Presto! New shirt and super cute!

I used one of my fancy seams for it!

Fancy!

Last night I played around with some of my yoyo-ideas from the tutorial..I made a tiiiiiny yoyo and hung it on a chain.

Then I got carried away and made tiiiiny flowers too. One on a chain and a few glued to ring blanks!

SO CUTE! My dd has already claimed this one!

These will go in my store soon. You will be able to get the tiny flowers for on a necklace ($5), or  a ring ($7), or I can make a few without any jump-rings or anything (10 for $10).  All free shipping! That way you can figure out what you want to do with it. Maybe hang them on some earrings with a few cute beads?

squeeeee

Anyway, they will go in the store next week along with a skinny ball chain for you to buy along side if you don’t have one at home!
Hope you like them and maybe even buy one! It would really make my day! THE RINGS ARE UP!

I have used extra thick yarn so you can see it better. The yarn is from Nicole at Darn good yarn! Wonderful wool I used to make a cute infinity scarf for my daughter! (pattern on DGY)

To the instructions, Batman!

First make a loop with your yarn tail around your fingers. make sure the short end goes UNDER the long end, like so:

now take your crochet hook and stick it through the loop you made, holding on to the “joint” of the loop with your thumb and forefinger of your left hand (your right hand if you are crocheting left-handed)

Grab the yarn and draw up a loop through the “knot”

Make two more chain stitches

now go ahead and make 15 dc in the ring, making sure the threads won’t “un-corss” (Can you see how they are crossed in the previous picture? The tail has to stay going through the loop! )

join the ring of DC to the ch 2 of the beginning with a slip stitch and cut the thread, leaving a tail long enough to sew it to another yoyo:

Alternatively you could crochet the yoyo’s together as you go, but since I am making them as I go through the leftovers, I would have a bunch of one colour at one time and I want it nice and mixed up, so this is the way to go for me….

Now turn your yoyo over and pull on the tail end sticking out in the middle to cinch the hole closed:

Sew in that tail end and presto! DONE!

You can also sew in both ends and use it as you would the little round felt circles for penny rugs! Or just as a little toss piece for a table decoration, Or string them up in spaces and make a curtain out of it, or sew them around fabric for a table cloth edging, make them from sewing thread and thread them on ribbon for a cute necklace!.. there are thousand and one uses for those cute little polka dots!

Go and find out what you could use them for!

I’m putting in a slideshow of the instruction photos.. let me know if that helps…

ETA: I figured a few tutorials for making Double Crochet stitches would be nice as well, so here are a few links.

http://crochet.about.com/library/bldoublecrochet.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1txJLRPfuE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=875obcDOLgY

So. In honour of all my wonderful Subscribers, I have invented the follower appreciation day. I hold it every so often, when the whim strikes me. This year I have decided to share YOU. One of your links posted on my blog, for everyone to see and follow and read… how does that sound?

Give me the links to your FB pages, or blogs, or any ONE other link you want to share and I will share them here and on my FB page as well as tweet the blog post! (Please only ONE link per person)

I will post the write up next Wednesday (Feb. 29, LEAPDAY), so you all will have some time to decide what link you would like me to feature and I will have time to check them all, make sure they work and write it all up nicely!

And a pretty flower as a thank you! You all rock!

THANK YOU ALL!

Until then I have this new project to keep me occupied!

I know we all have these tiny odd balls of leftovers around the house. I can’t bring myself to throw them out, but they are not really enough to “do” anything with…

Oddballs

Usually I make ric rac trim out of them. Here is some hanging on my lamp until I have cards made up again to wind them on.

Tentacles!

So I was sitting here the other night, playing around and after I ran out of yarn for the charity blanket. I was thinking of granny squares and if it would have been better to make a bunch of squares for the blanket, instead of going for the one giant one…. then I though well why not make granny daughters? You need even less yarn for one of those….that way I can make more use of the little bits I have… so while musing like this, I remembered something called a yoyo a friend of mine made years ago.

I made a few and fell in love!

Yes, I know there are tons of leftover projects like the brand new and ever-so-popular hexipuff blanket (<—- really cute, but not really me) or the sock yarn blankets (<– also really pretty, but soooo not me!)  that you knit little squares for. But none of them really spoke to me. I didn’t like the hexipuffs, because they were only tied together as I understand it. So you will have holes in the blanket. I’m also not a fan of having things a gazillion other people have LOL (one of the reasons I haven’t read “The help”.. everybody is reading it) The sock yarn blankets are nice. Not sure why I never got into knitting those. I have really no idea….I guess the reason might be that I don’t have enough sock yarn leftovers. I have different sized yarn left and want to use them all. This way I can.

Now, this yoyo thing is not a new idea either. I am aware that a bunch of other people probably made these and have them at home.. but it’s POLKA DOTS! How can I resist something spotted? I can’t that’s that!
This is not going to be a charity project. I am making them out of my private stash of leftover yarns. Yep, I’m totally selfish on this one!

I start by making a “knot” in the yarn and working a ch2 and 15 dc in the ring of the knot. That way I can really cinch the centre tight and won’t have holes. Then I leave a long-ish tail to sew them together and presto!

Storing the yoyo's in a Mason Jar

Happy!

I make the yoyo’s always the same. knot, ch2, 15dc, but I use all the leftover, machine-washable yarns I have at hand and matching hooks. So they turn out different sizes. Can’t wait to see the finished result! I have a bit of a problem making up my mind if I want them sewn together through both loops, or just through the back loop, which would leave a little “ring” around the yoyo…. aaahhh decision, decisions!

I will keep you posted on this one!

Maybe a regular Monday update for it?  What say you?

I made a little tutorial for the knotted beginning of these little guys.. just in case you want to yoyo-along! I will put it all together and upload the pictures tomorrow…

]]> http://ramblingdesign.wordpress.com/2012/02/20/new-projects/feed/ 1 ramblingdesigns DSC05442 tentacles jar yoyos in jar http://ramblingdesign.wordpress.com/2012/02/19/sunday-puzzle-3/ http://ramblingdesign.wordpress.com/2012/02/19/sunday-puzzle-3/#comments Sun, 19 Feb 2012 14:59:50 +0000 ramblingdesigns http://ramblingdesign.wordpress.com/?p=3498 ]]> Here is a belated Valentines for you! <3

This little guy will go in my shop for a while…

There is only one of these right now.. so snap it up!

Still Life With Murder by P.B. Ryan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a $0.99 book on B&N. I bought it on a gift card I got! YAYYY.  I pulled it ahead of the line again, since I am really into murder mysteries right now! I did not expect much from a 99 cent book, but BOY did I get a surprise!

When I first started this book, I was not sure if I was going to finish it. It gave me a few “What the heck?” moments.
But by the time I hit the third chapter, I was hooked!
I didn’t have the luxury of just reading it through in one all nighter, since I had a full calendar this week, but I totally could have!

I simply adore Nell, the heroine of the book! She is street-smart in a time where that was not seemly for a woman. What I really love about it, is that the author absolutely made it believable! Sometimes these “period” books with witty, smart women as main characters usually are  a bit like take a modern woman and just put her in hoop skirts. Still life with Murder is absolutely NOT like that! Nell tries very hard to be the respectable governess and keep her past well hidden, but it’s her past, that helps her get along in this murder mystery. I also love that she doesn’t just “solve” the murder on her own. It’s a combination of people and clues that help her figure it all out in the end.

I really liked the tension between Nell and William as well. At first I was a bit disappointed they did not kiss in the end, but now thinking about it, this is the only way it could have gone! It is PERFECT this way!

I have to admit that some of the description of the violence of war and the tortures did not sit well with me. I just don’t respond well to it. So if you are even more squeamish then me, you may want to skip these parts.. I just have too vivid an imagination, not to be bothered by it. I was so glad that the abuse Nell suffered at the hands of her boyfriend was not closer described! I could not have handled that!

Apart from these little things, I enjoyed the book very much!

I am soooooo looking forward to reading the next book in this series! This definitely made it to the top of my “must buy first” list!

I would absolutely recommend this book, without hesitation! Four stars, without blinking an eye!

Way to go and thank you so much P.B. Ryan for a very entertaining reading adventure! You certainly made my list of must read authors!

This is a $0.99 book on B&N right now, if you’re interested!

View all my reviews

Week 6: I have four hats done and I am officially out of yarn for the blanket.. (it is lap robe size right now)

Nothing in my diminished charity stash fits with it as of now…. So, back to knitting more hats, but I’m nearly at a point where I don’t have yarn for that any more either… Will be raiding Craigslist these coming weeks!

I told you about finding a few pictures in the dark deep cobwebbed recesses of my hard drive the other day and wanted to show them to you by and by… so I thought why not have some fun with this and give you something to go with your Sunday coffee?

You can thank me later! HAHAHhahaha….

So here is the first one, rather easy, so you can get used to it slowly…

We didn’t have this much snow this year. Well we did, but only for two days… this is from a few years back. But pretty I thought and fitting to the time of year.