Pop 'N Love

Yesterday I finally made it over to Norman C. Sleezer Youth Home to drop off the things I wanted to donate. It wasn't bitterly cold out so that helped the process a lot.


Among the crocheted items that I left at their new home is the purple scarf you see in three different shades of Pop 'N Yarn brand yarn. I LOVE that yarn! It feels thicker than other 4-ply worsted weight yarns and the colors are so deep. Love it! I've already started another scarf in Royal Blue.


Back to the donations: I had collected a variety of items from around the house and bought a few extra things such as shampoo, conditioner when I went shopping for my own needs.



The receptionist filled out a donations intake form. She asked for my name and address and I named the things that I brought while she wrote them down.


I shared notebooks, pens, pencils, postcards, construction paper, some bookmarks that I'd made, stickers, suckers, shampoo & conditioner samples, pocket combs, green nail polish, some of my surplus emery boards. One of the ladies in the reception area said that they are going to love me. Wow! I remember being a teenage girl. I clocked countless hours doing my hair and nails. I do have lots of hair stuff from my cosmetology school days around here that I don't use, hmmm.


Last night I felt inspired enough by the experience and abundance of stuff to start another box of donations for the same place. So far there's a sweater and a pair of shoes that I've never worn anywhere. I'll donate more hair scrunchies.

Click on the pic to get a better view of the stuff. A black loom-knit hat, fleece scarf, crochet headbands, a couple of wrist purses, four pairs of pants, a top and a soft grey sweater. Important for me to keep some sort of log so I don't imagine that I still have the items and go looking for them in the house again.















I hope that colorful blanket (double-stranded, double crochet) provides the girls with warmth and cheer.

I was on another introvert vacation last week. Here's a pile of the stuff that I worked on finishing off. Have woven in the ends on several of the things. I think the teal & white blanket might be the only thing there that I might not donate. We'll see. I feel ready to start another scrap blanket.













This is the double-stranded half double crochet poncho that I impulsively decided to start making to fit a toddler. I slip-stitched the seams together. I'm going to go around the neckline and bottom in pink Caron Simply Soft yarn and add a millefiore flower embellishment.

Good crochet news

This is my second post for today. I just wanted to show you the blankets that I crocheted that were delivered to Stephenson Nursing Center yesterday.



Diane H. braved the cold and snow on my behalf to make the actual delivery. She was one of the women who responded to the message I posted on Freeport Freecycle Café seeking delivery service for charity items. I'm so glad she did because the only barrier between the residents getting the blankets was my own aversion to being out in the painful cold more than absolutely necessary.



I did go out yesterday to shovel the snow from the last snowfall and that experience just reinfornced my aversion to the unbelievable cold. Right now it is 6 degrees Fahrenheit,
-14.44 Celcius, outside and we are under a winter storm warning. Winter "officially" begins on Sunday, December 21st. Sure.

Throughout this winter I will continue to make items to be donated in the community. I feel grateful to have all of this yarn around me and the ability to help myself and others stay warm.

Still hooked

I'm sort of in shock at the moment. Came on to make a new post and saw that I needed to moderate a comment written by the author of Hooked On Murder, Betty Hechtman, which is a book that I mentioned in my last post. (You can read the comment in the previous post.) I was reading more it in the bathroom earlier this morning! Due to my curiosity, I had to skip ahead to find out who the killer is. That won't ruin the story for me. I'm more interested in the gripping crochet parts than anything else. I love reading about crochet almost as much as I like actually doing it. I still have to read about how the group's blanket turns out in the story. I feel like starting another blanket myself.

Here are pics of the slippers I made. As you can see, they start off as rectangles that are gathered at the toe. Whip-stitched the back seams then single crocheted a cuff around.











They're half wool and half acrylic. I put them through a hot water laundering with a few other clothing articles, then dried them in the dryer. I applied puff paint to the bottoms to prevent the slippers from slippin' on the floor while I wear them. Has worked so far. I've worn them a lot since they were ready to be worn. I'm wearing them right now.

I'm almost done with an off-white scarf that I've been crocheting. I've also have started knitting one in thick yarn, but that will take me longer to accomplish.

More glorious crochet

Decided to make my own blog post so I can go back to checking out other crochet and knitting blogs.



At left you see the two light teal dishcloths that I took my time crocheting using a half double crochet + single crochet stitch pattern. A simple pattern that gives a nice texture. I used Red Heart Soft and that yarn feels glorious. My idea is to sell the washcloths with a bar of soap for added value.



I have been reading a lot as usual. I have three books in rotation that I'm reading hands-on and one of the fiction novels is Hooked on Murder: A Crochet Mystery by Betty Hechtman. The man character is 48-year-old Molly Pink who initially gets detained by the police after literally stepping on the body of the woman who led the book's crochet group. It's funnier than I thought it would be. I do wish I could have gotten it on audiobook through the library so I can crochet while listening to it.

http://www.amazon.com/Hooked-Murder-Crochet-Betty-Hechtman/dp/0425221253

My current audiobook is Dead to the World by Charlaine Harris.

I've been wondering what crocheters and knitters in Canada have been making to survive the cold. I have been delaying getting out of bed these days just to postpone being cold for a little longer.



Yesterday I finished the grey slippers that I started months ago when I was on a slipper binge. They are quadruple-stranded; two strands of acrylic and two strands of wool. My feet have been freezing so badly that I have to warm them up several times a day so I thought the wool would help insulate them. I'll show you the slippers in progress and in action in my next post.






This is the teal & white double crochet blanket that I've been working on. The one pound skeins have been going a long way. So glad that I won't have so many ends to weave in after the crocheting is done.

I have more crochet news, but I'll save it for my next post.

Maintaining comfort with lots & lots of yarn

It was asked on Rockford Crochet where we keep our stash. Decided that it would be easier to show pics. What you see is some of my yarn, not all of it because some of it is sorted into homemade kits. Most of it is in the meditation room in the tall bookcases you see below. They used to have doors on them, but I took them off so I can more easily stare at my yarn. It is very much like having a mini yarn shop in my home and it is so fun to go in there to shop! A very cheery room.

The white and off-white yarns in the hanging organizers live in the office now. I had to bring in my yarn from the enclosed porch because of the cold meaning that I don't want to go out there when I want to make a selection.

That's my Sierra Leone, Africa orphanage box on the desk next to my covered sewing machine. Accumulating and making items to send will be an ongoing project. I bought a box of 60 Band-Aids. Will remember to take some out and put them in that box since even basic medical supplies are greatly in need in such places. I happened to have some unopened hair beads that I don't think I'll use along with some non-crochet baby clothes that had been for my current stuffed animals and childhood dolls.

The first yarn I'd bought after purchasing the four trash bags full (as seen in a previous post) was 3 skeins of Red Heart Spring Green which is the same shade as Caron Simply Soft Brites Limelight. I got it from Walmart. I got really hungry for green last winter so I'm glad that they had it in stock. They only had 4 skeins of it. I did buy a pound of black yarn too.

Right now around here it even looks like "a lot" of yarn to me, but I'd still be willing to take more yarn in if anyone needs to rehome some. Has to do with maintaining my psychological comfort level so having a lot of yarn around me as much as possible is terribly important. Oh, and course it will be used too.

I usually work on crochet projects in my bedroom, the living room, porch, and office. I usually take a project with me when I go out. Takes the anger out of having to wait.

I have taken projects with me to the bathroom and worked on them there . . . Don't worry, I launder/sanitize the items that I donate to charity. Washing helps soften acrylic fabric and removes manufacturing oils, body oils, and whatever other substances may have collected on in-progress projects.

I think I've crocheted in the basement while waiting for my laundry to finish it's business. Yes, I'm pretty sure I've done it there. I'm sure I will have done it all over the house someday.

I like to write a lot so I tend to alternate between writing in a notebook or on the computer and crocheting. Recently cleared the pile of yarn and papers that accumulated on my desk.

My current project which I started the day before yesterday: Cherry Chip dishcloths. Popped into my head to make sets of them for people who have to rebuild their lives due to fires or other unexpected circumstances. Whoever needs 'em, basically. I'm on my fourth and last one for this set.

I'm probably going to switch over to making a navy blue scarf that will go with a navy blue hat that I've already made with the intention of donating it. Need something that doesn't require a lot of concentration while I watch movies on the computer.

I've also been working on a teal & white blanket. It's so nice. I'm leaning toward selling it because I'm sure someone would love it and give me money for it, but we'll see what I do when I do it.

Will be posting again soon!

While I was gone

This is the scarf & hat set that I made for my male eating buddy while I was on my recent introvert vacation.



I chose Red Heart brand acrylic yarn in Coffee and Aran Fleck. The hat is double stranded for extra warmth. I used every stitch except for triple crochet.



That is the first set I'd made. Kinda strange that I'd never made a coordinating set unless I have and just can't remember.

Now I'm on a roll with crocheting matching sets. I've been making a yellow child's scarf to go with the hat I made because I felt like using the yellow yarn. After I make that I'm going to make a blanket and then another blanket after that.