Denton bible media and Yarn

I purchased a set of CDs for Christmas from the Denton Bible Church Media Ministry. Last year a friend give us 6 months subscription and I have to tell you it's one of the best presents we ever received. Tom Nelson, the pastor is awesome. I love to hear his sermons. It's not like he's preaching and he's sooo down to earth. The CDs I purchased are the sermons on Ecclesiates. I have to say it's our favorite and Tom Nelson does such an excellent job on them. Sometimes during dinner, we'll put one in the CD player and listen to it while we're eating. I'm not usually one to preach but these are really awesome. You will not be disappointed. I just can't say enough about it!

Now on to yarn...I received B'day and Christmas money (my request) so I could buy yarn. Since my yarn stash is very very low, I've been doing a lot of browsing! I have not really purchased any sigificant amount though. I just purchased what I needed to finish my last project and caron 1 lb. yarn in blue. I've been looking through books, magazine, internet to find my next project. I found some projects I'd like to do but I couldn't bring myself to spend $100 on yarn for a single project. I'm too frugal and this is suppose to be my "inexpensive" hobby. Yesturday, I did finally find a couple of projects I'd like to do using Simply Soft and RH Super Saver. So today, I spent about $13 in yarn (4 skeins in Simply Soft and 2 skeins in Super Savor for 2 projects -not counting the 3 skeins I have in my stash). Not bad for 2 projects. With all the money I saved, I can buy a lot more yarn and not feel guilty. Maybe someday I'll splurge and buy the really expensive yarn but for now, I'm happy buying the more affordable ones!

My daughter on Christmas opening presents :)

My birthday present to me

I finished my lush cowl neck sweater today. I finished the last row of crochet and weaved in all the ends on my way home from my birthday lunch. Lunch was delicious and I even got to stop in at Michaels to buy some yarn. (A very nice lady gave me a coupon for 50% off but I didn't use it - I passed it on to another shopper). What a wonderful day :) Hubby even made my favorite birthday cake this morning - strawberry whip cream. Yum! I can't wait to have some after dinner!

Anyways, back to my sweater. This sweater is from the book Fabulous & Flirty Crochet by Katherine Lee. The pattern called for a light weight mohair yarn but I made it with a chunky weight yarn. This was my first time using Patrons. The yarn is called devine. I love the softness of it. It wasn't as difficult crocheting with it as I thought it would be. I got use to crocheting more by the "feel" of it then seeing the stitches. I love the red I used but after finishing the back and front, I felt it needed something (looked like a big ball of red fluff) so I decided to make the cowl neck black along with the trim on the sleeves. I did make some modification on the sleeve trims. Since it's such a bulky yarn, you can't see the stitches so I decided to do 6 rows of double crochets instead of 27 rows of sc in back loops. I'm happy with the way it turned out and it saved time from having doing all those single crochets! You know how I love them sc :0( !!! I used a total of 6 skeins. 4 in the royal red and 2 in the sky black.

It pattern was easy to follow and I really like the look of the sweater.

I'm not crazy about the fit only because of the bulky yarn I used. It was a fun sweater to make and it worked up pretty quickly.

Anyways, here are photos of my birthday sweater:

Count Down to Birthday

Tomorrow is my birthday. Yulp, Christmas Eve baby. I'm kind of looking forward to it. Hubby is going to take us out to a nice dinner. Then it's Christmas, it seems to come up so quick!


I was going to try to finish this sweater, the Lush Cowl Neck Sweater. My goal was to have it complete by my birthday but I'm not sure if I will get it done. No sense in stressing myself out.


I used Patrons Devine yarn in making this sweater. It's a very bulky yarn, the pattern actually calls for a lighter weight mohair yarn but I decided to go with this. This is the first time using this yarn. It is a pretty yarn. There are good and bad w/ this yarn, the good being it's so soft (hubby said it looks like a big ball of cat) and the bad, of course it's hard to see the stitches (and the design of the sweater. I still need to weave in all the ends and crochet the cuff for both sleeves. As you can see, I decided to add some black to kind of give it some definition, instead of a big red fuzzy sweater.





Here's what I have so far:

Circular Shrug

It's been a great day. My husband took us out to a great lunch and then Michaels afterwards to buy new yarn! My husband watched my daughter while I was alone in Michaels looking at yarn! :D When I got home, I finished sewing up the ribbing on the sleeves and weaving in the ends. I've been dragging my feet on this project (I get bored with single crochets!) but now it's finally done! Yeah!!!! I'm always very happy to finish a project!

The circular shrug is from the book Positively Crochet! by Mary Jane Hall. I used 1 skein of Caron 1 lb. in sage. It was crocheted with a size K hook. The pattern was easy to follow. I had to redo one sleeve because I forgot to do a sc after each round. When I get distracted or too tired during crocheting, I tend to make mistakes. I had trouble keeping the right tension? because I have several little holes in it (I tried to sew most of them up)! I'm not too crazy about the color I picked but it's a good pattern and a good fit.

Here's a photo of my new shrug!

My Current Finished Crochet Wearable

This is my current finished project. It is called the Lush Lace Pullover. I started this while I was (and still am) working on the Circular Shrug. I had purchased this yarn, Wool Ease, to make another frou frou but decided against it. This is the first time I used Wool Ease, and I just love it. It was soft and easy to work with. I wanted to use a pattern specifically for this yarn. This is from a free pattern from the lion brand website.

I used 5 skeins of the Wool Ease in wheat. It is crocheted with the J hook in a size xs. My guage was off, so it's actually a size small. I was a little intimidated by the pattern at first because it was an "experienced" pattern but it's a fairly easy pattern. The were only a few minor changes I made. For the cluster, I did not use the last loop of the triple crochet and I only made the funnel neck 6" instead of 8".

I'm happy with the fit and it doesn't feel "too" heavy. I probably would of wore this out today but it's in the 70's today but feels like it's in the 80s! Sorry folks - to those who are in the cold country!

Here's a photo of me in my new pullover:

Life

It's been a fairly busy week. Thanksgiving is behind us and my Birthday and Christmas is right around the corner. I have not started Christmas shopping yet but I will probably buy most of the gifts on line!

My computer was down last week! Yikes! I'm so loss without it. We bought a new computer but ended up returning it! It took a long time to load up a page. The program in it is NOT really compatible with dial up. (There is no DSL in this area and we were considering satellite internet). I love this computer so I decided to get it fixed.

Crochet has been put on hold for most of last week. I have 2 projects I'm currently working on. The circular shrug and the Lush Lace Pullover. I can't seem to get motivated on the circular shrug. Maybe it's all the single crochet stitches. I only have to sew up the sides and make the 2 sleeves! I've been slowing getting back to the Pullover. I'm about 75% done! I love the wool ease I'm using and it's an interesting pattern. I'll write more about it on my next blog post.

Here's a photo of my daughter in one of her Christmas outfits. She's soooo cute!

Shroat

I finished this on Thanksgiving. I'm in the middle of working on my circular shrug and found this. This is a GREAT project. It was super easy, done in all double crochet - and fast! I started it on Tuesday and finished it on Thursday.


I love this pattern. The fit is great too. This is from the DIY network called Shroat. (Go into the DIY home page and search for shrug or shroat). It is done in 3 segments. 1st is the shrug then it's made into a jacket (callled shracket) then finally the shroat. It's fun to see how it turns out in the different segments. All 3 are really cute and it's worth making all three! I really enjoyed making this piece. The only change I made to this was leaving out one row of the bell sleeve. I made this using 2 skeins of Red Heart Super Saver in Dark Orchid using a P hook.

And a photo of me wearing my new shroat:

Update on my frou frou: I washed it several times to soften it up. It now has a much nicer drape and fit. I like it even more! :D