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Displaying 1 - 10 of 15 entries.

what’s blooming in my garden right now

  • Posted on June 28, 2016 at 5:53 pm

i’ve spent most of the month working in my garden instead of on dolls or crafts. it’s been a major overhaul, since the garden was badly overrun with grass and other perennial weeds, and had choked out most of my flowers. a lot of work, roundup and dozens of bags of mulch later it is getting under control and my roses are flourishing again. most of the rest of the plants had to be replaced so it will be a while before i have anything to show for them. today i took some quick cellphone snaps of some of the prettier roses in my garden.

never alone roses
What's blooming in my garden right now
What's blooming in my garden right now

campfire roses
What's blooming in my garden right now
What's blooming in my garden right now
and some older pink roses that for living trellises for my clematis’
What's blooming in my garden right now
What's blooming in my garden right now

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that’s what faith can do

  • Posted on June 8, 2016 at 12:24 pm

“What Faith Can Do”

Everybody falls sometimes
Gotta find the strength to rise
From the ashes
And make a new beginning

Anyone can feel the ache
You think it’s more than you can take
But you’re stronger
Stronger than you know

Don’t you give up now
The sun will soon be shining
You gotta face the clouds
To find the silver lining

I’ve seen dreams that move the mountains
Hope that doesn’t ever end
Even when the sky is falling
I’ve seen miracles just happen
Silent prayers get answered
Broken hearts become brand new
That’s what faith can do

It doesn’t matter what you’ve heard
Impossible is not a word
It’s just a reason
For someone not to try

Everybody’s scared to death
When they decide to take that step
Out on the water
It’ll be alright

Life is so much more
Than what your eyes are seeing
You will find your way
If you keep believing

I’ve seen dreams that move the mountains
Hope that doesn’t ever end
Even when the sky is falling
I’ve seen miracles just happen
Silent prayers get answered
Broken hearts become brand new
That’s what faith can do

Overcome the odds
You don’t have a chance
(That’s what faith can do)
When the world says you can’t
It’ll tell you that you can

I’ve seen dreams that move the mountains
Hope that doesn’t ever end
Even when the sky is falling
And I’ve seen miracles just happen
Silent prayers get answered
Broken hearts become brand new
That’s what faith can do
That’s what faith can do

Even if you fall sometimes
You will have the strength to rise
kutless

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a long haul but i’m finally done….maybe

  • Posted on May 20, 2016 at 1:30 pm

i’ve been working on this afghan for a couple of years, including a stop when i ran out of yarn and had to order more! i really wanted to do at least one blanket in a really fine scale, so this is done in cobweb weight yarn using a 1mm hook.
Cobweb weight afghan
now i’m just trying to decide whether it is done and can be blocked as is, or do i need a border to really make it look finished.

what do you think?

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realfee houndstooth dress

  • Posted on May 19, 2016 at 5:23 pm

i saw a picture of a black and white herringbone knit blanket with a red ruffle and it instantly inspired me to make a dress using the same colorway. i decided to do the bodice and sleeves in solid red since the increases in the houndstooth would look kind of “smooshy” and then do the skirt the plaid and add a narrow band of paid near the cuffs to tie it together. doing the ruffle on the skirt the same as the neck/sleeve ruffles caused the skirt to curl too much so i ripped it out and did a mock pleat using a 3×2 rib instead…. much better!

the bodice and sleeves are knit on 1.5mm needles. i switched to 1.75 mm when i started the houndstooth skirt, to add fullness and counteract the natural tightness of the slip stitch pattern.

Herringbone dress
i had all 24 ends sewn in and the sleeve seam sewn, when i suddenly decided i didn’t like the cuffs after all.. too floofy! so i carefully cut the right one off and re-knit it in the round, since i didn’t want to even try and unstitch that whole seam without wrecking it. now i like it much better. i will be doing the same to the second sleeve.
Re-knit cuffs
and here it is with both cuffs re-done. the pile of yarn at the top is all the bits of cut off/unravelled yarn from the original cuffs.

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may cal complete!

  • Posted on May 18, 2016 at 8:24 am

i finished up my may cal. it went together pretty fast in spite of being laceweight, probably because i loved the colors and couldn’t quit working on it.
here is meg lying under it for scale on my bed.
May Cal done
can you tell those are some of my favorite colors?

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do you crochet when you travel?

  • Posted on May 12, 2016 at 7:19 am

i am a somewhat obsessive crafter, so i always have a bag of stitching to take with me on a moments notice. we went on a day trip to jasper and banff and i took along my current cal to work on in the car. here we are stopped at abraham lake where i a took a “beach shot” on the shore line. i love the contrast of the bright clear colors against the misty background

At the beach

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a new cal for may

  • Posted on May 11, 2016 at 4:22 pm

just in case i didn’t have enough blankets for my girls, i decided to make another one for the may cal. i’m using three colors of malbrigo laceweight from eat sleep knit – azul bolito (dark blue),jewel blue (light blue), and sauterne (yellow) i just loved these three colors together so couldn’t resist. it took a lot of crocheting and frogging, but finally i decided on the design. here are all the centers done and a few of them put together.
New kal/cal this one is for my dolls
i love the way the colors go together. what do you think?

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we interrupt your crafting….

  • Posted on May 8, 2016 at 12:05 pm

there has been a horrible wildfire raging in the fort mcmurray area. almost 90,000 people havve been evacuated and are waiting to find out if they have homes to go back to. included in that number are my brother and sister in law who don’t have to wait to find out… they already know that their home is one of the over 2000 structures that has gone up in flames so far. we would have helped out anyway, but with that personal connection i wanted to do something just a bit more special. so along with other things i made up a few crocheted bunnies to send to children affected by the fire.
here’s the first
Bunny for fort Mac evacuee

and all three together
3 bunnies ready to go

if you want to help you can give to the red cross or samaritans purse and designate it for the wildfire relief
the alberta and canadian govts are matching all donations made to the red cross by canadians through the month of may, so your gift will multiply!

thanks

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all part of the process

  • Posted on April 24, 2016 at 11:54 am

i decided to knit my realfees some striped sweaters, and crochet coordinating funky hats. i wanted something that would be more suitable for the boys, or at least unisex. i tried, as much as possible, to carry the ends along so i’d have less to sew in, but i still ended up with this!
What was I thinking?

after sewing in all the ends i ended up with a pile of yarn bits almost as big as the pile of sweaters/hats

The finished piles

i still have to add snaps and make some pants to go with them so my dolls aren’t indecently exposed 😉 but then i’ll take more pictures and eventually one of each color will end up in my etsy store.

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cal dyed and blocking

  • Posted on March 14, 2016 at 9:26 pm

i mixed about three different shades of blue in a dye pot. no idea of how much. just kept adding till i got a deep royal. i started with dylon ocean (light blue) and blue jean (dark blue) then added a whole bunch of blue food coloring to brighten it up. white vinegar and salt as mordants. vinegar because i was dying wool, and salt because the dylon dye called for it. simmered it on the stove for about 45 min. periodically pulling the swatch out to check the color. then rinsed thoroughly in cold water once i was done. the result was that the red turned to a gorgeous deep plum color and even the purply black seems more purple, so i ended up with a deep tone on tone purple. it was even better than i had hoped. i thought it would be purple with black but the black seems to have lightened up and the toning is much more subtle. overall i’m thrilled and hope my niece will like it too.

Dyed and blocking

when i took this picture i realized i had made a mistake down in the first pattern repeat so had to very carefully clip it out res-stitch it. now i’m really glad i made a swatch and had a bit of extra yarn in the right color!

Close-up of new color
this was as close as i could get to the new color.it’s showing up a little redder than it should be, i just couldn’t get the true color. it is about that dark , but is a tone on tone blackbery purple. the pattern really shows up now and i love it!

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