More Free Patterns

I forgot to mention that I made some more of my older patterns available on the Free Patterns page!  There is the baby bottle with pacifier and the baby food with spoon and bib!  The bib is the perfect size for my baby doll pattern but can go with just about any doll you like!  These are older patterns from when I first started creating my own designs so please feel free to let me know if there are any problems, but so far everyone has really enjoyed them!  :)

Are You Following Me?

No, I don't mean following me around, well sorta, but that's a good thing, LOL!  You can find me on facebook, twitter, ravlery, and pinterest.  I'll be the first to admit that I don't always update my blog, but I'm usually using lots of social media, so it's a great way to find out what I'm doing!  If you haven't found me at any of those sites yet then you definitely should!

My facebook page has sadly been neglected as of late, but I promise to start using it more.  I'll probably even be using it more than this blog, so if you want to see more updates and more about what I'm doing then please be sure to go like it.  You can get there by clicking the little icon to the left!  If you want to see some of my public personal statuses, then feel free to subscribe to my personal page here!



I'm not a heavy tweeter by any means, so feel free to follow me on twitter if you want random sharing and updates from me!  My twitter can be more playful and I tend to retweet more from others and share my pinterest there!  If you want to follow me then please do!



Now, I LOVE Pinterest!  If you're on Pinterest then you know what I'm talking about, and if you haven't then you definitely need to join the addiction, LOL!  It's an amazing thing!  There you can find just about anything and everything you're looking for, and awesome links to cool sites and blogs.  I have all sorts of boards to reflect all of my interests, and you can follow some or all of what I pin there.




Ravelry is the go to place for all things crochet and knitting with it's huge community of fellow stitchers.  If you've been accepted there then you know what I'm talking about here too!  Many of you probably have come to my blog from ravelry because of my free patterns, so you know what a great place it is to find patterns, join groups, and connect with other knitters and crocheters that share your interests!  You can find me there and friend me if you like!  :D


Now I just wanted to let you know that even if you don't use these links today, they are always on the sidebar under my About me section!  :D  Happy social media to you all!  LOL

Crocheting Again

I've been crocheting again, and it feels great!  Ok wait, I might need to clarify on that!  I've had to put my personal projects aside for a few months because I had a big order and summer time slowed down my crochet productivity, LOL!  Now that I've finished that order and my daughter has started all day kindergarten, I've been able to devote a lot of time to crocheting the projects I love!

First, I'll show off the custom order I was working on.  It was a remake of the monkey blanket I did on the knitting machine for my son, only this time it was completely crocheted.

I will start by saying that I wasn't happy with how this pattern was working out with my crochet technique.  I used the same crochet technique as described by Todd Paschall and the crochet by numbers portrait afghans.  In the portrait afghans there are so many color changes that you can't see some of the inconsistencies when you're working on the wrong side of the crochet.  With this pattern the technique just didn't work with the black lines and I was unhappy about that.  I ended up having to go back and embroider over those lines to fill in the color gaps the technique created.  The picture above shows it before I embroidered it, but I forgot to photograph it after I worked on it.  In the end, it looked better, but my perfectionist nature still wasn't happy with the outcome!  So that was a big reason why I just didn't enjoy working on it, because I also didn't have the time to devote to it to fix it the way it needed to be fixed.

So, in more exciting news, I finished a work-in-progress that was sitting around for over 2 years.  Can you believe it?  My daughter dragged it around and around for those two years, even in it's ugly duckling stage, and it was dirty and fuzzy and needed some serious love.  I actually thought about tossing it and never looking at it again!

As you can see, this little guy (or girl?) was a sight for sore eyes!  But she got a quick make over and is now even more of a favorite of my daughter's.  Of course I finished her leg and did the shoes.  I actually had to redo the first leg to add the shoe.  Originally I had thought of doing separate shoes and clothes that could be removed, but that quickly went out the window this time around.

This little girl got some cute details around the eyes and a cute ponytail with a little matching bow!  I'd been calling her Dolly, because that's what I call all the girl dolls I make, LOL, but my daughter has now named her Sally the Ballerina!  :D

Now, for the last update!  I'm only going to talk about it briefly because soon I'm going to post a little more extensive update on this piece.  It's my personal photo portrait afghan!  This little puppy was on hold for quite some time but it's so exciting to be working on it again!  Here it is at about 45%!  Can you see it coming together?  I sure can, and I can't wait to finish it!