Another year older...

...another year wiser?  That certainly remains to be seen, but I hope I'm getting wiser as the years move on.

Along with my own birthday this week, my first baby turned 17 the day me.  I am just astonished by how someone as seemingly young as I could be his mother.  Eh bien, je l'aime.

He'll clobber me for posting these pics, but he loves cookie cakes.  Unfortunately, the kind they had at the store were covered in frosting, which he detests.  So he ended up scraping off the macaroni colored icing on this beauty.  Believe it or not, this was the best cookie cake we could find.  It put me in a sugar coma for hours.

----------------------------------------

I can't believe March is just around the corner and this is my first blog post since New Year's.  Oh la la.  I am just too dang busy.

Here are a few things that have been happening in my life:

• work
• more work
• being swamped at work
• being overwhelmed at work

                  {NO PHOTOS AVAILABLE}

• my baby girl turning 13

• driving 7 hours to Chicago to see EXO with said 13-year-old daughter

• climbing to the top of the Willis Tower in Chicago with son and daughter

• turning 21

• crocheting many things and finishing basically nothing

• having Mark McKinney like my Tweet!
• I'm crushing your head!  :)

==========================
I'm sure I'm leaving something out, but maybe I'll get around to blogging about it in June.

Thank you for reading.  I must go to bed now before my eyelids drag my body to the ground.

Love,

--J

---------------------------------------------------

PEACE.

                                   LOVE.

                                                                        EXO.

Happy 2016!

Hello, dear readers!

Sitting here looking out at my snow-covered lavender field and happy to be on winter vacation, I am in a reflective mood.  2015 was a year of ups and downs for me, as I'm sure it was for lots of people, but I am very much looking forward to what 2016 has to offer.

One creative project I am looking forward to making is a Temperature Blanket.  This is an unfortunate name, in my opinion, so I will likely end up calling it something else.  The basic concept is every day, I will crochet a row according to what the high temperature of the day is.  I may end up adding a color or two, but here is a quick chart I made:

So, for the next 10 days, the high temperature here will be in the 30's.  That means my first 10 rows of 2016 will be Lavender Blue.  I have joined a Facebook group to crochet along with others, and many people are using lots more colors.  I think I will stick with just these.  I intentionally chose more purples and greens because those are my favorite hues. I hope to not have too many rows of red, but I guess we will see next summer what will happen.

One problem is going to be making sure this baby doesn't get too big, but with 366 rows,  how can it not?  Perhaps I will make two afghans, one from January 1-June 30 and the other from July 1-December 31.  This might be a good way to tell just how quickly climate change is taking place.  ;)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'd like to wish health, happiness, good fortune, and joy to you and your family!  Happy 2016!

Ozzie wants you to have an excellent 2016!

*********************************************************************************

PEACE.

                    LOVE.

                                        KINDNESS.

                                                                     COMPASSION.

                                                                                                       CREATIVITY.
                                                                                                                 
                                                                                                                                        COLOR.


*********************************************************************************

GO, ROYALS!

I'm still rooting for the Kansas City Royals, my hometown team.  I know I'm a Jenny Come Lately to this Royals team and I know I don't attend (m)any games, but I hope to change that next season.  My brother and his wife are huge fans, as well as many of my Facebook friends.  I love seeing pictures of them enjoying Royals' games at Kauffman Stadium.

My fair weather fandom doesn't matter during the next several days because our boys in blue have made it into the World Series yet again, and they even won the first game in 14 innings very early this morning.  During that game, I couldn't stand how close the score was and I needed something to do with my hands.  So I went in search of blue yarn and I decided to make a crocheted cowl.  I used Lion Brand's 45-minute cowl pattern, but I used Homespun yarn instead of Amazing.  The reason for that is I already have cowls with nearly every color of Amazing, and I had some seriously gorgeous Homespun yarn just calling out my name to be made into something #Royal blue.  I used Montana Sky and Windsor held together and crocheted with a Q-size hook (16 mm).  One way to ensure your crochet project whips up nicely is to use a huge hook.

I really like how it turned out.  How about you?  I wore it at school today because the heat in our 53 year-old building is having a hard time finding the rooms in my hallway, but that just makes for an exciting day.

If tonight's game is close, I will most likely make some fingerless gloves to go along with my Royal blue cowl.

**

I remember when the Royals won the World Series in 1985.  Thirty years ago, I was in high school, um, I mean Kindergarten--LOL!  It was a surreal experience then and it is electrifying living through it again.  I'd say thirty years is enough time to go without a World Series win.  Let's bring it back home again, lads!

**

Go, Royals!  You are the scrappiest team in the major league.  Your hearts are in the right place and you make us Kansas Citians proud!


#ForeverRoyal  #TaketheCrown  #World Series  #KansasCityRoyals



***


PEACE.



                                        LOVE.




                                                                             KANSAS CITY ROYALS!






***

The longest lasting crochet project I've ever done (but now it's finished!)

I am a slow crocheter.  I will admit that.  I also run out of time to work on crochet projects because of pesky things like work and family obligations (just kidding!).  It usually takes me quite a bit of time to finish crochet projects, especially afghans.  But the crocheted afghan I have just finished takes the cake.

It is the Americana Afghan, and the pattern can be found here.  I bookmarked the pattern on June 25, 2014, in the midst of World Cup fever.  I was feeling patriotic due to the USA soccer team's victories and it was summer vacation, so I started making the afghan.  Besides, the yarn colors are gorgeous (it is made with Heartland yarn in Acadia, Olympic, and Redwood),  and I wanted to make something impressive.  Little did I know it would take me as long as it has.

The length of this project is not caused at all by a bad pattern; the pattern is great and pretty straight forward.  I made quite a few mistakes in the beginning and ended up having to start again from scratch just a few months ago.  The main problem I had at the beginning was that I was not vigilant in counting my rows.  The pattern says to make each square around 12 inches, which I did, but I realized what I thought was 12 inches after one square was not exactly the same as another square.  So instead, when I restarted the afghan from scratch, I decided to make each square 60 rows tall. Each square was supposed to end up being identical to one another in width and length.

Of course, that isn't always the case, as you can see by comparing each square.  That meant when I went to put them all together, I had a hard time lining up the seams.  I had to take the seams out a few times because they were too wonky, but I finally made peace with the quirky nature of imperfection.

If you make things by hand yourself, you might think like I do and see all the mistakes you've made and where you could have done a better job.  But I hope that when people see my afghan, they will see all the hard work that I put into it and find any irregularities charming.  :)

I will say the stars were a blast to make, although weaving in the ends was a bit of a pain.

I still have to sew in the loose ends that I've hidden behind the afghan in the photos.  That will take about an hour.  But I have my lovely Netflix to keep me company, particularly the kiwi show The Almighty Johnsons.  I have fallen in love with New Zealand accents and each of the Johnson brothers.  Check it out at the Almighty Johnsons website.

I had Storm and Ozzie keep me company as well this morning.

***

PEACE.

                                           LOVE.

                                                                                   AMERICANA.




and a bonus:

***
PEACE.

                                           LOVE.

                                                                                     DEAN O'GORMAN.

***



Ta.

Happy Labor Day

It is the end of Labor Day Monday here in the U.S., a well-deserved day off work and one last chance to enjoy summer.

It rained this morning, which made my heart sing.  It has been hot and dry here for days and even though we experienced nothing like the drought they've experienced in the western states, our plants desperately needed a nice, tall drink.  Our rain gauge shows two inches, but I don't know what the official count was.  That is two inches of lovely nourishment my poor recent lavender transplants surely enjoyed.

**
I tried a new recipe today, one I found on Pinterest.  They are taco pizza rolls from the Old El Paso website.   Here is what the original looks like:

And here is what mine looked like:

Not quite the same, but not entirely too bad.  I should have used thin pizza crust because the thick stuff was a bit too doughy, and this is coming from a girl who LOVES bread.

**
On the positive side, I cut my new soaps today.  Frankincense & Myrrh smells like a gift made for a god (ha ha, get it?).  And Orange Clove & Cinnamon smells like fall, which is right around the corner.  Seriously, they smell great and they will be available on my Etsy site on October 5, 2015.

**
And the last thing on my agenda today was to work on what is perhaps the longest-lasting crocheted afghan project ever undertaken, my Americana afghan.  When (If) I finally finish it, I will write an entire blog entry about it, but here is a sneak peek.  I would say I am now 90% finished.  That could be wishful thinking, but I am definitely more finished with it now than I ever have been.

***
Oh, and the best news of the day is that season 2 of Poldark has begun shooting in Cornwall, England!  I imagine I won't get to see the broadcast until next summer at the earliest.  But I won't think about that.  Here is my beloved (LOL) Aidan Turner as Ross Poldark.  Oh la la!  I wish he were holding a scythe!  ;)

***
Thank you yet again for reading.  You're a star!

PEACE


                                                 LOVE


                                                                                         POLDARK!  POLDARK!  POLDARK!

Speed Crochet!

I  would like  to say that I can crochet at top speeds, but only in my dreams can I crochet a 5-petal flower in 17 seconds.  Here is what that dream looks like:

I am making several crocheted flowers in various shades of purple because I plan on making an original kitchen curtain.  If only I could make flowers this quickly, I might actually get my curtain done sometime this century!  ;)



Paix.
                      Amour.

                                              Fleurs.

Gray fox amigurumi

It has been a tough week for me at work.  I sat in on three teacher interviews, we had our second annual French National Honor Society induction ceremony, and I came down with sinus/allergy issues to top it all off.  I took today off to recover and rest, and I am glad I did.

I was able to finish this sweet little gray fox amigurumi that my daughter requested.  I got the pattern from Pepika's Etsy store, and it is adorable.  Initially, I had a few problems figuring out how the head was made which resulted in this little guy's head being a bit too big for his body.  But that's OK.  I still think he is precious and so does my daughter.

 

What project are you working on?

Paz.

J

Updated pictures of Shirley the Turtle

I fixed Shirley's hat and I'm deciding on whether or not to make her a cute little scarf.  In the meantime, I took her picture on our back deck.  It was really windy and I'm glad she didn't fall off.  I put a little purple washcloth underneath her to keep her clean.  What do you think of her?

If you would like to try to crochet a sweet little turtle of your own, find this very well-written, easy to follow pattern by Pepika at her Etsy shop here.

National Crochet Month Post #14--Shirley the Turtle Amigurumi

I am going to be very tired tomorrow morning, but I was determined to finish this sweet little turtle amigurumi today.  At 11:01 p.m., I have 59 minutes left in #NationalCrochetMonth here in the central time zone.

I made this sweet turtle for my cousins Janet and Ellie in honor of their mom Shirley.  They asked me to make a turtle as a mascot for their Walk to End Alzheimer's team Slowly But Shirley.  Aunt Shirley was a lovely woman and she is greatly missed by her family.  My dad is now experiencing dementia-like symptoms and I would love to see more awareness of brain related maladies.

I still have to tweak her hat a bit and take a picture of her with natural light, but I wanted to make sure I got this posted today.  What do you think of her?

I bought the pattern for Shirley from www.pepika.com.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It's been a lot of fun sharing various crochet projects with you.  I wish I had been able to post more, but I will continue to do so even though National Crochet Month has ended.

Have a wonderful day!

-J

National Crochet Month Post #13--Amigurumi Woodland Birds

Spring has sprung here in my part of the world.  How is the weather like where you are?  We still have cold nights and some chilly days, but you can tell that warmer weather is nearly here.

One of the best things about Spring is the plethora of birds that show up at the feeder on our deck and in our yard.  Of course, we have our fair share of winter birds too.

But soon we will have yellow finches and red finches too.  While we are waiting for those lovely creatures, here are a few birds I have crocheted myself.  I used Stacey Trock's pattern from her Craftsy class called Woodland Animals.  They are super easy to make and so darn cute too!

This one was made with baby-friendly eyes.  

I love my sweet little birds. Happy crocheting!

#NationalCrochetMonth