Floral Hot Pads

I finally got to make one of these potholders for myself!

This one is for my mother-in-law.  

I also made her a matching hot pad.

They are a birthday / Mother's Day present.  We'll see her this weekend.

Temporary Picture Loss

Are you having trouble seeing any new pictures on my blog?  Me to, lol.  As it turns out there is something going on with my husband's server and all of my pictures for the past 6 months to a year are on there.  This picture loss is only temporary.

Grandma's Floral Hot Pads

My grandma's birthday is soon, so I made her these potholders / hot pads.

This is the 4th fanciful flower potholder that I've made this week.  

Its fun playing around with the different color combinations with this pattern.

Then I made this matching chrysanthemum dishcloth / hot pad.  The last round took me a little bit to understand, but I finally got it.  You have to crochet down 4 rows and then back up them again to achieve the look of a flower.

Now I want to make a set of blue floral hot pads, potholders, and dishcloths for my kitchen.

In other news, I have been busy finishing making items for two swaps.  I'm looking forward to sharing these projects with you soon.  I am also in Earth Fair mode.  The Earth Fair is on May 14th, and I am the organizer of it which means that this week involves a lot of work for me.  Not only am I going to be making some last minute things to sell, but I will also be helping putting together raffle baskets, calling people, advertising, setting up tables, etc.

Fanciful Flower Potholder & Cars Matchbook Notebook

I just finished making a 3rd fanciful flower potholder.

I went down a hook size for this one, to a size G.  I used Lily's Sugar'n Cream cotton yarn to make it.

Yesterday I made a few matchbook notebooks.  Here is one of the larger more fun ones.  The back of the cereal box that I used had Lightning McQueen from the Cars movie on it.  The paper is 100% post consumer recycled paper.  This will be a good one to carry around for when my son gets bored while we  are out somewhere.

Fanciful Flower Potholders & Soda Tab Bracelets

It may not seem like I'm working on much these days, but most of what I'm making needs to stay a secret because they are for some swaps.  So I am really happy that I can share some of my current projects with all of you.  I made 2 more crochet soda tab bracelets in children sizes this week.  The pattern for these bracelets can be found here.

This month a friend of mine started a CAL (crochet along) in ravelry for a potholder pattern that she made.  I was so excited about this CAL.  You can find the pattern for this flower potholder on delight's blog here.  It is fun and easy to make.  I made both of them yesterday.

I wasn't to sure of this color combination at first, but it has grown on me.  I was only unsure because of the blue and green variegated yarn that I used for the base.  The thought behind the base color was that you can see the sky and the leaves when looking at flowers outside.  I wanted to bring a little of that into this potholder.  

I started making a 3rd one today.

Crocheting in my backyard

One of the best things that my husband has bought for me is a 3 seater swing for the backyard.  I'll put my craft bag next to me and swing and craft while watching my kids play.  I love that the weather is now nice enough to enjoy crafting outside once again.  My husband took this picture of me crocheting a project (its a secret project for a swap) yesterday.  Since I can't share many of my current projects because they are for two different swaps, I thought that I could at least give you a sneak peek.  I'm looking forward to sharing my swap projects with all of you, but only after my partners get them in the mail.

If you would like to see more photos and art by my husband, you can go to his blog here.  You can see other pictures that he took yesterday in this blog post, including a black and white version of the above picture.

Poll Closed: May From Trash To Treasure Challenge Poll

The winners are WIPs & UFOs & Your Queue and Eco-Craft Challenge.

We are continuing with our April challenge of working on our WIPs and our UFOs, but now we are adding working on our queue to it. Not only is it time to finish off the projects that we already started, but its also time to make those items that we’ve been wanting to make.

What is an eco-craft challenge? It is when you try to spend $20 or less on craft supplies for the month of May. The goal is to use what you already have. So many wonderful things can come from this challenge.

• You become more creative in what you make because you are using only what you have on hand.
• You finish up those UFOs and WIPs, which goes along with our other May challenge.
• You stash bust.
• You save money.
• You only buy what you absolutely need for a project that you are currently working on vs adding to your stash.
• This could change the way you shop.
• This could change the way you craft.

Why is it eco? Well by limiting how much money that you can spend, you will use less gas, have less packaging to throw away, use what you have, and you might even recycle some things in the name of crafting.

May Flowers	14 (33%)
Farmers' Market Theme	11 (26%)
Paper or plastic?	7 (16%)
Bottle cap & Soda tab	9 (21%)
Picture/Mirror Frames	8 (19%)
Wips & Ufos & Your Queue	18 (42%)
Craft Fair Challenge	7 (16%)
3 item challenge	4 (9%)
May Holiday Theme: http://www.holidayinsights.com/moreholidays/may.htm	5 (11%)
Eco-craft Challenge	16 (38%)

Votes: 42
Poll closed