Caps and Scarves

The cap pattern is found in Leisure Arts Quick Caps by Barbara Shaffer. The scarf is Shelly by Emily Nelson and can be found at Crochetme. The yarn is Bernat Frenzy in Loonie Lilac that I found at Dollar Tree a couple years ago. Even with the heavier yarn the scarf is still light and airy, but of course I didn't get the stitch definition I would have if I had used a lighter weight yarn. The set is going to be a Christmas present for my nephew's SO.
Same patterns and yarn. This set is going to my sister-in-law.

The cap is the same pattern as the previous two, but the scarf pattern is called the Skinny Scarf and is found at http://www.coatsandclark.com/. The daughter of my nephew's SO gets this set.

I'm happy to report that I've used quite a bit of my stash yarn for these projects, although there are still a few skeins left. I may turn those into lapghans eventually.

My Distractions

Ten days in the hospital allowed me to quit smoking after 37 years. But even with the Chantix the doctor prescribed after I came home, I still get a little antsy at times. The Chantix web sites recommends that you have a distraction for those times, so crochet has been my main distraction since I came home from the hospital. Since the projects were suppose to be a distraction and not a stresser, I've been working on simple items like caps and scarves. I've made 3 women's caps, 4 scarves, 3 toques, 1 knitted men's cap, 2 girl's caps, and 2 girl's scarves. Guess what some of my family members are getting for Christmas this year.

Still Around

It's hard to know what to say after being away so long. I've been reading everyone's blogs, but I seem to be so brain dead in the evenings that I haven't even left comments. I have been checking your blogs, though, and admiring the work everyone has been doing.
I haven't even been doing much crocheting or knitting in the evenings until recently, and I haven't finished anything at all that I can show. Maybe as it gets cooler I'll get to spend more time with it. I even thought there would be slow days at work when I could read or crochet a little, but I can tell that's not going to happen anytime soon.
Maybe you'd be interested to know how I came to be hired as Office Manager for the town. The City Clerk/Office Manager was suspended in May on suspicion of embezzlement. The state auditor came in June at the request of the DA and began an audit that was released about five weeks ago. Apparently, the girl managed to steal about $80,000 in cash over a period of 3 1/2 years. Anyway, I'm still classified as temporary until she's arrested.
Of course, the town is broke and owes huge sums of money to the trash company, electric company, and various vendors. She is bonded for $60,000, but the town won't get that money until she's convicted or a settlement is made. The town officials really want to see her convicted, though, and they want back every dime that was stolen. Hopefully, our DA will get busy and start proceedings against her.

New Job

I started my new job on Wednesday as the Office Manager for the Town of Mountain Park. I had applied for it earlier, but I thought they were going to hire someone younger. It's perfect for me right now. The City Hall is only open from 9-3, and I get an hour off for lunch. I'm only 4 and 1/2 blocks from where it's located, so I can even walk to work if I need to. (I have no plans to do that right now. It's HOT in Oklahoma this month.) I'll make enough each month with my retirement check to bring my monthly income up to about what I was making as a teacher in 2005. It's a great feeling to be working again.

It's Finished

I finally made myself finish seaming and weaving in the ends. Then I took it outside on the hottest day of the year for photos. It's hard to believe it will ever been cool enough in Oklahoma to wear this.

Sweet and Simple Child Shrug

Publication: American School of Needlework's The Crochet Yearbook, Volume 1

Designer: Joyce Nordstrom

Size: 26" x 6"

Yarn: Caron Simply Soft Brites in watermelon, 1 skein

Hook: I

I have two great-nieces, ages 7 and 9. Hopefully, this will fit one of them, and I can then adjust the size to make a second one.

Hobby Lobby Shopping Spree

I had to go to Lawton Thursday for an appointment with the dermatologist to have the spots checked where he'd removed the skin cancers. The places had healed, and no further surgery or treatment will be necessary.





I spent 45 minutes getting there, and I wasn't even in the examination room 10 minutes. And I had to give them another $25 co-pay. Since I'd already wasted all of that gas just getting to Lawton, I decided I might as will swing by Hobby Lobby and check out the yarn.





I hadn't been to Hobby Lobby in quite awhile, and I had never bought yarn there before. It was really something of a disappointment. I wasn't impressed with most of the Yarn Bee yarns, and anything that I might have bought had only a few colors and not enough skeins with the same dye lot. They did have a good selection of the Sugar and Cream cotton, and I stocked up on some of that. I also got some Lion Brand Wool Ease Chunky to try a knit purse I found on Garn Studio. There was also some Senso and Luster Sheen on clearance, and I picked up some of that. So the whole experience wasn't a total waste of time, and at least now I know that I'll have to do my buying online.



I want to end with a tip from the dermatologist. He recommended the Neutrogena 70 Sunblock. The 70 has more anti-aging and anti-wrinkle properties than the 45. It might be a little late for that in my case, but I guess I'll give it a shot if Wal Mart carries it.

FO and WIP

I was reading Kelly's blog and found this little cosmetic bag pattern that she had made. She modified hers to use as a little tote for her crochet, but I'm going to use mine as a holder for all those things that sometimes float around on the bottom of my purse-mints, gum, lip balm, etc. This isn't a very good picture of it. It's actually much cuter in person.



I used Sugar and Cream in gum drop and a H hook. There's actually a mistake on the bag because for some reason I crocheted into the back loops of about four stitches. It's not noticable really to anyone except me. It just irritates the heck out of me for doing something so dumb.



I'm still trying to use up my stash. It seems as if I've been trying forever, and I'm getting pretty tired of it. It sounds as if I have a large amount of yarn, but that's not really true. I'm just slow as the seven year itch.

This is my first knitted sweater that I've been trying to seam together. I've managed to seam the shoulders and attach the sleeves to the body. Now if I can just get the sleeves and side seams done, it will be FINISHED. I used 3 1/2 skeins of Homespun in quartz and size 10 knitting needles. Let me tell you that this thing weights a ton! It was a good beginner's project, though. You can see the pattern here.


I had to edit this post quite a bit to get the link right. I hope Bloglines doesn't notify you every time I hit Publish Post. How embarrassing if it does!

What I've Been Up To

We didn't have Internet Wednesday night and most of the day yesterday. Last night we had a thunderstorm with lots of thunder and lightning, so I turned the computer off and unplugged everything. I don't have much faith in surge protectors since I lost a TV, a VCR, and the modem on my first computer. It's best just to shut everything down and wait it out.



I'm gradually adding pictures to Ravelry, but I'm taking it slow. I wish I had kept better notes on my projects like some of the others. It takes time to look that stuff up, but it will be a great record of projects once I get everything entered.



Yesterday I did sort through two totes of yarn and projects. I found a couple of WIPs that I had forgotten about. One of them is a child's cap that I started while Mom was in the nursing home. It uses sport weight yarn, so the ribbing is done on size 4 needles. I realize now why I stopped working on it. After a few rows my hands went numb, and I had to stop and give them a rest. I'm through with the ribbing now and was able to switch to the size 6 needles for the stockinette part. My hands don't seem to mind those, and I made quite a bit of progress on the cap today. I should be ready to start the decreases soon.



I'm still working on the rectangle grannies. I have 96 centers done, and I've added the second round of purple to about 75 of those. I'm weaving the ends as I go, and that become mind numbing after awhile. Why do I start projects like that anyway?



I sort of set the ruffled cardigan aside for awhile. I still haven't gotten up the nerve to sew the sleeves to the body. I get it out, stare at it awhile, and then put it back in the drawer. Part of the problem is that the Plush yarn is hard to sew with, so I know if I screw up it won't be easy to take it out.



We had a quiet Fourth of July here because of the weather. There's usually a celebration in the park across the street from the house, but it was cancelled because of the flooding. The past few years it's been so dry that you had to stand guard constantly to make sure none of the fireworks caught your yard or house on fire. (Yes, there's a city ordinance against setting off fireworks in the city limits, but there's no police to enforce it.) This year everything is so wet that I don't think you could start a fire with a flame thrower. Anyway, the neighbors were nice enough to set theirs off before 12:00 p.m., so all in all, I had a very pleasant Fourth.


I'll leave you with a picture of the youngest members of the family. Normally, they're outside cats now, but when it was flooding I let them stay inside. Clockwise, you see Tiny, Beavis, and Butt-Head. Butt-Head got his name first because of his actions. I guess a nice way to put it is that he's developmentally delayed. He reminds me of some guys I know. Nice to look at but not a lot going on upstairs.

Ravelry

I got my invitation to join Ravelry, and after giving it some thought I decided to go ahead and sign up. I hesitated because of the time involved in setting up my own notebook, but I just couldn't resist having access to the work of other crocheters and knitters. It really will be a great resource, and I wish those who came up with the idea a lot of luck.

I finally got a project listed in my notebook. It's embarrassing to even think about how long it took me to figure it out. Flickr and I got off to a rocky start. I did something stupid at the beginning of the relationship, and Flickr refused to tell me what I had done wrong so I could make amends. I finally became so furious that I completely broke off all contact and cancelled my account. But I continued to think about Flickr and how much I needed it, so last night about 12:30 a.m. I reintroduced myself under an altered screen name. It worked, and I was able to get a picture up. (I'm not normally such a sneak, but I was desperate.) I'll take the relationship slow for now and work my way up gradually.

The coolest feature I've discovered about Ravelry so far is that I can do a search for a yarn and see projects that others have done with the same stuff. That's great for someone like me who is trying to reduce her stash.

Same Song, Different Verse

There hasn't been a whole lot of crochet going on around here. I've finished some dishcloths for Christmas, and I've started on some magic square potholders to go with them. My mind just hasn't been on crochet because of other things that have been going on.

This was the view yesterday morning when I got up.

It was much higher this time, and people to the southwest of me had to be evacuated from their homes because of the high water. There was suppose to be an Old Settlers Day Reunion in the park across the street, but the rising waters flooded them out. They had difficulty getting some of the vendors out of the park, and some of the trucks and travel trailers had to be abandoned until the waters went down.

I moved my pickup to the street on the west side just in case the water got up to the house. Luckily, it never got closer than the driveway.

The electricity was off for seven hours which made waiting very difficult. We Oklahomans like to check our weather quite frequently, and not having TV made that impossible. (I've put a weather radio on my shopping list.)

We had a break overnight, but it suppose to rain again this afternoon and tomorrow.

The fences on the farm are gone again and will have to be repaired as soon as the water goes down.

The good news is that we thought we had lost a baby calf that was born during the flood, but Mama and baby showed up yesterday.

Flooding

These pictures were taken last Friday morning after the third straight morning of rain. We had a total of 6 inches in three days. This is the third time the fields have flooded this year. We even got another half inch over the weekend, and today we've had another two inches so far.



When the water went down enough on Saturday an electric fence had to be put up on the west and south side of the pasture because there just wasn't a fence anymore, and the cows were getting out.

If You Don't Have Anything Crocheted....

This picture was taken about 9 p.m. Tuesday night. I thought it was beautiful.

Early Wednesday morning about 2 a.m. it began to rain heavily.
By 9 a.m. Wednesday the area around the house looked like this. (That's Minnie Pearl, the neighbor's miniature horse. She was a little upset by the rising waters.)
There's a park across the street from the house. You can see the pavilion in the background. There's a creek that runs through the park that overflowed its banks.
This is the road that runs past the house.
This area has always flooded during heavy rains, and there doesn't seem to be anything that can be done about it. It's never gotten into this house, but the neighbors to the southwest haven't always been so lucky.

Vegetarian Chili

Pour the following into your slow cooker. Do not drain.
1 can of black beans
1 can of white beans
1 can of pinto beans
1 can of kidney beans
1 can of garbanzo beans
2 14 1/2-oz. cans of stewed tomatoes
1 pkg. of prepared chili seasoning

I also added salt and dried onion, but those are optional.

Cover. Cook on low for 4-8 hours.

I like mine with grated cheddar cheese (2%) and chopped green onions on a hot dog bun.

Even my nephew liked this, and he's one of the pickiest eaters that I've ever met.

Another Doctor Visit or The Year I Meet My Insurance Deductable

Yesterday I had an appointment with a dermatologist that I scheduled weeks ago. He's very popular with the acne age group so there's always a long wait for an appointment. I just had to settle back and wait because he's the only one listed as a provider by my insurance.

Doctors often make me very nervous, so I made a list of all of the places that I wanted him to check. Of the seven on my list only two were suspicious. He took biopsies of both, and the results are suppose to be back next Wednesday. If I don't hear from him, then I can assume there's nothing to worry about.

I've finished the ninety-six centers for the granny rectangles, and I'm moving on to the second round. I only have the one skein of purple, and I want to use it up before I buy more. I figure that will help me estimate how many more skeins I need.

Rectangle Granny and Cardigan

There isn't much progress to show on the ruffled caridgan. I've reached the stage where I need to sew the pieces together so that I can crochet the ruffle. Today I practiced seaming a couple of swatches together, and I think I have the hang of it. I have the sleeves pinned to the cardi, and if I feel like it and can catch a time when the cats are asleep, I'll start sewing the sleeves and sides.






I saw an afghan pattern on eBay for an afghan made of rectangular grannies. I found a pattern here and came up with this. It would be different from any other afghan I've ever made, but who knows if I will ever finish it.





Last Saturday I did get to go with some friends to the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge. It isn't far from where I live, but I don't visit it often. It's especially pretty there this time of year when all of the wildflowers are in bloom. We saw buffalo, longhorn cattle, and elk. We stopped at Meers near the reserve and had longhorn beef burgers and the best peach cobbler I've ever tasted. Four people ate for less than $40, too. I bet you can't beat those prices anywhere.

Even though I enjoyed the time I spent with friends, I was exhausted when I got home. I had been to the doctor earlier that week because I hadn't been feeling well at all for the past couple of months. I got the results of the blood tests on Wednesday, and I had tested positive for Lupus. Now I realize that one blood test isn't probably enough to say that I have it, but I have some of the other symptoms. I've been extremely fatigued and many days it feels as if every bone in my body hurts. The arthritis medicine the doctor gave me is helping some, but I'm afraid to do anything for fear the pain will worsen. He wants me to see a rheumatologist, but those people are few and far between in this part of Oklahoma. The nearest one is at least two hours away, and I don't think I can make the drive alone. I haven't decided quite yet how I'm going to manage it.

My Next Project

Thanks, Bron and Priscilla, for the compliments. The vest was fun to do, and I may actually wear it.

For my next project I've decided to try something with sleeves. I had seen these one done by someone at Crochetville and realized I had the yarn in my stash and the pattern. It's the Crochet Ruffle Cardigan done in Plush. I had purchased four skeins in Wine some time ago, and I was thrilled to discover I had enough yarn in my stash for the cardi.

I don't know why I have such a block when it comes to wearables except that I don't have a lot of confidence in my ability to sew things together. I can duplicate any stitch or pattern, but sewing things together is like running into a brick wall. I reread all of the instruction books I have and watch the videos online before I begin and think I've got it, but when I pick up that needle I just freeze. I swear I'd drive 50 miles to take a class on finishing items if I could just find one.

Vest

This is the vest I began a little over a month ago. It's finally finished with the ends woven in. It still needs a good blocking, though. The pattern is from The Crochet Yearbook, Volume I that I purchased last year from bookcloseouts.com. I used about 5 skeins of Paton's Grace and a F hook. If I had known I was going to have so much yarn left over, I would have made it a little longer. As it is, this one ends at about the hip bone.

The pattern had only one mistake, and it was a minor one. It said to seam up the shoulders and side seams, but there are no side seams. I made a few minor adjustments. I was suppose to double crochet around the edges, but I used a single crochet instead. The pattern in the book used buttons, but since I seldom wear a vest buttoned, I left those off. The one thing I don't like about the pattern is the last row on the bottom edge. It's a wrong side row, and I'm just not crazy about that. I tried adding a single crochet row along the edge, but it didn't look right either. If I made the vest again, I would add another single crochet row along the edge, so the final row would be on the right side.

Tiny

I'm babysitting Tiny while his mom is at the vet being spayed. (At least I think it's a he. He's not too crazy about me turning his butt up in the air to try to figure it out.) It's hard to believe this little fellow is almost 7 weeks old, but he's eating solid food and drinking water from a bowl. He'll use the litter pan if I can catch him in time. Next week it will be his turn to go to the vet for his shots. Hopefully, that will make it easier to find someone to adopt him.


That's fiberfill from a play toy that you see on his right eye. It looks like that toy is going to have to be trashed.


Right now he has a tummy ache. I left some of the other cats' food bowls on the floor, and I discovered him with all four feet in one the them chopping away. I have a can of goat's milk that I need to mix up for him and see if he'll drink it. Cow's milk isn't good for them, and kitten formulas are very expensive. Goat's milk is a much cheaper substitute for the formula.


His mom is the last of the females that needs to be spayed. Now maybe the neighbor's toms will go home and leave us alone.


Now I don't want you to think I'm some crazy old lady that goes around picking up strays. I just happen to live in town that's a dumping ground for unwanted pets. The ones I can catch have all gone to the vet for shots and to be neutered or spayed. It will take me all summer to pay off my credit card, but at least there won't be anymore kittens.


I splurged the past weekend and bought a pizza and rented some dvds. There's a new pizza place in Snyder that just opened up, and I wanted to try their pizza. It was really very good.


I rented The Wicker Man, The Fountain, and The Illusionist. Bron had mention The Wicker Man once, and she said it was bad. I wish I had listened to her because it's a really, really awful movie. The Fountain had nice special effects, but it was boring otherwise. The Illusionist, though, was really pretty good, or maybe the others were just so bad anything would have been an improvement.

Round Ripple

The pattern is from the book, 100 Crochet Projects by Jean Leinhauser and Rita Wiess. (I know I've also seen it in one of those little books published by Coats and Clarks, but I can't remember which one.) The afghan is made with 7 skeins of Light and Lofty in Tahoe and a N hook. The finished afghan measures about 60" in diameter. It's nothing fancy- just another stash busting project.

I'm thinking I'm going to really like this new autosave feature on Blogger with the way our Internet has been behaving lately. We've had nothing but trouble for three days, and it's very frustrating to have a post ready only to have the Internet go down. I do try to post, but I sometimes lose what I've written. (As I get older I seem to have less patience, and it doesn't take much to frustrate me.)

I'm going to have to buy groceries this afternoon before the rains come again this week. They're forecasting a chance of rain for the entire week, and buying groceries when you drive a pickup with a regular cab is not something that you want to do in the rain.

I'm thinking about trying to make my own vegetarian chili. I used to be able to buy it in the can, and I'd make hot dogs with it. I can't find the chili in the cans anymore, so I'm going to be forced to try to make it myself. I've found one recipe that sounds pretty easy and can be cooked in the slow cooker. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Mindless Crochet

I made this in a couple of evenings last week while we were having some wild weather. It's a very simple shell pattern that I found at Bernat. The pattern called for Galaxy yarn, but I substituted Light and Lofty in antique blue from my stash. Three and a half skeins made an afghan about 31" x 35", excluding the fringe. I like to use my N Crystalite hook when working with this yarn rather than an aluminum one. For some reason the Crystalite just works so much better for me with this type of yarn.

I had planned to donate it to the nursing home, but I'm afraid the fringe would be dangerous for a nursing home resident. I wasn't going to add the fringe, but the afghan needed something, and I didn't have enough yarn left to crochet an edging around it.

I love how quickly this yarn worked up! If I ever make any more afghans for gifts, I'll certainly use the bulkier yarn.

It's Been Awhile

The month of May has been a time of extreme weather in Oklahoma. Tornado watches, thunderstorms, heavy rains, and flash flood warnings seem to be the norm for us this year. After more than two years of drought I shouldn't complain, but we are saturated right now. Oklahoma lakes are finally beginning to fill again, so I guess some good has come of it.

I haven't finished the crochet vest. I just can't seem to make myself finish it. Maybe when the weather calms down I'll be able to concentrate on it again.

Yesterday it had dried up enough that we could move some of the cattle around. We had a couple of calves that needed to be worked, and we wanted to return some of the mamas to the home farm. Things went well, and we were able to get it all done in a few hours. It's a good thing we finished, too, because I woke up to rain again this morning.

I have been crocheting, but it's been mindless crochet. The kind that you can stop and start again without trouble when they have one of those severe weather warnings on TV every few minutes. An entire evening of those warnings can really make you a nervous wreck. The crochet is necessary during those times, or all I would be able to do is pace the floor until the bad weather passes.

I don't have any pictures of crochet, so I'll show you some farm shots instead.

This is some of the cows coming to see if they can talk me out of any food.

This is the wheat field that we baled for hay.

One, Two, THREE

I had to rip out the back of the vest because it seems I can't count to three. I was suppose to skip three chain spaces for the underarm, but I left four spaces instead. I had the entire back done and had started on the left front before I even noticed there was a problem. I tried the back again last night, but couldn't keep up with what row I was on and had to frog again. (This is not mindless crochet, and I was trying to watch 24, Season 3, Disc 2. Not a good idea to try to do both at the same time.) I'm going to have to write down the row numbers and cross them off as I complete each row.

Demon Kitty all grown up. Sorry about the sleep in his eye. He hadn't had his morning wash yet.

Placemats and Tablerunners

Bron's been working on things for her new home, and it made me remember that I have some patterns from Annie's Attic for tablerunners, placemats, and things like that. Of course, I had to go through my pattern collection and look for those patterns and booklets.



This one I thought was done in separate leaflets, but all of the patterns are combined into a little booklet. It's title is simply Dining Decor and was published in 1983.









Then I found one called A Dozen Mile-A-Minute Placemats and Matching Tablerunners. I was surprised to see that most of these are done in acrylic yarn like Red Heart. There are only three out of the twelve that I would actually like to make.









The last one that turned up was purchased on sale from Annie's last year. It's called How to Crochet the Celtic Way. I've actually made one of the trivets using this method, so I can say it's much easier than it looks. The trivet was pretty flimsy, though and wouldn't do much to protect your table.

I've wasted all of the time I can, so I guess I'd better get back to work. I've got towels to fold, and sheets to put into the dryer. I need to mow grass, but everything is still fairly wet today after the rain yesterday. Besides, my nephew has had my lawn mower for a couple of weeks now and hasn't returned it. I've left him a message telling him that I really need it back. I love the boy dearly, but he's just like the rest of the Neys (except me). He borrows things and doesn't return them. Then you have to nag and nag until it's returned. or in some cases, just go steal it back.

Work in Progress

I'm still trying to reduce some of my yarn stash before buying too much new yarn. Last year I purchased some Paton's Grace from ebay at a great price, but there were only six skeins. I found this vest pattern in the book pictured below that used Luster Sheen, so I decided to give it a try with the Grace. Amazingly, I was able to get gauge with an F hook.
This is the book that has the pattern I'm using. I purchased it here. It's organized into four sections based on the seasons and gives a variety of patterns.
It's worked up quickly once I was able to establish the pattern. It was pretty rough going at first because the youngest cat is pretty needy and wants to sit in my lap whenever she's awake. Everytime she jumped in my lap I lost my place in the pattern and messed up the count.
This is an attempt to show you a closeup of the stitch pattern.

I'm on the back now, and then I have the left front to do. The only seams will be the shoulder seams. There's a bottom edging added last to give the vest more length.

Kitchen Stuff

Little Kitchen Helpers by Leisure Arts is what I call a "pity purchase". It's one of those purchases I make when I'm trying to be frugal, but I'm feeling very sorry for myself about the whole experience. It's that feeling I get when I look down see only food and cleaning supplies in my cart. (Surely I'm not the only person who finds cleaning supplies depressing.) If I can pick up something like this, I can feel so much better about the whole shopping trip. These little books are cheap, and they aren't fattening. That's a win-win situation as far as I'm concerned.
I used this little book to make the pot holders shown below.

The pattern for these three dishcloths was found on the ball band of the Bernat Handicrafter's Cotton I used.
The knitted cloth was made from a pattern found in the latest issue of Creative Knitting.
These two pot holders were made using two strands of cotton held together and crocheted with a K hook. These are very quick to make.
This pattern also came from the book shown above. It was actually suppose to be made using two colors, but I didn't have a solid color that matched. I'll probably use it as a hot pad because it's too big and floppy for my taste. I won't put the hanging loop on the next time I use this pattern. I decided to leave it on this one because the loop is made at the beginning of the round rather than at the end. I was too lazy to frog it and redo the edge without the loop.

All of the above took about ten skeins of the Handicrafter Cotton. You get fewer yards with the Handicrafter, so another brand would probably make more than seven items.

Deneen's Cap

This is my version of Deneen's cap published in the spring issue of Crochet Me! She asked me to test the pattern for her, and I agreed. This is a great pattern with some interesting details. The fbsc she used on the edge adds interesting detail and texture, and she used method of making color changes that I had never thought of before. Everyone should give it a try. You can see it at http://www.crochetme.com/ and read about it on her blog at http://deneens.blogspot.com/.

Here's a closeup of the stitch detail. You can see the fbsc along the edges.

She also has a great dishcloth pattern she developed using the fbsc to give it a good texture for scrubbing those dishes. I like this pattern not only for the texture, but also because the cloth isn't huge and doesn't stretch out so much when it's wet.

A Work in Progress

My blog here does show up as a feed to my Yahoo 360 place. Yay me!

Setting this blog up is slow going for me because I can't seem to find the time to work on it. It's definitely more difficult to use than Yahoo 360, but I think it will be worth the effort in the long run.