Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Weekend of Crafts @ 1087 S Main

Here is my craft update from what I worked on while I was home last weekend.















I made these fall wreaths for Mom and me. Mom's is the blue one to match her kitchen, and mine is the burgundy w/ the while flower cause I liked the colors together. Unfortunately with finishing up Mom's pillow, getting packed to go and all the car stuff I was still dealing with last week, I only got about 1/3 of Mom's made by Thursday night, so I had to bring it home with the skeins of yarn for mine to finish up with Mom. We took the blue one with us on Saturday morning to work on while we waited for my oil change, and then finished that up and made all of mine on Sunday mornings at Grannie's for breakfast. They don't really take more than 2 hours or so to make on your own, it's amazing how much quicker it goes w/ a 2nd person. One (me) wraps the yarn and ties off the bundles and the other (Mom) ties them onto the hanger and snips the long ends. It works really well, except that I constantly have to stop chatting while I could to 25!
Onto Grannie's pillow. I brought the yarn home thinking I would get a start on it. Even when Mom asked me if I was planning on finishing before Monday I was like "of course not!" I started thinking about starting it on Friday night, and realized that I was short a color of yarn! I had only brought home 4 and needed a 5th. I had given up on even making it while home, until while at Wal-mart w/ Mom asking for her suggestions on a color to use and she suggested the dark purple, so I got it and started working on it a little bit on Saturday night. Not seriously, I did like 3 rounds and then decided to make my Mom a couple of dish cloths instead (no pics were taken, sorry!) Sunday was a fun day at home and after finishing the wreaths @ Grannie's Mom and I went home and while she was working on making some food for that night, I picked up the project and started in on it again around 11:20 a.m. Well by 4:30 I had made amazing progress and had one side completed (the single stripped square side)! I made a comment to Mom before we left for Sam's Club and AJ's (yum!) about how I was hoping to have it finished in time for her to take it to Grannie this week. Mom mentioned how nice it would be to have it finished and take it to her on Monday morning and we would go early for breakfast. I knew Grannie would love this, so I set my mind to finishing it! We got home from the errands, Mom made dinner, I briefly ate and continued working on it until it was finished around 11:30 p.m.



This shot is from around 11:05 p.m., I'd already stitched up one side before I remembered to take a picture.





Yes, that means that in less that 12 hours I crocheted an entire 2 sided 14" pillow. I was cursing myself toward the end of that 2nd pillow and really kinda wished I had gone around it one more time, but the size was OK and I just couldn't bear to keep going, my wrist was killing me even with my brace on.

Here are the finished product for both pillows, both sides :-)

























There are some differences between the 2, I learned from my mistakes on Mom's blue one but they're both great!
The navy blue on Mom's was a different type of yarn (Caron Simply Soft instead of Red Heart) and you can tell that it made the pillow loose it's shape quite a bit. Mom's had also been used for the weekend, so I'm sure that's "reshaped" it a little as well. On the side with the 4 squares, Grannie's individual squares are 1 round larger so that I didn't need to go around them 3 times to get the size right (I'd mis-calculated on Mom's, still worked pretty well considering I was doing this with no pattern!). I would have liked one more row around the outside of that side on Grannie's but I think 2 rows of double crochet might make it too big. I'm thinking about trying a row of double crochet and then a row of single maybe? or 2 rows of half double? I'm not really sure yet, which everyone I make next will be another "test" while I finalize the pattern!
Let me know what you think of my projects! I'd love feedback, and would love to eventually have a pattern to share with those of you who are interested!
I haven't worked on anything since returning from DC, 1. because I've been so exhausted that I haven't even unpacked and 2. I think I'm more productive with projects at home because I have just a set number of things to work on. In DC my options become endless and I can't make up my mind on what I want to do, or something I can't find what I need to make do with what I want to make! Hopefully once we move and I have more storage space for my crafts, I will be more organized and will be able to keep things more organized. Maybe I'll dig that summer blanket out to work on while watching Grey's tonight, or maybe I'll start Mom's blanket, or work on Grannie's blanket, or start a new pillow, or Halloween decorations..............you see my dilemma!

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