I'm Jumping In

I've decided to go ahead and join the declutter challenge mentioned in my previous post.  If anybody else wants to join in go ahead to Hoof 'n Barrel where I heard about it first or head directly over to the Single Saver blog.  
Around here we have a donation truck that stops by every so often where you can donate items to various causes (veterans, lupus, or the kidney foundation).  You place a bag of items out by your front door, mailbox, garage door or whatever and some time during the scheduled pick up day they come and whisk the bag away leaving you a brand new bag and a thank you  note. Since the goal is to donate 366 items in one year, I'm aiming for 1 item per day.  Which meant that when the truck pulled up to my house this morning I intended to have at least 8 items to give away to the truck.  In my house, 8 items really weren't hard to find and I easily met my goal.  Yay for progress! 

While I'm saving my sanity by clearing some of the clutter in my house I decided to also try to save what's left of my old, worn out furniture and crochet some coasters for the coffee table and end tables.

The picture came out a little dark but I'm to lazy today to try and fix it in photoshop.  You'll just have to imagine it a little brighter.

I had previously thought of buying new coasters until I found out that a set of four, simple, cork coasters cost around $7.50.   Needless to say I was a little appalled by that.  I'm not really a cheapskate or anything but, yeah, there was no way I was going to spend that much money for a few chunks of cork board.  I decided to crochet the coasters instead of simply cutting out cork board circles because I thought it would be a lot prettier and it was a way to use some some of my spare cotton yarn. 

I used regular old Lily Sugar and Cream Cotton yarn in ecru and warm brown.  As I mentioned, I used scrap that I had laying around but I priced them at my local Meijer and brand new they only cost about $1.79 for a 2 oz. skein.  I got 4 coasters and a matching dishcloth out of about 3/4 of a single skein of yarn.  SO, I got all of that for less than $2 and far less than the $7.50 for a new set of store bought coasters.  It pays to make your own.  There are alot of free patterns in the world for crochet coasters so I won't bother typing this one out here.  The basics are just a simple crochet circle to the size you want and then I added a very easy picot edge.  Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy. 

Little Flower Headband

Oldest just got a brand new yellow dress from my MIL which she loves but she had nothing to go with it, including nothing to put in her hair.   So she asked me to make her a headband for it.   This is that headband.

For the headband itself I used the Jordyn's Headband pattern from crochetville.  Except I used a G (6) and I omitted the last row in the pattern to make a slightly skinnier headband.

For the flower, I substituted the one from the original pattern with a flower pattern from Mr. Funky's Super Crochet Wonderful Book and again used the size G hook and the small flower pattern. 

Tomorrow we have big plans to attend the fiber festival in town and the arts and crafts show that is going on at the same time.   Should be fun and exciting.  I'm going to try to remember to take my camera so I can snap some pictures to share later. 

Really we should be getting much needed projects done around the house instead of galavanting off to the fiber festival.   Younger Brother's graduation is in 2 weeks and we still haven't finished painting, still don't have the house straightened up, still don't have the weeds pulled out of the flower beds, still don't have the carpets pulled up yet and the new floors down, still don't have the grill set up, still don't have the charitable stuff taken to the church shelter.  We DO have one of the freezers cleaned out (we were able to find families in need in the area and donated over 100 lbs of farm meat, vegetables and fruit to them which is great but it took awhile) and we were finally able to get the new dishwasher installed, thank you DH and we have finished some of the housework.  So much to do, so little time.  DH only has one weekend off work before the graduation so it looks like we'll be asking friends for help with some of these projects.  

"The real things haven't changed. It is still best to be honest and truthful; to make the most of what we have; to be happy with simple pleasures; and have courage when things go wrong."

-Laura Ingalls Wilder

Crochet preemie hat

This is another preemie hat I just recently finished for the local Children's Hospital.   The pattern is very easy, it only calls for single crochets and chain stitches.  So it's well suited for beginners.   I found the hat pattern here.

The swirly topper I found here.

But the hat could be finished with a tassle or pompoms or nothing at all. 

I Still Exist

I haven't posted in awhile but to be honest, I haven't had anything to post about.   I was suffering from project overload and took a bit of a break from crafting for a couple of days.   I started back up this afternoon though and am currently working on another preemie hat to be sent with the previous preemie hat (I had originally planned to send that out awhile back but the snow and bad weather has prevented me from venturing out any more than necessary).

And in other news, we've finally ordered the last of the seeds.  We were collaborating with my FIL to find some more interesting, exciting things to plant this spring.   So far we've ordered Cherokee White Eagle dent corn, which is a really deep blue color kernel.  The neat thing about this particular type of corn is that some people claim they can see a white eagle image in the corn kernels.   It sounded to intriguing to pass up.  We also ordered Daymon Morgan's Kentucky Butcher corn which has huge, multicolored ears and stalks that can get up to 18ft. high!   

However, out of all the seeds we ordered, I'm most excited about the cotton.   Yes, you read that right, cotton.  In Ohio.   We purchased Erlene's Green Cotton.    I was reluctant because I was under the impression that you cannot grow cotton as far north as Ohio.   BUT, my FIL reassured me that he has indeed grown cotton here in ohio.   Apparently you can grow cotton as long as it has one of the shorter (relatively speaking) growing season.  

I figured that, living in the midwest, I would just have to accept the fact that I wouldn't be spinning cotton unless I purchased cotton roving.  So you can imagine my delight when I find out that it can be done.   If all goes well, by this time next year I will have spun a bit of my very own homegrown cotton fiber. 

Micro-preemie hat

I made this cute micro-preemie hat for the local Children's Hospital.  

It's made with 100% cotton, Lily Sugar n' cream yarn.

I tested it's fit on Youngest's teddy bear, "Mr. Cuddlebear"

The pattern is simple:

but I'm having a little technical difficulty with the website so I'll have to post the link to it later.

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EDIT:  Technical problems resolved...here's the link to the hats.

 

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Haiti

Unless you have been living under a rock (in which case you probably would not end up on here anyways) you've heard about the earthquake and subsequent devastation in Haiti.  
The Haitian people are in bad need of help and support.   In order to try and get the word out there, I've included a list of ways that you can help the relief effort.
1. An easy way to help the relief effort is to text the word Haiti on your mobile phone to 9099.  Doing that automatically sends $10 to the American Red Cross to be used for Haiti.
2. You can visist the American Red Cross website at http://www.redcross.org/.  There is information on their website about donating and volunteering. 
3. You can also check out the Salvation Army website at www.salvationarmyusa.org/usn/www_usn_2.nsf
4. Head to your church and pray.  Also many churches are taking up donations for Haitian relief as well and some are recruiting people to travel to Haiti to help.  

If we all pitch in and do what we can then we can make a huge difference to the people of Haiti.

Introduction

I'm a 27 year old wife and mother. I love funny movies and I hate laundry. I'm also just one woman among many who has a passion for creating. I craft for fun and profit. I craft in an effort to make a positive difference in the world.
Thus begins my foray into the world of blogging. I hope to share my love of crafts, my insight in crafting professionally, and most of all my take on craftivism with anyone who is willing to listen.