Yarnjeannie's Crochet Cache

I started my Grange Fair project this afternoon. Here it is so far: I ended up frogging 10 rows of the blue. I decided to try a no-turning-chain double crochet method, found in this tutorial . As you can see in the photo, the edges look great - no big gaping holes the way you get with a turning chain! I picked up the yarns I needed at Michaels. I haven't shopped there in a while and stopped in because I heard they are introducting their own line of yarns. I chose some Vanna's Choice in the green color I need, some light blue Red Heart Super Saver, and some white and some brown in the new Michael's line called Impeccable. The only thing I couldn't find there was the green fun fur yarn I need. Luckily, right next door to Michael's is AC Moore. Literally, right next door! I did find the fun fur yarn there. Of course, I couldn't get out of Michael's with just the yarn I needed. I also bought a booklet called "I Can't Believe I'm Knitting S...

I'm an early riser - even on weekends. I hate the feeling that I slept the day away, so at 7:00 am, here I am blogging! Plans for the day include more crocheting, taking Tom to a dr. appointment, then to his piano lesson, and attending a graduation party. I had a great time with my grandson last night. I love him dearly. Poor little thing was so tired last night, and yet he fought off sleep valiantly. By the time his dad got here to pick him up, I think he had had enough of the dogs sniffing him and the tickles from Granpap and Grammy's off-key lullaby and just wanted to get the heck out of here! He probably fell asleep the moment their truck started for home. Sweet little angel. Weren't the pictures great! He has so many different expressions. My project for the day is still undecided. Do I work on an afghan for the grange fair, or put together more of those coasters and dishcloths I promised to my sister? The grange fair deadline is closer than the dishcloths, ...

Justin is here this evening with his Grammy. The min pin can't get enough of him! He curled up on my lap as I rocked Justin to sleep. Got a few photos of the baby! He's just too cute for words!

  I came home from work today to find a surprise at my door - a bud vase with a single red rose and some baby's breath in it. I couldn't imagine who might have sent it, since it's not my birthday or anniversary. I brought it into the house and opened the card. It was from my vet's office and it was sent with condolences on the loss of our Brutus. How sweet of them to do that! I was so touched. Today was a so-so day at work. We had a training session to attend and after lunch, a meeting in another building. I was out of the office most of the afternoon, but had to make my way back to my desk with just 30 minutes until the end of the shift. Evening is here, it's nice and cool out and I've got my feet up, with a min pin at my side. That's all I need! Here's an addition to the blog - I added the photo through Picasa 3 and it worked great! Picasa leaves the little symbol at the bottom of the post. Sweet!

Feels like Monday, after a long weekend! Back to work – ugh! The weather got chilly after the nice warm weekend. I’m actually looking forward to a little rain today. We just planted more marigolds out front and cucumbers in the garden, and they need to be watered. My potato plants are growing like weeds – I hope to have a bumper crop in September and October. I have 2 items ready for the Grange Fair in August. I will enter the sweater, hat and pants set I made for Justin. I finished it just in time for the weather to get warm, so he hasn’t ever worn them. I am hoping the sweater will still fit him when the seasons change again! I don’t think the pants will fit him. He is in 9-12 month sizes now. If he keeps growing at this rate, all that he will be able to use from that set will be the hat! It kills me that he won’t be able to wear the pants, seeing as how long it took to finish them! I should have thought ahead and made them in the biggest size available. I know from exp...

We had some excellent news - my SIL has been contacted by the National Bone Marrow Donor Registry that they have located 2 donors for her! We are ecstatic! To those anonymous donors - thank you from the bottom of our hearts! We hope to hear soon that they are the right match for her and she will soon be scheduled for a marrow transplant! We are still praying and ask you, dear reader, to pray for my SIL and the donors as well! If you aren't signed up with the donor registry, please use the tool on the sidebar to locate a sign-up location or go online to do so. Make someone else as happy as we are today! It's a beautiful day outside. DH is working today, but he is off tomorrow. No outdoor grilling today, but tomorrow I think we will have a nice barbecue. The kids took sweet little Justin to Nicole's aunt's house. They are going swimming. I have been doing more crocheting this weekend, to keep my mind occupied. I am trying out a nice little pattern for scrubbie...

They are together again. Brutus passed away on Friday 5/22. The vet was in agreement that his was a fast-growing, nasty tumor. I decided to let Brutus go - one of the hardest decisions there is to make. I petted him, held him and told him I loved him, then let him go to look for my dad at the Rainbow Bridge. I'm sure my dad had a big grin on his face when he saw Brutus coming. I am missing them both. My younger min pin is curled up at my side. What a sweetie he is. I wonder if he knows how much I need him right now?

I lost my dad in January 2008. I’ve been thinking about him a lot lately. He could be a hard man to live with sometimes. Whether he was wrong or right, Dad was always right! Maybe you know how dads can be. There was only one way to do things, and that was his way. My dad had a rough childhood, growing up in the 20s and 30s, when times were so difficult. My grandfather, from what I’ve been told by other relatives, was a very stern, overbearing man. But then again, who is to judge? My father was one of 10 children himself, so it couldn’t have been very easy for his father to support all those kids. My dad’s youth was spent fighting in World War II. He didn’t talk much about it, at least not until he was hospitalized before he died. He saw a lot in the war that must have affected him deeply. My dad was a hero, awarded the silver star for bravery in combat. Of course, when you are a kid, you think your parents are too strict and set too many rules and are out of touch wit...

This will be a difficult week. Brutus is scheduled for a vet appointment on Friday and I'm relying on the vet to let us know whether it's his time or not. I believe the tumor on his foot has grown so large that it's broken through the skin. There is a large raw fleshy area that looks like a red cauliflower where only 3 short weeks ago, it was just a swelling in his toe. It's grown so fast that I'm sure it was the right decision not to amputate, as it's probably way past too late for him. At his last appointment the vet detected lymph nodes in his chest that were probably already affected by the cancer. I will let the vet tell me whether or not it's time for him to go. In my heart, I'm afraid it is. I write this with tears in my eyes. I hope to be strong enough to be there for him in his last moments. I do hope there is a Rainbow Bridge. If there is, my dad is already there, calling for Brutus. We took Tom to dinner last night, but my husband w...

Tom is officially a graduate! They had a very nice commencement ceremony at Penn State's Abington campus. Afterwards, we went to Applebee's for lunch. Tomorrow we will be doing a nice dinner celebration with both of my boys, Nicole, and possibly my brother as guests. I should see if my sisters will be available as well. The more, the merrier! The picture is deceiving. My "baby" is now 6'4". I think he was stooping over to get closer to his folks when the photo was taken.

I am playing with brown and yellow cotton yarns. I made a simple round dishcloth in these colors and it looks like a cheery sunflower. I got the idea after starting out a round ripple in green and yellow and thinking that the design would be cute in brown and yellow. I did work up some matching coasters. These will go to my sister’s church bazaar. My younger son Tom gave me a late Mother’s Day gift yesterday. He said he forgot he had it in his room to give to me. He fooled me. I thought he was getting me a crochet book, but instead I received a gift box with body lotion, cuticle oil, and some other manicure items! The lotion is lightly scented and is very nice to use. What a good boy he is! He’s still my baby at 22! He was a big help to me on Sunday, planting my flowers for me and doing the dishes! One of my sisters is returning home from vacation today. She spent the last week in the Florida Keys, at the Ocean Pointe Suites Resort. She really enjoyed her time there, cal...

Wishing all a Happy Mother's Day! If you are fortunate enough to still have your mom, give her a call and tell her you love her! If you have lost your mom, say a prayer on her behalf and tell her how much you still love her! I had a wonderful lunch with my two boys, with Nicole and with baby Justin. We had lunch at the Great American Diner. I held Justin while the kids ate their soup, and then he started rubbing his eyes. I knew he was getting sleepy, so we gave him his binky, and I held him in my arms as he fell asleep. Once asleep, we put him into his carrier, set him on the seat next to Tom, and then we had lunch. I received some very nice gifts from Dan and Nicole. Nicole bought a picture frame that she decorated. I'm very touched! She put little Justin's hands in fingerpaints and put his handprints on the frame! The picture album she gave me has photos from his birth through his christening and lots of room for new photos! Dan gave me a lovely card. I enj...

I'm getting some crocheting done today. Here are photos of the dishcloths I've finished (well, almost finished). I have to weave in the loose ends. I've only got three or four colors to work with so far. I need to take another 50% off coupon to AC Moore or Joann's and see what other colors they have. I actually want to find a brown, because as I was working on the green/yellow round ripple, I was struck by what a cute looking coaster it would make in brown and yellow - like a sunflower! And look at the cool pattern in the variegated one - like a big O with a letter I in the middle! Or a candlestick in a circle. I'm going to be searching the internet for simple crochet market bags, preferrably ones that can be worked in crochet nylon. My sister requested some of these for her church bazaar. I'm also looking for scrubbie patterns. I like the ones that can be worked over a sponge. It's turning out to be a nice day, weatherwise. We were supposed to be...

I don’t know what’s wrong with me today. I feel so melancholy. Yesterday, I could really see just how much pain Brutus must be in. When I brought him in from outside, the tie-out cable touched his foot and he started to cry. My heart breaks for him. Our pets are so stoic and don’t show us how much they hurt. He is such a sweetie – I wish I could take the pain away from him. I will call the vet to see if they will give him a pain medication to take in the next two weeks, so that at least it will give him some relief to hold him over until his next visit. I’ve got something of a headache today too – one at the base of my skull that feels like someone is twisting a band around it tighter and tighter. Probably a tension headache. I’m looking forward to some quiet time this weekend and I want to spend some time working on charity crochet. I promised Kathryn some baby hats as well as blankets and I have some odds and ends to use up. I’m happy to say that I was able to get two of...

A Thousand Words Thursday - check out the link above. The Mom Jen encourages everyone to post a photo that is worth a thousand words every Thursday. This is mine today: My firstborn son with his firstborn son. It's been a rainy week - right now we are enjoying a bit of late afternoon sunshine. The ground is saturated and there are puddles everywhere! I went up to check the garden. The tomatoes and peppers seem to be pretty good so far. My husband will be spreading lawn cuttings in between the rows to mulch the plants. I've never grown potatoes before in a home garden, so I'm not sure if this is what the potato should look like when it starts to grow, or if this one needs to be covered up a bit. I have a flat of white (rather, cream-colored) marigolds coming tomorrow. They'll be nice to plant between the petunias in front of the house, or I'll plant them in a circle around the stump left behind when we took the crabapple tree down. Rain again tomorrow and S...

I babysat for Justin yesterday. He's almost 4 months old. I stopped in at Dan and Nicole's when they called and said they wanted to go out househunting. Dear little Justin was strapped in his carseat and was ready to go with me to my house. But since it was pouring rain, I offered to sit with him there at their house. I bent over to unstrap Justin from the carseat and started to talk to him. All of a sudden he got the biggest grin on his face - so big, he lost his binky out of his mouth! My heart just melted! I don't know if he's old enough yet to recognize faces or voices, or if he just reacts to someone else smiling at him (I know I was smiling at him for sure), and I don't care what made him smile. It was just a beautiful thing to see! God knew what He was doing when He made babies! It's going to be a rainy week. I know I like rain, and it's good for the garden, but this just might test my limits this week! It's been rainy since Saturday, ...

I was asked to babysit my sister's granddaughter while her mother, grandmother, and one of my brothers and another of my sisters went to a warehouse sale. I must admit that I was nervous. I raised two boys, and I was wondering what to do to entertain a little girl. We ended up going to a flea market. She had 3 dollars to spend. It was so cute - she spotted a glass paperweight shaped like a diamond. It was a light shade of pink, and she decided she wanted to buy the diamond for her mom. She also found a framed poster with 4 puppies on it, and instantly she fell in love with it. I bought that for her. After the flea market, we went to Lowes where I bought some more flowers for the house. Snapdragons, this time. I showed Maddie how to make them talk! She got a kick out of that. When we left Lowes, we stopped at Mickey D's for a bit so she could play in the playroom, and waited for a phone call from the shoppers to tell us they were finished. We met up with them then at...