The Shtick I Do

This project is perfect for pretty weather. Why? Because when you go to the beach, pool, park or walking trail you can easily keep up with your keys!  I personally hate trying to keep up with all the things you need to keep up with when you go outside to enjoy pretty weather. Think about it. Depending on if you're alone or with a significant other will depend on how much you can carry. Throw kids into that mix and the list grows enormously. Water, bug repellant, sunglasses, towels, keys, purse, etcetera, etcetera.  Well this past week, in and amongst making more of this motif, I made two items that will help with packing things for an afternoon outdoors.   First; a quick and easy lanyard for keeping keys handy. Materials: (I used the swivel hook) Small amount of cotton yarn, color of your choice Size G crochet hook scissors embroidery needle lanyard swivel hook or keychain split ring Stitches used : Single Crochet (SC) Chain (Ch) Make a slip...

I log on to my blog every day, sometimes 2 or 3 times a day, checking for comments that need a response. Today, I happened to see that my post on April 11 had a comment. Since I didn't post a pattern of my own I was a bit more than curious. Apparently, CrochetLoverBlog awarded me this achievement. Thank you! And being the curious sort that I am, I searched to make sure the word "liebster" wasn't obscene, offensive or derogatory in any way. It actually means "darling" in German. I found a post by yet another blogger that had also received this award here . Now if you read both links ( CrochetLoverBlog and SoppheySays ) the rules are different. One place says to award the achievement to a blogger with less then 3,000 followers while the other says the requirement is far less at only 200. One says to nominate 11 other bloggers while the other says to pick 3 to 5. Now, reading that you can guess what this award is designed to do: bring people to your site. ...

Winter is "almost" gone (I say "almost" because we had to use the heated mattress pad last night >.<) and while the cold, dry air is usually hardest on my hands, I like having lotion with me throughout the year. Ever washed your hands in a public restroom then dried them on bark-like paper towels or used the flay-the-skin-from-your-fingers air dryer? My hands are always left feeling .... icky. Sometimes, I've used my "moisturizing" hand sanitizer and that stuff, while it gets rid of germs, isn't really all that moisturizing, is it? How could it be when it's mostly alcohol? *facepalm* Now if you've been here before, I made this little helper (for the aforementioned "moisturizing" hand sanitizer) and it's been hanging around my purse for more than a year. I usually kept lotion inside my purse and just like with the hand sanitizer I would hate digging for it. Inevitably it would be in some nook or cranny and I'd not...

Sometimes when I'm stumped on an idea for a new project I explore the world of the internet, there I can find all sorts of inspiration. Sometimes when I'm bored, I'm browsing through the pages and pages of this virtual world and stumble onto an item that's eye-catching and I just have to make note of it. Other times I get lost for HOURS in the worlds of Pinterest , Craftsy , CraftGawker and Ravelry . Anyone who believes the art of crochet is dead hasn't been looking close enough. The art of crochet is a living breathing entity right at our fingertips, literally, because all it takes is the click of a mouse. I was going to have something of my own completed and ready for today when real life reared it's ugly head: dog had a seizure and I personally had to go out of town twice for appointments. Alas, it isn't ready yet but here are a few of the things I found recently. This got on my radar when I was looking through Craftsy, it's trending right now...

So I've been searching for approximately 2 weeks for a particular motif pattern. I only have a picture, no name and no idea who the creator is. I can't even remember where I saw it the first time but I thought it was so pretty. I posted to some Google+ pages asking if anyone knew the name or where I could get it. No reply on that front but I did get a few remarks to try reverse engineering the pattern. Well, why not? We crocheters have been doing that since crochet came to be! And I've done it a few times myself, with scarfs and hats and such, but not with anything like this. Here is the picture I have ------ THAT is beautiful!   Motif found online. No pattern name or creator listed with this picture. I looked on Ravelry, Etsy, Crochetville, and a few other places to no avail. So I set about examining this picture until my eyes crossed. Then I did it some more. After a couple failed attempts, here's what I came up with! Well I think it's pretty darn cl...