work. I’m also making her a crocheted baby hat with a detachable beard for a baby shower she’s attending in 2 weeks. Also being paid to make it. I need to print out business cards for her to take with her (she requested some) so I need to buy cards and design one at home. Not enough time to order them from VistaPrint I don’t think.

Work in Progress Wednesday

POSTED: 01/28/15 5:12 PM
FILED AS: Crochet

Last week I didn’t post anything because I forgot XD I did work on stuff last week though! Well…one thing lol. I started and finished a coffee mug sleeve. I decided to make them for my Christmas gift exchange this year and I wanted to test knit one because the pattern uses a new cast on and cast off method that I’ve never done before. It took me a few hours to get the cast on, and I ended up using Hev’s video that she tweeted to me. I had been trying this other video that was so hard for me that I was considering giving up on the pattern and just making a button hole at the end with a seed stitch border. I finally got the project casted on and I did the first pattern repeat before heading to bed that night.

I then started to work on the repeats over the next 2 days. I used worsted weight yarn instead of bulky like the pattern calls for so I decided to do an extra repeat of the pattern so that it would fit around a mug. I shouldn’t have done that, it ends up slipping off all mugs that I put it on now, but like I said before this was a test project.

The cast off was equally as hard as the cast on for me, I had dropped 3 stitches during the grafting so that took me a good 30 minutes to fix and I was still missing one stitch that I finally figured out was the tail end of the yarn that had come undone during the first row so I just improvised. I used the The Kitchener Stitch – Grafting your Knitting video to help me cast off and it was really easy to do. I just had to pay very close attention to which stitch I was on and which needle. The ends didn’t quite match up but I think it was a combination of losing that one stitch and having to salvage 3 other stitches during replacing the stitches on a needle.

I was proud that I got this project finished, a little disappointed that it didn’t fit around the mug snugly but that’s what test projects are all about right?

Work in Progress Wednesday

POSTED: 01/14/15 7:30 PM
FILED AS: Crochet

So I’ve only been working on my sisters blanket this week since it needs to be done by February 10. I still have to do 6 rounds on 11 squares…I hope I can get it done in time. The square going by the pattern works out to be a 9 inch square. I need them to me 12 inches so I added 4 rounds on, 1 single chain round and 3 double crochet rounds. It makes it a little over 12 inches but that’s totally fine with me. The picture on the left is the 9 inch square before I added the extra rows and the one on the right is after the rows have been added 🙂

And here is what I’ve gotten done so far:

I have my work cut out for me that’s for sure. if I can get the 3 rounds of black done on the squares this week then I should be able to finish the last 3 rounds pretty quickly since they’re just double crochet. Then I’ll be doing a single chain join and I have no idea what kind of border to do…maybe just a double crochet border?

Work in Progress Wednesday

POSTED: 01/7/15 4:45 PM
FILED AS: Crafts, Crochet, Cross Stitch

Here’s what I’ve been working on this week!

For my parents 40th wedding anniversary.

Blanket for sister’s birthday

Both of these projects have a finish date that needs to be met…my sisters blanket needs to be completely done (sewn together, weaved in ends, etc) by February 10. My parents cross stitch by June 21. I was supposed to have the blanket done by Christmas but that didn’t happen. I’m crossing my fingers I get everything done on time.