Mom's Scarf

Mom wanted a bit wider scarf, so I did one extra row of holes on it. It has seven strands of the ribbon yarn woven thru.
One more of these to go, for Maila. It is only 4 holes wide tho, so it should go quicker. It is also hot pink, tho, so I have to purchase some other color of ribbon yarn!

Then I want to learn to do the granny squares. I am pretty sure Loy would love a granny square poncho for her babe.

And, once Loy has her baby, I will post pics of the gifts. :)

Anne

And a good time was had by all....

Well, I hope so anyways. I had fun! :)

Yesterday I went to Art As You Like It in St. Cloud with a group of friends. It was really fun, and I highly recommend it. You can paint pottery, with ornaments starting at five dollars, or make glass pendants and earrings, also starting around five dollars. (Do pay extra for the large bail tho- it is worth it to be able to change necklaces!)

We went to make pendants. As two of our group were from out of town, I volunteered to make necklaces to go with them and mail them after they are fired. It was fun to see how different personalities go about pendant making. You have a large selection of bits and pieces and rods and glass dust to choose from, plus you can decide what size you want the base to be. I will take pictures our finished pendants when I get them, and you can see several different techniques. Jodi used a metal butterfly on hers, with a colored base and clear glass over the top. Amy did the "frit", which was interesting. She outlined the bases with the super thin rods of glass that you can snap to length (stringers) and then painted liquid glue in the center and filled it with jagged clear tiny pieces of glass. To finish, she sprinkled colored glass dust over the top. I am really curious to see how it comes out! I didn't get a good look at Elizabeth's, but I think she took clear bases and arranged a few colored shards on top of them. Mine was the most complicated looking. (but, as usual, I was first finished- not cuz I am great, but I don't spend time thinking about being creative- lol, I just do something!) I started with a clear base and did a 3x3 "9 patch" of aqua and lime green. Then I put 3 lime dots on the aqua squares in a diagonal line. (I hope to put the bail on the corner so it is a diamond vs. a square.) Then I added pieces of the stringers in bright yellow, making an x on the center square. I was hoping it would look kinda plaid-ish.

I went in thinking I was going to do purple and pink... but saw the finished colors of the aqua and lime and had to do it. :)

The magic happens when they fire it, so you can't be sure what it will look like until you pick it up!

We were the only ones in the store, so we could laugh and talk and hog all the glass and had a great time. :)

Don't forget to take time out to be creative, have fun, and just hang out with friends!

Anne

Scary Dolls

I have a page-a-day cat calendar next to the puter. It keeps me on the right day! One day this past week the picture was... scary. What do you think about these dolls? [=

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms!
(My mom told me my cat doesn't count... but she said I still can have a piece of cake, so I don't mind!)

Anne

Finished First Crochet Project!

A few weeks ago I purchased some books online, including the Lion Brand book "Just Scarves". It contained both knit and crochet project, which always irritates me when I purchase what I think is a KNITTING book. :) Luckily I decided to take up crochet this week, and found a cool project in it.

I found all the yarn I needed in my stash. I didn't use all Lion brand, but I did use their Incredible ribbon yarn in City Lights.

First I knitted the base in Caron Simply Soft yarn, in Limelight. It was very easy once I got the hang of the crocheting. It is all double crochet, but you skip some stitches every other row to make holes.

When you are done crocheting, you weave pieces on the ribbon yarn thru the holes. You are supposed to sew the ribbon ends to the scarf, but I hate sewing, and already had to do it today on the headband, so I just tied adjacent pieces. This made the fringe look thin, so I added additional fringe.

Mom even liked it- she said she wants one, but wider. I had adapted the pattern by making it narrower, I think this is the widest I would ever wear, but I agreed to do one more repeat so there are seven holes across in the next one.

Hope you like it!

Anne

Rant of the Day

Better be careful what you wish for, people who told me to start blogging again! HA!

Okay, so I HATE the commercial that says "sometimes it is the responsible thing to do to declare bankruptcy." Responsible to who? The people you owe money to and are screwing over?
If it is so responsible, why don't we all do it? Then the companies we hose can do it too! Then the government will have to! YAY! Course, the government is already trillions in debt, but that is another story... or rant...

So I went to walmart today. Can I just say they have the WORST pharmacy EVER???? I am in constant fights with them. Three weeks ago, my doctor called in two prescriptions for me. I went to pick them up that day. The cashier/pharm lady told me one was ready, but the other one wasn't, because they had to talk to the doctor. I said he called it in TODAY, what more was there to discuss? She said it was an insurance thing.

(Rant within rant coming!) I have SilverScript for my Part D. I hate them. They have done nothing but mess up and deny and try to tell me I don't need meds I have been on for twenty years. So, I did believe the pharm cashier.

Then I went back last week. I asked about my script. They told me it was not ready yet, they had not heard from the insurance yet. I leave again without it.

Yesterday I happened to visit the doc in question. I inquired about the script. He was puzzled and said no one contacted him about it.

I was in Wal again today. I went the pharm to check on it. The pharm cash is the one I like, who has lupus also, so we visit. I ask her about the script. She couldn't find anything on the puter, and told me to "go down to the other end and holler at them." The actual pharmacist overheard this and panicked. We laughed. I trudged down to the other end and asked the lady there about it. Hmm... Strange. She never has heard about this prescription. There is no info about it at all. It was never called in. *she claims* but she would be happy to fax the doctor and ask him to send it over again.

After only the THIRD inquiry they suddenly never heard of it? What about all the other times they claimed the insurance was fussing? Will I get it next time? Will the insurance fuss???

Stay tuned and see if these questions are ever answered.....

and stay tuned for the 3rd post of the day, coming up next!

Anne

super easy, super cute baby gift

One day my sister Laura called me and told me she had seen the coolest baby girl headbands. She said they were made from tights and had large flowers on them. I had just happened to have recently purchased a paper crafting kit of large flowers, thinking I had to have them for SOME reason, so I figured I could make some sort of headband for her. I put out a call to all friends with girls for tights, but months passed and no tights. Today I realized Laura is days (or less!) away from giving birth, so I gave in and purchased some girl's nylons from the store. (They were only two dollars, and you get two headbands!)

Here is how I made the headband. I didn't want raw edges, even under the flower, plus I wanted to have changeable flowers, so I found a piece of white velvet ribbon in the bead room.

I cut one leg off, tucked the toe in the cut end, and sewed it up, scrunching a bit as I went.

Then I cut the ribbon to fit and sewed it around the headband.

I went to the bead room and added a scratchy velcro sticky dot. (I hate sewing velcro!) Then I assembled the paper flowers and added the soft velcro dots to them.

Finished! In about five minutes!

I think Laura will love it.

Have a great weekend,

Anne

Back to the Blog

Okay, Julie is angry that I haven't posted for a while. :) I have been super busy working on a baby gift, which I can't post a picture of until it is given. The strange thing is that when I finished it Monday, I started on a sock, decided it was not going right and ripped it out. Then yesterday I could NOT start over on it! I, for some reason, decided to start crocheting! I am now happily crocheting a scarf. I have about six inches done, and it is going well I think.

Here are some socks I finished since I last posted:

Hailey's:

Maila's:


The reason it is so strange I can't knit the next pair of socks is that I was super excited about them. They are for my goddaughter, and she wants a very short cuff, so I am going to do a lace pattern down the top of the foot. I didn't like the first one I chose tho, and then got "off" the whole thing. I hope my sock mojo comes back soon, I still haven't knit myself a pair!

And, yes Doug, I know I owe you one. Is yours the green/brown or the black/white? I have both colors in a back marked Doug/Dad and I don't remember which colors goes with which person!

I should have scanned Jodi's graduation card, it was super cool. Maybe I will see if she will do it since this is her last week of student teaching!

Have a great week,

Anne