Gratitude

For the beauty of the Earth,

For the splendor of the Skies,

For the Love which from our birth,

Over and around us lies.

Lord of All, to thee we raise

This our hymn of grateful praise.

Yesterday as I left the house for my morning walk, the temperature was 49F and the sky was blue and brilliantly clear.  I could see the setting moon and it took my breath away.  The words to this old hymn popped into my mind, and stayed with me through the entire walk. 

I hope you all enjoy the day!

Finished Granny Square Sweater :-)

All the blocks are sewn together, and the sweater is done!  Actually it is more like a jacket.  A bit on the heavy side, but this morning at 54F it was the perfect outer layer.

After stitching up the first sleeve it was apparent that the sleeves would be too long, so I removed the last row of squares from the bottom of the sleeves.  Much better :-)

And don't forget to block!

The pattern came from the Jan/Feb '08 issue of Crochet Today.  Now, to get back to dollmaking :-)

Finally!!

It has been a while :-) My latest WIP is this gorgeous granny square sweater from the January/February 2008 issue of Crochet Today. I love the simplicity of this design, and just had to give it a try, but I must admit that 68 squares of the same design did try my patience. But they are now DONE!

Next step, stitch them all together :-)

I had help in the form of another little Pocket Spirit. Here she is overseeing the square production.
When the sweater is done, I'll be back to Christmas crochet for the nieces!

A Needlefelt Treasure

Mrs. Harrison, we're ready to learn,
Mrs. Harrison, we'll try not to squirm!
We're hungry for knowledge;
We may go to college :-)
Mrs. Harrison, don't be too stern!

You can meet the very nicest people on the internet; just like I have! I was the lucky winner of Mrs. Harrison, the School Marm Blackbird, from a drawing on the blog MarthaandJane (http://marthaandjane.blogspot.com/) This is a delightfully whimsical blog that I encourage you all to visit. Mrs. Harrison is a beautifully needlefelted work of art by April Ross, and a teacher of young fairyfolk and their friends.

She reminded me very much of my own second grade teacher, Mrs. Harrison; an angular, upright, grey haired lady that taught us well. She was brisk and birdlike, neither kindly nor cruel. This Mrs. Harrison is a bit more indulgent, but just as sharp eyed :-)

Mrs. Harrison

Thank-you so much, April and Helen!

Christmas Crochet, 2010

This is the time of year I start thinking about Christmas; crocheting for Christmas, that is. If I start in July, I have plenty of runway ahead of me and don't feel rushed and panic'd as Thanksgiving rolls away and the Big Day looms :-) Since I love to crochet, making crochet items for Christmas is no hardship.

I'd love to see Christmas become a simpler and happier holiday. I think handmade can go a long way toward this end. Also, make doing something for others less fortunate a part of your Christmas traditions, and ease up a bit on all of the store bought items. We place so many expectations on ourselves at Christmas that is it sometimes impossible to live up to them all, and we wonder where the joy has gone.

Okay, enough lecturing; I'm getting off the soapbox and ready to tell you about the cute crew in the picture above. They are irresistible amigurumi from Ana Paula Rimoli, found in the May/June 2010 issue of Crochet Today. The book bags are a free pattern from the Creative Me blog site; here is a link:

http://bwalker8706.blogspot.com/2010/01/my-sons-bookbag.html

The only changes I made to the book bag were to use half double crochet instead of double crochet. I made three more increase rows, and five additional body rows for the bag. It turned out great! These are for my three nephews, ages 7, 5, and 3. Making stuff for kids is the most fun of all.
The Pocket Spirits fell in love with Oskar! They couldn't resist a photo op with him :-)

Roses and Fairies

Thorns don't hurt fairy feet,
Fairies are too light and sweet.
A quick glimpse; don't look away!
A fairy child is here to play.

The Great Greenway Tour!

Yesterday, Larry and I and my Dad (the photographer of this pic) rode 22 miles of the Great Greenway Tour, a Rail-Trail annual ride out of Muncie, Indiana. And, just like last year, we got DRENCHED!

I think they are going to ban Larry and I from coming to the ride. For two consecutive years, the ride, held in July, has been deluged with rain and unseasonably cold. This, in what has been the hottest July that I can remember. Larry and I are thinking of hiring ourselves out as rain-gods :-)

It is hard to tell from the above picture, but we are standing in the rain at the end of the ride, and soaked through and through.

The Cardinal Greenway is a beautiful ride, through lots of gently rolling farm and pasture land, wildflowers, wetlands, stands of trees. And being on a rail line, the grades are gentle. The folks who have built and maintained this Greenway have done a spectacular job, with beautiful bridges and trailheads like tiny parks. It is a wonderful ride; I just want to do it sometime when it is dry :-)

Crochet Lace for Dresses

I love crochet lace, and have many, many pattern books devoted to the subject. Crochet lace can make the loveliest little fairy dress, and so I decided to put together a tutorial to show you how to go from a simple length of crochet lace to a fairy dress :-)
Choose a pattern that would make a sweet dress, like the one above. Seven inches is about one-and-a-half times the waist measurement of the little Pocket Spirits.
Figure out how many stitches it takes to go around the waist, or where you want the dress to fit. These little dresses are short waisted, but you could make a dress with the skirt at the natural waist, or a dropped waist dress. Anyway, crochet a chain that will fit around the waist, not too tight or loose. For these dresses, made of size 8 perle cotton and a size 8 steel hook, 40 stitches was about right. Note: The chain is only used to give you an idea of how many sc stitches you need to work across the top of the lace to fit it to the doll.

Work 40 sc evenly along the top of the lace. If you end up with a few more stitches, or it seems too loose, work another row of sc and decrease a few stitches to get a nice fit.
The next row will be the armhole dividing row, and once you've got the armholes made, try the fit on your doll and see how you both like it :-)
At this point, you can embellish the dress as you like, long or short sleeves, picot edgings around the neckline, whatever!

A picture tutorial with more pictures and directions is available here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/29184580@N04/sets/72157624472023381/

Enjoy the crochet!

Fairy Wings!

A new pattern to celebrate one year (and counting) for this blog! It has been a lot of fun to share these patterns with you, and chat with so many of you about dollmaking and crochet.

The Pocket Spirits needed some wings, and I don't really like to stiffen crochet cotton, so I thought I would crochet them from wire. I used this technique a couple years ago to make some wings, but never wrote down the pattern...I just sort of winged it :-)

These wings are made from 30 gauge Artistic Wire, available at http://www.artisticwire.com/
Crocheting with wire takes a little getting used to, since it is rather stiff, and your crochet piece does not have much stretch. But it will also keep it shape and makes such a neat, lacy fabric. Perfect for fairy wings.

I incorporated beads into the crochet. Beads are easy to string on wire, but also may require a little practice to get used to crocheting. This is a simple pattern of single crochet and chain stitches. The pattern for the wings is here:

Pocket  Spirit Fairy Wings

You can also find it along the left hand sidebar under Pocket Spirits

The wings are simply pinned on the girls here. When they finally get their outfits, I will permanently attach the wings to the Spirit.

Still, they look pretty cute in their birthday suits :-)