Letting Go

At some point in time, I have tried just about every craft out there.  So, consequently, I have supplies for all those things.  I have 2 or 3 different bow makers; punch embroidery needles and thread, cross stitch supplies, beads galore including beading looms, candy molds. We found 6 different glue guns. Lots of stuff.  And we won't even get into the yarn and crochet patterns that live here.
I have moved some of this stuff around for 4 or 5 times.  Time to Let Go!
We are having a garage sale the first of October, so I have been going thru all this stuff and am letting a lot of it go away.  I've even let some of the crochet patterns go.  My yarn stash is actually pretty small at this point.  But I have purged it a couple of times before.
So, if you're in Modesto on 10/1 or 10/2 and need a gas dryer, small freezer, 19" TV or a Bedazzler, come on by.

Facebook Frustration

I delayed joining Facebook for a really long time!  After about the hundredth time of my granddaughter saying to me that I could see pics of this or that on her Facebook page, I finally joined.  And in the large scheme of FB, I am a very small clog with only about 100 friends, mostly crochet related and some family.  I don't play games, or collect roses, etc.  I do try to keep up with birthdays, because I believe every birthday is a blessing from God and the older we get the more in your face that reality becomes.
But, Facebook has never been the pleasure that everyone else seems to enjoy.  It takes forever to move around; when I try to look at pics, it frequently freezes up.  I get this constant security warning about using secure access.  I am constantly cleaning out my browser to try to make things faster, to no avail. 
Is it just me?  My computer is a couple of years old, but it has a Pentium processor and runs on Windows XP, so I don't think that is the problem.
Oh well.  I may just give up FB and go back to crocheting and reading.

More than one way to skin a cat

You may remember my obsession 2 or 3 years ago with the Diamond Patch Sweater.  I fell in love with this pattern.  Problem--I don't knit!!  I contacted the designer, Jill Vosberg, who is also a crocheter, but she had not done anything similar in crochet.  OK--maybe I can replicate this look in crochet.  Not--
So, after a long time, a lot of frustration, numerous swatches that looked nothing like the pattern, I was about to give up on ever having this sweater. 
I still really want this sweater--but I really hate knitting so my skills are not very good.  As my granddaughter would say, I put on my big girl pants and asked Kitty if she would do it for me.  She said yes, so I got the yarn last year at the Oakland Fiber Festival.  It is a beautiful mercerized cotton from Crystal Palace yarns.  OK!  Now we're cooking with gas.
Kitty delivered it to me about a month ago.  It has crochet trim so she left the finishing for me to do.  A lot of yarn left.  I was surprised, hoping that I was going to have enough.  When I tried it on, I knew why.  The pattern had an option for a cropped length or a tunic length.  I was thinking tunic and actually got cropped.  If I were in my 20's, this might be OK.  In my 60"s, not so much.  I did not care for the ribbing called for around the neck and sleeves so I crocheted several rows of blo around the neck, and then repeated that on the sleeves.  Using my ripple afghan skills, I used this same method to increase the length to cover my little pot belly.

What do you think?  I have my sweater, I'm very happy.  I wore it to a doctors appointment this week and a woman stopped me in the lobby of the medical building to ask me if I had made it.  She told me she thought it was spectacular.  I do, too.

Crochet Partners First Comfortghan

In February, 2008, one of the members of Crochet Partners, lost her son in a school shooting here on the central coast of California.  I knew her from another project we had worked on, so I collected squares and we sent a comfortghan to her.  We knew it would never replace her son, but hoped it would help ease her pain.
From this incident, the comfortghan project was born.  We make our squares, mail them off to an assembler, who puts them together.  She then mails it to a person who is hurting. 
How many of us ever give any thought to that person after we do our small part?
Sometimes the hurting goes on for years, as in Dawn's case.  The young man who killed her son in now on trial.  It took 3 and 1/2 years to get to this point.  Now, she has to relive the nightmare again every day of the trial. I am asking you, my friends, to send out a request to your higher power, to hold and protect Dawn and her family at this time.  Let's not forget the pain doesn't stop with the mailing of an afghan!
The Ventura County Star  has covered every day of the trial for over 6 weeks now.  To learn more, search Larry King.

Look who lives at our house!

Penny was gifted a kit for Winnie the Pooh a couple of years ago.  She asked me to crochet it for her as she didn't think her skills were up to the challenge.  I'm sure she could have done it, but I agreed.  Well, Pooh sat around for a while as I finished other works in progress.  Finally, ready to start.  Get it all out of the bag it came in.  No pattern!  It is only the yarn.  No pattern!  Did I mention? no pattern!  Well, it's a Mary Maxim kit, so I get on the phone to Mary Maxim.  They no longer carry it, but one of their wonderful customer service reps helped me find a source.  Got it ordered.  Yea!  Well, by the time it arrived, I'm knee deep in another project, so the pattern is put in a Ziploc bag with the yarn.  All ready to go when I'm finished. 
Last fall, we decided to move.  And when we were packing, we used yarn and future projects to fill in all kinds of boxes.  Sounded like a good idea at the time.  Actually, if you don't need the yarn right away, it's a great idea.  Fills in all the nooks and crannies in boxes.  But, after we get moved, I decide to start on Pooh, cuz I need a break from all the moving. 
You guessed it!  We can't find him.  He is still in some box in our garage.  Penny is beginning to wonder if she will ever get this bear to add to her collection.  She never said so, but I'm sure the thought crossed her mind that maybe she should have tried to do it herself.
Well, we finally found Winnie.  He had some very interesting construction techniques.  Instead of sewing on the arms, legs, muzzle and ears, They are all crocheted in.  No matter what a kid did to this bear, he will not loose an arm or leg.  Using this method, you have to stuff as you go so the bigger he gets, the more awkward he is to work on.  But all's well that ends well. .  And here he is, sitting in our living room.

Warm, Fuzzy, Feeling

I popped into Ravelry today after not having been there for a while.  After I answered a message from a lady about a blanket I made for Project Linus without a pattern, for whatever reason, I looked at my blanket I designed for Project Linus and is available for free on their website,  http://www.projectlinus.org/.  Anyway, I have been collecting pictures that other people have made of my patterns and when I took a look at the ones made from the PL pattern, 3 of 4 were made and donated to Project Linus!  How great is that?   Just gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling that people are using my pattern and donating to Project Linus.  My take along project  right now is that very pattern.  Very easy repeat, so can talk and crochet at the same time.

New Fair-Last Fair

As anyone who knows me will attest,  I'm a big fan and supporter of local county fairs.  I've been involved one way or another for around 30 years.  I started entering things in the Orange County, CA fair back in the 80's, lots of crochet, some other things as well.  In fact, for a couple of years I actually did crochet demos in the Home Arts Building.  When I moved to No Calif in 2000, the first year I just went to the fair.  After that I started entering in the Alameda County Fair.  A couple of years I actually entered in Alameda, Contra Costa, and San Mateo counties.  Our crochet guild chapter has had a table at San Mateo for the last 2 years. 
So, when we moved inland, one of the first things I did was find out about the local fair.  I was really excited to see there were about 20 categories for crochet and only about 8 for knit.  So used to it being the other way around.  Well, I entered 6 items in the fair. 
On the day of delivery, I met the lady in charge of the Home Arts area.  She was not very friendly or talkative, did not seem at all interested in who I am or my experience.  Told me if I wanted to work for the fair to fill out an application and that I could not enter in the area where I work.  Huh?  Julie in San Mateo was so excited that I wanted to volunteer to set up the crochet and knit displays.  And I was allowed to enter my stuff.  I wasn't there to set up until after the judging was done, so I surely don't see any conflict.  Oh well!  Different strokes for different folks, as the old song goes.
Fair day- first thing we did (Penny, Kitty, & me) is find the exhibit building so we can see how I did.  I was very disappointed to see so few handcrafted items.  Very few afghans, quilts, even sewn items were scarce.  Penny only found one very tiny cross stitch item. There was an over abundance of fresh produce and photographs.
This is where I kinda lost it.  The items had obviously been displayed by the guys from the tractor pull!  There were some very attractive pieces there in addition to my own very lovely items, but you sure wouldn't know that by looking at the displays.  Looked like so much laundry hanging out to dry.  Then the doilies are all folded and piled up.
My Dots N Dashes afghan was hung upside down and inside out. ( Yes, I did turn it over!) There was no way you could tell that each color in the Color Me afghan is in the shape of a crayon.  The thing that makes the Crazy Eights Vest so special is the shape, but it is just thrown over a rail.  And tell me you recognize the doily as being the same as the one in the header for my blog. Anyway, here are the pics I took at this fair.
In case you couldn't tell, I was very disappointed in my fair experience this year.  I'm only a couple of hours from the CA State Fair, so I may follow my friends Kathy's lead and put my energy there next year.