Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Jump Rope 4 Heart

It's that time again. Gotta love school fundraisers.

If anyone is interested in helping out or donating -
I've set up a webpage for Amber.

Ambi's
Jump Rope 4 Heart


~
Thank you.

~

Friday, January 22, 2010

I've been conspiring with Jimbo

You read that right - conspiring, I tell ya!

But what about?
About a specialty hook.

I gotta tell you guys that I just LOVE working with jimbo.
He's such an awesome person.

I contacted him about creating a
specialty hook to work thru fabric.

It is such a pain to try and crochet thru a tri folded dishtowel! It's a pain to try to crochet thru fleece without something to make the holes! I don't want to pay for an edgerdy-doo or a skip blade.

So - we conspired and concocted and
came up with some GREAT ideas!

We came up with a super pointy (and I mean hurt yourself pointy and put a cover over it pointy) hook that tapers so you can push it gently thru the fabric like a knife thru softened butter. He sent me the proto-type (laugh - I'm just being fancy-schmancy here) of the hook and it was a wonderful surprise!

Instead of making the hook from bamboo knitting needles or a chopstick he made me a 'special' jimbo style hook as a thank you for working with him. I told ya - he's AWESOME!

So, I tried it out, made my recommendations and had to send it back. It's going to be a well traveled (9,000 miles) hook by the time it comes home!

The whole reason for the knitting needles and the chopstick is simply cost effectiveness for you guys. Instead of whittling down a chunk of wood (which I'm sure he would) if you place an order for a fancy one, by using the knitting needles he can make them much more quickly and therefore,
cost effective.

The hooks that he'll make from the chopsticks
will go to his FARA fund.

So, I'll post a pic of my awesome new specialty hook when it finds it's way back home! Till then -
my dishtowels are waiting.

~

Thursday, January 14, 2010

The Crochet Cafe is OPEN!

I've been busy this afternoon working on a new forum.
It's not actually my forum - I'm just helping out and setting it up.


Crochet Cafe

I had recently joined a CAL that was even more recently closed and deleted. Most people moved over to Ravelry. It's under the same name if you didn't realize where it went.

Coffee House on Ravelry

I guess continuing the conversation must've been a great idea since more than one person wanted to.

I LOVE Yuku forums. They're just great. I host a Health Support Group there to. They have smilies and it integrates with photobucket and lots of pretty backgrounds. I don't really care for the look or layout of Ravelry Groups or even Yahoo Groups for that matter.

Anyways - all this typing and I still haven't told you what I'm writing about. The new group called The Crochet Cafe is open! There's no members there yet but I hope it takes off. It's open to everyone and anyone that shares a love of yarn and chatting with friends.

Come check it out! Chit chat and hang out for a while.
Share your latest projects.

Hopefully, we'll get enough members to maybe do CALS and SWAPS and fun stuff like that. That's still far, far away but for now grab a cup of coffee or tea and hang out for a while. All you need is a yuku account to post (but not to lurk) and they only ask for a name, email and password.


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Tuesday, January 12, 2010

I think I'm going to submit a pattern.....finally



The model is my Bailey. There's a whole story behind him. Basically, I got him at 5 1/2 months old. He was a product of a puppy mill. Believe it or not he's supposed to be a chiwawa. He almost has the same body shape as Poppy from Beverly Hills Chiwawa but he's 12 pounds!
He certainly has the temperament.

Ambi calls him her GermChi because he looks like a miniature German Shepherd.

Anyways - this sweater has taken close to a dozen attempts to get JUST RIGHT. I've written up the pattern so that it's made in a solid piece staring at the neck and working down to the ribbed edging. The sleeves are crocheted directly onto the sweater. I'm just having a heck of a time writing them out. A full blown migraine with a trip to the
docs office might have something to do with that.

I have several vests that I've made him that he really enjoys that I think I'm going to write the pattern up for and add to my free pattern collection. I was thinking etsy maybe, but it's my first dog sweaters and the only size adjustments really come from changing hook and yarns.

Not sure what I'm going to do there.

I gotta tell you - he LOVES his sweaters. He's so spoiled!

It's going to be very hard to give him to Mom
when we go home to visit over Spring Break.

Heartbreaking, I tell ya, BUT:

He's for my Mama and she's already in love with his total cuteness. Big sad eyes and a personality to love.

He's such a love puppy - so affectionate.

Wow, and I thought this post would be about the sweater -
not the dog. LOLOLOL


Till next time ...

~

Monday, January 4, 2010

Just me


Just a Christmas pic I came across.
I love my antlers!
Posted by Picasa

Happy New Year!






I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season this year.

I stopped making resolutions a long time ago -
I never seemed to keep any that I made.

What's on the hook for this year?

Right now I have an Aran ghan for Dad. I finally got around to making it. YAY!!! It was supposed to be done for Christmas but I only have about a 1/3 of it finished.
All those post sts wear on my hands.

I also have a Joann's Sensations Boucle rectangle ghan on the hook for Mom for her bday in Feb. I LOVE the color striping in the Sensations yarns. This has to be my most favorite yarn to work with right now.
I know, I know - my favs keep changing.

I did a bunch of ornaments for Christmas but forgot to take pics of most of them. So, for those of you that come for the eye candy (which I've been hopelessly behind on posting) I'll share what few pics I did take.

Saturday, January 2, 2010

Problem with Blog

It's been brought to my attention that there's been some problems accessing ICD.
I have no idea what the problem is or how to fix it.
There were a few days when I couldn't get on it either.

I hope Blogger clears it up soon.


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