Lost in my WIP!

In a previous post I mentioned that we were expecting a baby. So today I would like to show you my current project for my baby. 

This is by no means a bragging post but a post about how much I need to be more organized and a call to action to myself. I'll show you a pick here:

So this is my baby blanket that I am working on. Now, the only problem is I can't remember what pattern I chose or what hook I was using.  Now my blanket is "doing the wave" as I continue to work on it. I do know that I got really tired of cutting off and having my tails all hanging around waiting for me to finally get them tucked in. You can't tell in these pictures but I attempted to carry my yarn to the next row but was not very successful!

So what is all my crying about? Well it's really about a post from winkieflash @ creative being.com and what she uses to keep her projects in working order. She created a tag that you can tie to your project that includes a project name, yarn being used, hook size, who the project is for, and room for notes like date you started the project. If you would like to look at her tags click on her name above and you can even print out a copy of her tags with her own design.

I will be giving this a serious try in the next few days and will even have a tutorial on how to make your own. This is one of my Crochet New Years Resolutions for 2014. So if you are interested in learning subscribe to my blog to receive a notifications of when I write this post. 

Until next time,  Happy Crocheting!

My mood blanket(s) 2014

So one of my things to do on my Bucket List this year is to get into making Blankets/Lapghans/Afghans. So when I came across this post  I was really excited and found it fairly manageable. You can also join the facebook fan page and post your pics. There are over 2200 members as of the last count.

Original pic from IG mummy_stacey

In this year-round challenge you get to choose if you want to make a block/square per day to end up with 365 blocks, or if you want to make one block per week to end up with 52 blocks. I thought "hey I can do that". I started to maybe make a blanket for the living room, then I changed my mind and thought I should make one for my daughter, then I remembered that I had twin girls. I decided to make two blankets at a time. 

So this is week two and this is my progress on these blankets. I went with the traditional granny square because I came across some photos on the web and they looked amazing. I started out by crocheting 3 rows and boy were they fast. Then I started thinking about a post I read were someone suggested making the squares bigger so that you end up with a bigger blanket. So I did. I crocheted two more rows to the squares I had already done but was amazed at how huge they were. I then went ahead and took a measurement. The bigger squares now measured 8". 

I still have to add a boarder to all the squares and join them,  but I'm still debating whether to do it in Beige, Off White, or  White. I also had to choose in what way I could join them. I have not decided yet.

I would like to know what you think would be the best way to join these lovely? Leave your comment below and let me know which technique you prefer to use for joining and what color I should use. Until next time!

My crochet new years resolutions.

So today is the end of the first week of the new year and I have yet to post anywhere My crochet new years resolutions. So I thought that here on my blog would be a great place to start. The following is my list of crochet resolutions.
1. - Blog at least twice a month
2. - Keep journal of Blog topics
3. - Keep posting Cast Off Crew Videos once a week
4. - Come up with at least 6 new patterns.
5. - Finish doing the 27 stitch tutorial videos series.
6. - Stay current on Linky Blogs.
7. - Promote my business through Facebook and other social media.
8. - Revamp Website.
9. - Keep a journal of projects you want to work on with picture and yarn ideas
10. - Start my Etsy shop
11. - Do more Craft Fairs
12. - Organize pics of crochet items 13. - Start/join a crochet group near you.
14. - Make project tags for new projects that you start.
15. - Organize yarn
16. - Organize crochet and knitting tools
17. - Come up with new earring tutorials
18. - Start a free crochet class at the local library!
19. - Organize ravelry page and use more consistently.
Some of them I feel are a little overwhelming but I feel energized by the thought of actually trying to focus on my passion. So my question to you is: Did you write down your Crochet Resolutions for this year? If you have I encourage you to share your list by commenting down below. If you have not, why not start now. Even if you don't have a full list, pick 3 or 4 (or more) things that you would like to accomplish this year and share them with me!

Color My Way

For most of you who are surfing the web you probably already know about Pinterest. You enjoy seeing crocheted creations that have lots of color, but do you ever wonder how they come about deciding what colors to choose. I  do! This is one of my biggest stumbling blocks. I love color but when it come to deciding what color combos will look good together I go blank. So I started looking up color combos. I found this site were they have color combo cards made out. Here is a link to www.colorcombo.com here you can sign up for a free account, click on a particular color and have many choices of color combo cards to choose from, and even search their color combo library. They also have an option to download a pdf of all the color cards in your particular choice. Here is a pic of their webpage.

This is not the only options here are a couple more:

 Adobe Kuler,  Color Scheme Designer

With adobekuler.com you have the option to really customize your color choice to match any swatch. You also have the option to choose if you want to see it in Analogous, monochromatic, triad, complementary, compound, and shades. You can really have fun and experiment with color here.

Colorschemedesigner.com is another site to play with color and color combinations. This site is somewhat a little more technical than others, but still pretty fun.

Two of my overall favorites are designseeds.com and letschipit.com. Designseeds.com. is not only beautiful but inspirational and I could be there all day pining away all the color combos I find. On this site you can easily pin any color combo that you come across to your pinterest board. Here is a pic.

Another similar site to designseeds is letschipit.com. Here you also have chip boards but the beauty of it all is that you can pick from any image on the web, your computer, or picture you may have on hand. All you have to do is scan in the picture and upload it. It is awesome to create this chip boards. Go on take a look and create some. Here are some of my chipboards I have created.

Well I will stop for now and let you get started on creating color combos. Good Luck!

Baby On The Brain! ;)

    Hello Everyone, I just wanted to show you some of my baby projects that I have worked on in the past and recently. As you may or may not know, I am expecting a baby girl come late March/early April, and I have crocheted baby items on the brain. Don't worry I won't be posting any pregnancy updates or baby pictures(that is until the baby arrives). I do however feel that a lot of crocheters tend to crochet based on what is going on in their lives, or because of the people who surround them. So today I will be showing you some of my work that I crocheted in 2013 and some of the work for this year. The first couple of pieces I want to show you are some baby sets I made back in the summer of 2013. These were made because I just thought they were so darn cute and I was helping out a friend with her shop and she would let me display items there to sell. 

This is a minion baby set that I crocheted for a customer. It was so fun but the diaper was a bit difficult because I was trying to adjust a pattern to fit an older baby per the customer's request.

This two mickey mouse baby sets were made without a pattern. I just crocheted and adjusted as I went. Yes they are different sizes but that was on purpose because the customer wanted them that way.

 

These five lovely sets were so much fun and supper easy. The pamper covers for all five were made using a free pattern from horsetownhooker on Ravelry.com and the flower on the pink set was from bobwilson123.com. The shoes on the teal and lime green set is a free pattern by Myshelle Cole on Ravelry.com. The baby shoes in blue were made using a free pattern from Ravelry.com. All baby beanies were all made with no pattern, just your basic beanie measurements that I tried to follow from this web page.

I also made these converse, and yellow flower booties. The converse baby shoes were a little tricky because I didn't have sport weight or thinner yarn but overall they were fairly easy to crochet.

 This baby aviator hat I made with no pattern  because it looked like a very easy hat that I could make. All I did was look at a picture on the web and mimic the look of it. I think the hardest part was picking out the right buttons. 

The baby capelet was a dream to crochet. It was a last minute gift for a family member and I'm glad I tried it. It had been on my bucket list to do for such a long time. The only down side for all of you is that this pattern is not offered anymore from Annie's Scrap Crochet Club. They closed the club down because not enough people were signed up. However I did find a seller on ebay that was selling the physical pattern page that came in the monthly kit. 

Do you have Blog Button?

I came across this wonderful blog tutorial on how to make a blog button. Now I had been craving a blog button for a while now, and just didn't understand how in the world to go about creating one. Well DP Nguyen from http://www.mypregnancybaby.com gave me what I needed. She has a few how to tutorials for bloggers.

Now I do have to say that if you are not familiar with how to work with html code it can be a little scary. I do encourage you to try it. The most you can lose is a little of your time. I thought I would give it a shot since I also think working with HTML code is scary.

Needless to say I forged ahead and after a few errors I finally got my button to look like I wanted it to and include the code for you to copy to your blog or website. If you look to your right that is where you will find them but if you still don't know what I am talking about, here is what mine ended up looking like.

Watermarking your photos

So I was at a point in my craft when I had accumulated a lot of pictures of my work. I was at the verge of paying someone to create a logo and a watermark.

At the last minute I decided to do a little research and see just how hard it was to create a watermark first. I found a few videos on how to create your own watermark but the best help I found was this blog, http://temptingthyme.com/2013/03/25/how-to-create-a-transparent-watermark/.

It went step by step and so easy to follow that I immediately started creating my own. I will try to post them here so your can see all the ones I created in a matter of a few minutes. The first 6 watermarks I made using Picmonkey.com and the last 2 I created with Ribbet.com. Because the watermarks are transparent and white I went ahead and edited them again with paint so that you would be able to see them clearly, but originally the background is white(transparent actually).

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 These are some of the few watermarks that I made for the holidays. I still have a few holidays to work out but I am really loving it.

 I will soon post a video tutorial on how I did my watermarks. A very special thank you to Shauna Tafelski for a wonderful tutorial on this topic. If you want to learn how to do other things for your blog or website, visit her blog.