Change Up Crafts....

I've been meaning to take some photos of some of my recent or fairly recent craft projects to post them here but somehow, like so many of my plans and projects, it's something that I just haven't gotten around to taking any pictures of the stuff.

Till last night that is when I finally took some picture of somethings I made in the past two weeks and one, I made about a month ago now. Bear in mind I am sure no photographer and I'm also not an expert at crochet either but have been trying to upgrade my crochet skills and knowledge by making dishcloths in different patterns.

Sorry, but this post only has something else I've been experimenting with along the crochet lines and that would be mats -bath mats, to be precise!

This was the first creation and originally was intended to become a baby blanket for my little beauty, step-greatgranddaughter, Lola Rae. However, the yarn -which is a very thick yarn and the label on the package said one should use either size 13 or 15 knitting needles but when I tried to knit with it, using the needles in those sizes, the yarn was not very cooperative with me. So, instead I thought I would switch gears and find a crochet pattern and found this one which called for a thinner yarn but I was on an improvising kick and forged ahead.

This turned out to be just the right size to put either in front of the tub or the vanity and it is thick -very plushy feeling actually -and works better as a bath mat than as a baby blanket. As a blanket, this yarn, to my thought process is too think, too stiff, not enough give to it. It's not exactly the best color, really, for this house what with kids tracking in and out and muddy shoes often abound, but Mandy and I both like it.

This one started out as an experiment too except it began with the idea in mind of it becoming a dishcloth but then it sort of grew until I ran out of the blue color yarn. I discovered then this might be a good way for me to use up some of the many skeins (balls) of furry type yarn I have in my yarn stash from back in the days a few years ago when I was on a big kick of making the furry scarves that were very vogue for quite some time. For this piece, I used up some leftover turquoise yarn I had in a worsted weight and a skein of the foxy fur yarn in white together and crocheted this piece until the turquoise was used up. It is a lot smaller than the first "mat" (above this) I made so it's more like just a little mat for a quick shower ya know but it too is nice and plushy, soft, furry!

After I finished that little project, I was really on a roll then and decided to try making a mat more the size of the first one and using some of the multi-color furry yarns I had. There is no rhyme or reason to the design of this item as I just used a few skeins I had that had maybe a color in them that could tie to the previous color or a color two colors earlier. I started with multi-color yarn in an aqua, pink and lavendar-purple shades and with it I combined some purple yarn in worsted weight I had leftover. After using up the multi-colored yarn (2 skeins), I changed to using the purple with some pink/rose multi-color and when I ran out of the purple, I switched to a white yarn for my second color. It worked okay except for the fact it was a little bit lighter weight yarn than the purple but I still liked the feel of it anyway.

When the rose/pink yarn was depleted, I switched over to an aqua solid that matched the aqua in the larger end portion of this piece and used that skein up. After that, I went to a multi-color yarn that had a little different shades of pink, blue and lavendar and ran through that skein. Then I used a different type of furry yarn in a purple and when that was finished, I used up a skein of a very dark purple in the foxy fur yarn and did a few rows with it and then, crocheted around all four sides for I think 3 rows, maybe it was 4 rows then to finish it off. 

Granted, it's a little weird in that the various colors don't have the same number of rows but Miss Maya really likes this rug -a lot! And the good thing about this one is it really doesn't show the dirt very easily either! Anything that doesn't show the dirt immediately after one use is a darned good thing to have in my book, ya know.

Now, I am working on a baby afghan for a gift of a close friend of my kids and me who just had a little baby girl last week. I'm using a pattern I've made up before and the yarn I chose is a very pretty light mint green. The pattern is an easy to crochet ripple pattern so I shouldn't have any problem making it! And I love the yarn as it is very soft and lightweight plushy feeling too! I just started this project two days ago though and what I have completed isn't near big enough to photograph as yet but I will try to remember to get a picture of it when it's completed to post on here.

I'm also going to take some pictures over the weekend of the dishcloths I have completed now too. I do enjoy making them as they tend to work up fairly quickly and I'm just playing right now with patterns that are simple so I can get more familiar with more crochet stitches and patterns as well as hopefully getting a knack for doing edgings on these projects. The multi-colored rug above has a lot of issues (meaning mistakes) in the edging that I need to keep practicing on that kind of stuff and some day, hopefully get it right!

I also have some embroidery projects I completed this winter and spring too that I need to take pictures of that stuff sometime soon now too!

So, more to come that I can show you without being too embarrassed by  the number of mistakes each item contains!

About the only things I've ever made that I consider to be "error free" would be my three kids though so don't look too closely at the craft projects then! LOL