52 Week Crochet Challenge Week 7 & Week 8

Week 7: Now that your yarn is nicely organized, make a scrappy yarn project.

Week 8: This week your challenge is to go through any unfinished projects you've had sitting around and either work it or frog it. If you don't have any unfinished projects (really?), then show us what you are working on.

Since I missed out on last weeks challenge due to my not having any internet, I thought I would combine these two weeks into one. I also thought these challenges kinda, sorta fit together anyway.

I had three colors of yarn rolled up in little scrappy balls,

 left over from other projects: white, light pink and dark pink.

So I decided to turn them into a Baby Afghan made from a giant Granny.

I had started it weeks ago, but never finished it.

So here now it is finally done, lol.

Since I don't have any babies around me currently, Pooh Bear had to

model instead.

Here Pooh Bear said he was to tired and just couldn't sit up any longer.

Pooh Bear giving you all the biggest smile he could muster.

As a finish I added a ruffle all the way around,

at which point I actually ran out of scrappy yarn.

Now to find a "Happy Baby" to give it to.

My Hall of Shame Projects

Well my friends you will remember me talking about all my unfinished projects

around here......My Hall of Shame, I call it.

Today I thought I would show you what it consists of.

This is the first Afghan

 This would be Afghan #2

Afghan #3....The Granny Square

Afghan #4......The Ripple

Afghan #5.....plain striped (this is a request)

Afghan #6..... Granny Stripe ala Attic 24

My shawl Elise

What do you think? Is that not a Hall of Shame?

Will they ever be finished?

???????

Grumpy Kitty says:" Please don't look down on my mommy because

she has so many unfinished projects. She can't help herself. If she sees something

new and exciting she has to try it. I have been trying to keep her of Pinterest

so she quits finding all those exciting projects and finishes what

she has started, but to no avail. It is hopeless, I think.

Maybe if you all encouraged her to work on the old stuff first,

maybe I would get a Blankie to sleep and leave my hair on.

So would you please help me out? Pleaassseee!!!"

Reminder: You can all still sign up for my give-away here until Sunday the 16th of March and we will pull a winner on Monday the 17th of March. So please go ahead and enter.

Till next time my friends from my neck of the woods. Have a wonderful sunny and happy weekend!

"Happy Monday" everybody! Hope you all had a wonderful weekend to look back on and also a wonderful Valentines day. The weather is finally improving around here and are we glad to see it. I see Spring in the near future and boy am I looking forward to it. I am so done hibernating and so tired of looking at all the grey. Here a little something to cheer all of us up: A bit of cheerful color

This past week has been a busy and crazy one for me. First I had to work a bunch of extra hours, which isn't a big deal, but was unplanned. Than I must admit, I was quite frustrated because my internet was out most of the time due to the bad weather around here. Living in such a rural area often brings that with it. But the internet is also often the way we stay in touch with people outside of here and I missed that interconnection. Oh well that is how it goes sometime in life, but I was glad I had other outside obligations to keep me busy.

I did manage to get some crocheting related stuff done, something that had been on the back burner for some time:

It started out with looking like this.

Lots of lovely colorful strings.

And turned into a pile of them.

Is it true that you can give them to the 

Birds for nesting?

And now the end result:

A drawer full of nicely sewn in strings.

Don't they look pretty now?

Some have a stack with a different color underneath.

I am so proud of myself of finally getting them done. After all the years of crocheting this is my first granny square afghan. Can you believe it? Well, I have been looking at different methods of joining them together, but I haven't quite decided which one I will use. Another first for me. Will share the outcome with you soon.

Today I am working on organizing my crafts and to see what I have left on yarn, which isn't much at the moment and might require a trip to the crafts store (yay me). But I also want to see what I have on unfinished projects laying around here, and yes there are quite a few. I have promised myself I will finish them, one at a time, as soon as possible. Maybe if I stayed of of Pinterest long enough to see new things I want to make, it would be very helpful. What do you think? Would that help?

Now I bit you all farewell until next time from my neck of the woods. Have a lovely day everybody!

A Snowy Sunday

Happy Sunday to you All!

Thought I would pop by and tell you what I have been up to this weekend. At the moment it is snowing out, big white fluffy flakes. It is very pretty, but for our neck of the woods not so good. Living in such a rural area brings challenges with it. We don't have a snow or salt truck around here clearing the roads, so they become icy and slick in a hurry. We are supposed to get 2 to 3 inches, which isn't really a lot, but enough to make it bad on all the rural roads. Hope it doesn't get to bad, as I am supposed to go to work tonight.

Sorry the pictures are not the best, but you get the idea.

Lots more on the ground since these were taken an hour ago.

It's also Super Bowl Sunday. As I am not a football fan, it doesn't affect me to much, but I already heard a few wives complaining about what's to come. Are you a fan? Will you be watching? And will you do something crafty while doing so?

I also baked some fresh bread today. Started the dough yesterday and let it sit overnight. Oh it came out so good. Had me a fresh slice a little while ago, with some fresh butter and a couple of cheesy eggs. So yummy!

Doesn't that look good?

It's a Rye/Wheat combination.

As for my afternoon I will be spending it watching a couple of German movies and sewing in threads for a granny square blanket that has been on the back burner for some time and really, really needs to finally be finished. Sewing in the thread is always my least favorite of things to do, and I therefor procrastinate doing so. But no more. I really need to finish some projects that have been sitting here for a while, so I can show them off to you all.

Otherwise it is Downton Abbey night and I will be working on my shawl, hopefully finishing it. Working on the border now, so it shouldn't be to much more. Looking forward to my favorite show to see what happens next.

That's it for my little report for today. Hope you all stay nice, warm and snugly! Till next time......

A new Beginning & While I am watching Downton Abbey, Part 1

     The new year 2014 has arrived and with that I thought it would be a good time to restart my blog.

     Sadly 2013 was not a good year for me, neither personal, health wise or professionally. For that reason blogging and crafting took a back seat.

     Finally over the last few weeks the urge to return to crafting has grabbed me ever so slowly and we will make a fresh start and hope that 2014 will be a wonderfully productive and fun year.

     Hope yours will be the Best as well!!!


     Over a snowed in weekend in December 2013 I went into a knitting and looming frenzy to make a few Christmas presents. The following is the result of it. All in all I made 8 hats that weekend, not all pictured. They were well received on Christmas morning and are now keeping a few heads and ears warm with this cold flash we are currently having.

     Last night one of my favorite shows returned here in the states with it's premier. Many of you are probably enjoying this show as well. From what I hear there are groups out there with people who are watching this show together and or crafting together. How Fun! Which show am I talking about, you ask? Well it is "Downton Abbey" of course. Are you following this story as well? 

     Since I live in a rather rural area and there aren't any groups I could join, I made the decision to make one crochet project just during those evenings watching. I picked a colorful afghan, as I feel the need for some color in this dreary time of year. Here now the beginning of it from last night:

Wonder where this colorful project will lead me. New colors to come during my next viewing session. Looking forward to seeing this project grow as I am being transported to a different time.


     Well now that is it from my neck of the woods today. Hope to see you all soon again. Have a wonderful and day everyone!

"RED" is In

Wow, it's already Wednesday again, or over the Hump day as some call it. 

Right now I am working on a few different projects. A lot of it has to do with the way I work. I have three patients I take care of. I am a caregiver for Cancer or Alzheimer patients. One I stay with every night, seven days a week. The next one I have three days a week for a few hours during the day and the last one for a couple of hours about four days a week. So you see it is kind of crazy, but I love what I do.

This schedule in general does not leave much time for my favorite past time crocheting or crafting, but I work on my things whenever I can sneak in a little time during working hours or when I do have some time actually at home.

On my night time shift I am currently working on an afghan for myself. Most of the things I make I always either give away or sell at craft shows. So it is kind of nice to actually be making something I will be able to enjoy. I thought I would give you all a little preview on how that is moving along. It isn't a fancy afghan, but a simple ripple in red and white.

It's slow going with just a few rows every night, but it's coming along and will look pretty in my home pretty soon I hope.

Now I am wishing you all a wonderful day and I will see you all soon again!

Tuesday Question & another Square

Good Morning Friends! In my neck of the woods it has been raining buckets. Not that I like it much, but we so badly need it. Hopefully we won't get the icy precipitation that might pass over us or not. A repeat after last week would not be to much fun.


Now to our weekly Tuesday Question. Honestly I am running out of Questions for the moment. Who would have thought? So friends, please come and help me out. Someone got to have a question we could all work on the answers for. Please e-mail me at erika@erikascraftscorner.com and share the question with us. Hope to hear from many of you. Thanks!

So for today I will ask you all, what do you love or not love about Pinterest? Who uses it for inspiration? And how much time do you spend looking at crafts?


As for my square this week, I found it on Pinterest and really liked it, but when I tried to follow the link for the pattern, it send me to ravelry. Usually you can find the pattern there, but not this time. So I went ahead and blew up the picture so I could see it in better view and went ahead with creating it. I think it came out ok, but I would say it wasn't the correct pattern, but close enough.

The yarn is a 4-ply cotton in peach

(looks pink on the picture)

I do think the whole in the middle got a little to big.

I used 8 beginning chains,

probably should have used 6 instead.

I left the yarn connected as I have decided to continue for more

rounds and turning it into a square doily.

Will show you when it's finished.

Alright, that's it from me for today. Hope you all stop by for the Questions and otherwise enjoy the rest of your day. Until soon!

The Tuesday Question & a new Square

Good Morning my lovely Friends. Tuesday has come around again and with it the "Tuesday Question". I am hoping to hear some answer from you all. The Information can be good for all of us. Thanks!

As I am planning on joining a few craft shows this spring and summer, I am interested to find out how many of you have participated in craft shows and what kind of tips and tricks you have learned. What do I need to look out for? Have you noticed what kind of crafts sell the best? How important is location? How important is the set up?

Please share your experiences with the rest of us!


Today's Square: It's a Heart within a Square and crocheted in two different colors. Hope you like it.

Talk to you all again soon. Happy Tuesday!

Erika

YES ...... It is FRIDAY

Yayyyy my friends, it is finally Friday! Do I hear a resounding Cheer? Yes you say. 

So what have I been up to? Well you could say I have been very, very busy. Sorry to say it hasn't been on the crochet front. At the moment I have three patients who have been needing my full attention. Than we add church activities and helping someone move. So with that said, here is a little valentines project I am working on when time permits:

Uups, it is sideways.

Wonder why that keeps happening to me

as I always turn them around

in the editor?

What do you think it is? Any guesses?

Spring ..... I think it is in the air. Over the last few days I have been noticing some little flowers trying to peak through the dirt. Just love, love, love those signs of warmer days ahead. Don't you?

Growing wild in the garden

 Couldn't resist taking a few home

And here one more look at what 

I am making

Now I am off to go do some of that lovely laundry, dust the furniture and all those other nice things we women have to do when we get some time off.

Hope all you lovely Ladies have a wonderful weekend! What is on your needles at this time?

Until soon, Erika

Something New

Today seems to be the day when I run into one issue after another. When I came home from work this morning and after I crabbed a cup of Java, I sat down in front of my lap top and was fixing to do a little browsing on Facebook and Pinterest. But guess what, nothing happened. My Internet wasn't working. Couldn't figure out why it just wouldn't come on, since the little green light on my router was blinking just fine and saying it was working. So I kept on checking the settings, etc. Still, nothing. Well come to find out, apparently my Kittie cat walked over my keyboard and turned of the Internet connection button. It took me forever to figure that out, but glad I finally did. And than some other little issues kept coming up, but hopefully they are all resolved for now. Hope it stays that way.

Over the last couple of weeks I treated myself to some new books. Even so you can find so many patterns or ideas on Pinterest these days, I still like to look at a book, check out techniques and have the reference handy when needed.

For some reason two of the pictures I took won't let me turn them so I could display them here better, but I think you can still see what they are:

I bought this book because I am planning 

on doing a little sewing in the near future.

Stayed tuned for that.

Are these dolls not just to cute?

Love this book on Borders.

It is one of my weaknesses and 

will help me immensely.

Love all the different techniques 

in this one.

Broomsticks Lace

Something I haven't tried yet either.

How about yourself?

See you all later!

Erika