Corp de Ballet!

Are you impressed with my ballet term?  I was trying to be clever with my title, and looked up terms, and found this one: Corp de Ballet which means: "...a classical ballet term that refers to the dancers in a ballet that dance as a group."

I made these ballet outfits for my sweet little nieces (who I love very much!)  

They both have a doll... acutally, they might have several dolls)  

 I am always on the look out for cute patterns to crochet for the girls...

 The shoes were so easy and fun to make

  The whole dress/skirt took a little longer that I had anticipated... 

but, once I got going to went smoothy.

 I think they turned out cute!
You can get the pattern here!

It's Watermelon Time!!

Summer weather has not yet hit us completely in So. California.

As far as summer goes, it is still pretty mild!

But, I want to be prepared!!

 I made a Watermelon garland to decorate my office at work!

 The pattern I found online was written in French.

I translated it (with Google Translate)

 Worked on trying to figure it out - then created my own pattern

Get the pattern here 

 I was very excited to complete it

So, here's a question.... does anyone buy seeded watermelon anymore?

Can you even FIND it anywhere?

Orange You Glad It's Summer?

Summer is Here!!

Since I live in southern California - I guess I should be happy with the summer.

I like to live where there is no snow..... but, I don't like living in a "desert" when the summer rolls around.

But, my sweet nieces live in Virginia. So, I thought THEY might be happy that summer is here!

I made up 2 boxes of "orange items" and mailed it to them!

Maggie over at Smashed Peas & Carrots makes these kinds of boxes all the time.

Well, THIS time, I thought I would Jump On To Her Idea

 

It was fun shopping for all the orange items!

 

This one was my favorite!

(I added the little butterflies!)

Mama & Baby Bird

 Tweet! Tweet!

I made this for my daughter for Mother's Day.

She has two sweet little babies.

I thought she might enjoy this.

I didn't finish it on time for Mother's Day

So, I gave it to her this week.

Tweet! Tweet!

Crochet-A-Long Block #7 & #8

Block #7
 

This one was pretty easy to make

It was 4 small granny squares 

The "time-consuming" part was changing the yarn on each round

 

 Block#8

 

This one was fun to make, because it was different.

But, it really doesn't make me too happy when I see it.

Here are all 8 blocks together.

Sadly, they are not working up all the same size.

I need to figure out what size I want them to be, and either add or subtract some of the rows.

(I will leave that for another day!)

link to the crochet-a-long in the side bar

Crochet Hook Holder

I finally did it! 

 I made a crochet hook case!

I had one that I bought many, many, many years ago.

But, I had kind of out grown it.

(I'm actually still using it for my thread-crochet hooks)

I always thought it would be nice to make one of these.  

In fact that is one of the MANY items that I challenged myself to make for 2015

1 down - 3,569 left to go... .hahaha

But, I was VERY happy that I used only yarn from my stash.

(and the button was from my stash, also!)

Pattern for Crochet Hook Case

Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Let Down Your Long Hair!

It was my niece's birthday last week.

I decided to make her a Rapunzel hat
(I seem to have given myself the task of making a hat for all the children's birthdays)

 There are so many ideas for Rapunzel hats on the internet. 

I just looked, and looked, and thought, and planned and came up my own version.

 I used one of my "tried and true" hat patterns.

But, just like always.... it didn't fit just right.

I know that I crochet at a different tension that most patterns.

(I have trouble with gauge)

 So, this time, I put a couple of different patterns together, and came up with my own.

I am going to write it up, and put it right here on my blog.

So that I will have it and it will be MINE!

 She looks like a very happy little 3 year old.

 Happy Birthday Rosie!

I had so much fun finding and making all the flowers. 

My favorite was this one.  I even thought of making one for myself.

(But, what would I do with it? put it in my hair??)

Cute Doxie Video

This video CRACKED ME UP!!!
This is so much like my Gus ---- he would SO do that....
He is afraid of balloons, flying bags, actually anything that moves outside of himself!!!

Crochet-A-Long Block #6

                                  I'm working on the crochet-a-long over at the Moogly blog

I am crocheting 1 block every other week.

I decided to use up my baby yarn stash, and make a baby afghan.

This Block was very interesting to make - the center green part was made as a "strip" and then gathered together on one side, to make a circle.

I had never done anything like that before.

Who knows......

Maybe for another grandbaby????

 Here is a sneak peak at block #7. 

 This is just one of the 4 "mini-blocks" that go together to make block#7

A Flock of Ducks!

The flock has made it just in time for Easter!

These were fun to make

A whole dozen of them!!

Here is pattern I used!

2015 Crochet-A-Long Block #4 & #5

I'm working on the crochet-a-long over at the Moogly blog

This is block #4

I did not enjoy making it. It took SO long, and it just wasn't one of my favorite!

This is block #5

This one worked up really nicely.  I enjoyed making it!

These are all 5 of  the blocks I've made.

There will be 26 in all.... almost 1/5 of the way done!

Am I *Really* A Crazy Doxie Lady??

Ok.... seriously......

Where do I find this chair??????

I NEED this chair!!!!

Stash Buster

I have quite a stash of yarn. But, it seems that everytime I want to make something new, I don't seem to have "just the right color/weight" of yarn - so, off I go to the store to buy even MORE yarn. 

So, when I saw this pattern, I thought it would be good to make a sofa pillow with my stash.

 

As some of you are probably saying to 

"she's not going to use very much yarn making a sofa pillow"

Well, you're right.... Somehow, I thought I would have used more. 

 But, I AM going to make a second pillow - even a larger pillow 

(because I have a larger pillow form on hand!)

 

I went with a simple Granny Square for the other side.  

I don't make granny squares very often, I forget how much fun they are to make!

  I had so much fun with this stitch. It kept me counting, 

but I didn't have to keep looking at the pattern.