Stash Bustin' Challenge

A week ago I joined Lanasdeana.blogspot.com's stashbustin' challenge.  I wanted to share this with all of you so that if your stash is getting a little out of hand like mine is for the space that I have, then this is the challenge for you.

Here are pictures of my stash. These are all my yarns that are in one location. I like the fact that I can see everything but not that it looks a little messy. For now this is what I have to work with.

These are yarns that I have stashed away in bags that are either leftovers or newly purchased. At the the moment I am working on getting these organized by type. I usually like to keep all the same type of yarn together. Unfortunately as you can see I still have a ways to go.

 

 

This bin holds projects that are already started. A friend of mine gave me 3 trashbags full of yarn and inside I found projects already started. They all seem to be blankets and afghans and unfortunately I don't like to work on those types of projects but hated the thought of frogging all of her hard work. The reason I kept them in here is because I truely hope to someday get the chance to work on one or more of the blankets and maybe finish.

These are my cotton stash. I usually use the size 5 and 10 cotton to crochet earrings and baby booties. The regular cotton I use it to crochet bracelets, hats, and bags and hopefully some dish rags!

  

These are my specialty yarns like eyelash, ribbon, lattice, chanille and several more. These I don't work with a lot because of how difficult it is to work with them. It's not easy to see the stitches when working with the fuzzy stuff.

 

 

Finally these are some of my leftofver yarn that I only have small balls of from different projects that I had made in the past. I have a plan for these but for now they are being kept mostly out of sight and I will let you in on my plans for this in the near future!

Well that's all folks! I will keep posting my stash busting projects to see how much of this I can reduce, if at all! Wish me luck.

If you want to join the challenge just click on over to lanasdeana.blogspot.com

Crochet Earring Hoops Pattern

Today I came across another web site called 

"The Yarn Box" and enrolled. I then notice that you could add your own patterns. I unfortunately had not written up any pattern of any of my original work. So here it is! I decided to write this up for you and to get me into the groove of writing my patterns down. 

You can also find me on Ravelry, Pinterest, Facebook, Flicker, and especially YouTube.

Crochet Hoop Earrings

Materials Needed:

1.5 crochet hook
Crochet cotton thread
Hoop earrings (any size)
(for this pattern I am using a 1 ½” hoop)
scissors
needle for tucking in tails
bead of your choice(optional)

Pattern Notes:
You can preload all your beads onto
your thread if you are working off of a spool, or you can cut your thread using 10 yards for each earring and then wait to load your beads when you need them.


Stitches used
CH - Chain Stitch
Sc - single crochet
Dc - double crochet
ESc - Elongated single Crochet

Base Row
This row is worked around the hoop earring
Make a slip knot and place behind hoop. Bring you hook through the front of the hoop. Grab the slip knot through the center of the hoop and round the hoop to make a sc. Continue making sc around the hoop making sure to work over your tail, till the end.
The number of stitches very depending on how big your hoop is. You can use the following as a guide, but please feel free to add or subtract stitches as you need:

for a 1 ½” Hoop - between 50 - 60 stitches
for a 2” Hoop - between 70 - 90 stitches
for a 3” Hoop - between 120-130 stitches

Take care not to make too many as they may fall off of your earring hoop.

Turning Your work

only on this row
you will need to also turn your stitches to face the inside of the hoop.

Do this every time you finish a row:
At the end of the row pull on the loop that is on your crochet hook until it measures 1” or more. Take your hook out of the loop and place it down. turn your earring around to the other side. Make sure your earring clasp is open and pass your working thread to the back of the hoop. Place your hook on your loop again and close up the loop. You can now continue working your new row.

Row 2
ch 3, skip 2 stitches and dc into the 3rd stitch on the hoop, *skip 2
stitches and dc into the next stitch on the hoop. repeat from * until the end of the row. turn your work

NOTE - Your stitches should be taught not wavy or loose.
If they are loose then you need to reduce the amount of stitches on this row by skipping more stitches.

Row 3
ch 1, sc in between each dc space. do this all the way across row. turn your work.

Row 4 (Beads added here optional)
with no beads
Ch 1, *skip 1 stitch from previous row, sc into next stitch. Repeat from * across.
NOTE - your stitches will start to look stretched out, this is what you want them to do.

with beads
ch 1, *skip one stitch, move one bead close to your hook keeping it to the back of your work  and sc into the next stitch. skip 1 stitch and sc into the next stitch. Repeat from * until all your beads are in place and until the end of the row. turn your work

Row 5

ch 1, *skip 1 stitch, sc into next stitch. Repeat across. finish off.

weave tail into 2nd row or pattern.

If you see flaws or mistakes in the pattern please leave a comment or email me and I will correct the mistakes.

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Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained

I feel and apology is in order. I'm sorry if I have been neglecting my blog but for some apparent reason having a full time job and crocheting in the evenings to fill orders just doesn't leave much time for blogging! Not to mention cooking dinner, doing laundry, helping my girls with their homework, etc, etc..... Well I am here to let you know that I have recently given my notice at work. I will no longer be employed outside the home. I have made up my mind (and my husband as well) that I need my time to focus on my passion. CROCHET. Sorry to scream but that is how I feel. I have always put away my dream because it wasn't the right time, or not enough money, or whatever excuse I deemed reasonable enough at the time.

I only went back to work in August of last year but it didn't seem as fulfilling as I thought it would be. So needless to say it took up all my time, in fact so much so that I stopped volunteering at church, and the library. I was not a happy camper.

I hope that this new endeavor will be fruitful not only for my pockets but also for my soul, and I promise to blog on a regular basis from now on.

Thank you one or all who follow or have read my blog post. I greatly appreciate you hanging in there!

My Current Projects

So this is what I am currently working on:

You can get this pattern at MaggiesCrochet.com
http://www.maggiescrochet.com/crochet-tea-set-p-1413.html

I am making 3 for a customer and let me tell you I am worried about getting them all finished before December 7th. I will devote all my late afternoons to this and on top of all of that I am making 6 Minnie mouse hats and 2 mohawk hats for some other customers. Talk about buzzy, buzzy, buzzy.
And for those of you who don't know what I am talking about(which most of you do) here are some pics of  those hats I mentioned.

 

Shell Stitch Tutorial and Variations

I just finished uploading a new video for a shell bracelet and I wanted to include it in my blog for a couple of reasons. One is that I don't know if everyone following my blog is actually subscribed to my channel on YouTube and second because I wanted to put in a few new ideas in every ones head about how you can use video tutorial.

Well I know that this video tutorial is for a bracelet but it can be used for other projects as well. Now I have seen several comments from other crafter /crocheters that they don't like crocheting with thread because maybe it's too thin for their liking. Here is my idea, you can use ANYTHING to crochet with. I so encourage you to think outside the box. For my patterns and anyonelse's pattern you can adjust it simply by changing your hook, yarn, or your final end project. If you like the pattern then use it but make it your own.

You can use the same stitch pattern to create the following items :

1. lariat - Just follow the pattern but exclude the ties at the beginning and only crochet 2 chains to begin your pattern. Now for this I would suggest a thinner yarn (like #1, #2, or a 3 ply)  You can make it as long as you would like and then wrap around your neck and enjoy. Remember if you want a skinnier lariat use thinner yarn, for something thicker use a heavier yarn.

2. belt - for this project you can start it like the lariat and then crochet to fit around your waist. Also make sure to crochet enough of the pattern to use as a belt tail. You will have to use 2 D hoops (the kind of hoops that look like a D and are used for belts.) These D hoops can be found at Walmart, or your local craft stores.

3. Scarf - Here is were it gets interesting. You can choose two different styles to crochet. If you choose a thinner yarn (like a 4 ply yarn) you can crochet a very long scarf  and can probably get away with using it during the summer as an accent piece. If you go with something thicker (like a #5 or #6) then you can make a much thicker scarf perfect for those very cold snowy days.

4. Shawl - Ok now you may be thinking how will I get a shawl out of this. Well there are two ways that I see it being made. One would be just to crochet it with a  P or Q hook and use a very chunky yarn. You can even use several 4 ply yarns together and crochet them to your desired length. Second you can do as above  with the P or Q hook but instead of crocheting it with a lot of length crochet it short just enough to wrap around your  shoulders. If you find the pattern doesn't come down far enough for your taste that crochet another strip and stitch the two strips together.


Hope this post has been informative for you and if you have any questions please send me a message and I will be glad to answer them.

Crochet Thread Earrings

Ok so I have another video to show you. It's been on my youtube channel "texasyarnlover" for a few weeks now. I just wanted those of you who haven't seen it or don't visit the youtube channel to know what I have out there.

The reason I placed this video tutorial out is that I just loved the look of these earrings and I could not find anyone with a video tutorial. Soooo I decided to make one of my own. Here it is. There are lots of different techniques to these earrings and I encourage you to try something different. I will soon be posting some of my new earrings so I will keep you posted!