Afghan Finished, BUT I'm Not Done Yet

I finally finished the fourth afghan.  I am happy to be done with it, but I have decided that I am not yet finished with the afghans.  I went back to look at the four after finishing this one, and I didn't like that the first one I did out of 100% wool was so much smaller than the others.  I used up almost all of my bulky weight wool yarn, so I decided that if I striped another two blocks for each end of the afghan by using a double strand of the medium weight yarn I would have enough yarn to enlarge the afghan by six inches on each end.  I will add a four inch strip along the sides to add another eight inches to the width.  I also think that I am going to felt it.  It seems so stiff the way it is now, and I think that felting it will make it a little bit softer.  I'm not fond of using 100% wool yarn to make an afghan, but I wanted to make T's out of the wool from his own sheep. At least, it will be warm for the cold Maine winter.

This afghan is a three toned blue and has diamond and triangular blocks, making it have a slightly different look than the other block afghans. All the blocks have a good texture to them.  Each color has a different pattern, which I showed in an earlier blog. You can check out the detail of each pattern up close in that blog.

Now, it is back to creating a pattern for the revised wool afghan.  I am trying to still keep a repeated striping pattern for the blocks for each end.  I have such a problem, in that I like things to be symmetrical. I want the top blocks to match the bottom ones.  It wouldn't be so hard to do if I had plenty of yarn of each color, but I don't.  I have finished the first block that has striped rows in the pattern of 6 light blue, 2 cranberry, 4 olive green, 2 off white, 4 green, 2 brown, 4 pink, 2 blue, 4 light brown. This block is 51 stitches wide. Next to it with 36 stitches, will be a striped pattern with 12 dark blue, 6 blue/red mix, 12 dark blue.  The side strips will be done in another shade of blue.  I have used many of these colors in the blocks that were already in the afghan before.  If you want to see the original one, you can check back to an earlier blog.  This afghan does not have the same sized blocks.  It had four blocks, two of which were wider than the other two.  The two wider blocks were in the top left corner and the bottom right corner.  The narrow blocks were in the alternate corners also.  This makes it so that the wider blocks over lap each other in the center of the afghan.  The new blocks are reversing the side that the wider blocks are on, so that they once again overlap in the center.  I know this sounds confusing, but it is straight in my head, if not in any one else who may be reading this. I will definitely blog a picture of it when I have it finished.  Wish me good luck...I am going to need it.

Starring: Joey as Woody and Lexi as Jessie

I know that there is still over a month to go before Halloween, but when I get an order for something to be made, I get right on it and finish as soon as possible.  This time, it was the Toy Story character costumes for Lexi and Joey. Cheryl was just giving me a heads up, so I could start planning.  I get so excited to see the outcome of things, that I just can't wait to see the final results.  Especially, when it involves such cute models as any of my beautiful grand children. So, here they are...Woody and Jessie.

Joey as Woody.   I had to make lots of adjustments to make this costume more realistic.  The hat was black and needed to be brown, so I hot glue gunned on some brown felt. The boots had canvas camouflage tops, so I also hot glue gunned the brown felt. The shirt material was plain gold, so I put in the checks with red material marker.  The checks do not show up too well in the picture, but they look great in person.  Joey likes it just the way it is.  I couldn't get him to take it off.  I hope it will last until Halloween.

Woody on Bullseye.

Lexi as Jessie. At first, Lexi loved the costume and would not take it off until her nap.  I didn't have the shirt finished, so I could not take her picture until after her nap.  She was not happy with me for trying to take a picture of her wearing it.  She is trying to escape from me in this shot of the back of her costume.  I did not have a chaps pattern, so I came up with this idea, using a pants pattern. The front was shaped as the front of the pants. The back, as you can see, has the legs cut and attached at the crotch area. They fit right over her jeans. I have a wide elastic across the back of the waste to hold the chaps up. They look really cute and I am pleased with the final results.

This is the best I could get of the front. Jessie (Lexi) is headed for the closet. She likes to hide in there when she is upset with Grandma.  I wish I could have had the shirt finished before her nap. She was happier about it then. Actually, she wasn't upset about wearing the costume...she just didn't want me to take her picture.

Now, it is back to the afghan.  I corrected the mistake that I had made when I was last working on it.  I had just four rows to go when I discovered that I had somehow increased my stitches by two.  I had to take out two rows to get back to where I had made the error.  I now have finished the block and I am in the process of attaching it to the rest of the afghan.  I hope to finish it tonight.  I basically just have the trim to do, which I will crochet.  It should go pretty fast.  I will be very happy to finish this afghan.  I'm not sure why it has been so hard for me to get this one finished.  I have taken so many breaks from it to finish the quilts, the bibs, and the costumes.  I seldom take so long to finish a project, but I think this one will finally be done soon.

Baby Bib Order Complete, Plus Pirate Costume

A  neighbor called the other day and ordered some baby bibs for a shower she will be going to.  I was happy to make the bibs, since I am finishing up on projects and need things to do.  Also, bibs are great because they are an awesome way of using up tons of scraps from my left over material.  I finished the order today and delivered it this evening.  Here are the bibs.

Novelty cow and monkey feeding bibs.

Novelty puppy and kitty drooling bibs.

Drooling bibs

Drooling bibs

I guess you can tell that the baby is a girl.  The order called for bibs that could be used right away, so I made more of the smaller drooling bibs than the feeding bibs. All of the bibs are backed with liquid proof material, except for the one with the bears.

Another project that I finished last week was Ellis' Halloween costume.  I knew that I was going to be going to Maine to see him this week end, so I asked him last week, when he was visiting, what he wanted to be this year.  He said he wanted to be a pirate.  I was only able to get started on it on Wednesday night, and I needed to have it finished by Friday morning when I was planning on leaving to Maine.  I got it finished and took the sewing machine along with me, just in case I needed to make adjustments.  Of course, since I had my machine, it was fine.  Actually, the legs were a little too long, but that required hand sewing.  I'm sure that if I had not taken my machine with me, that there would have been something that would have needed to be done on the machine.  That is the way things usually work for me.  Anyway, here are some pictures of my little pirate.

The pants are supposed to be at the calf.  Since they have a cuff, I had to bring the whole cuff up by one length.  I stitched it in place by hand, because I didn't want to take the whole thing out and start over. The sword is foam board with the blade spray painted silver and the handle wrapped in material that I used for the vest.  It feels like leather on the front side, but not on the back.  It was great to work with.

I bought the hat and stitched the skull and bones patch on by hand.

Before I returned from Maine, I received a telephone call from my daughter requesting the costumes for her two children.  At least, she didn't wait until the week before like she usually does.  She likes to dress her son and daughter in matching theme based costumes.  The first year, she had me make a football player for Joey and a cheer leading one for Lexi (at the time they were one and four months).  Last year, they were Luke Skywalker and Princes Leia. This year, she wants Woody and Jessie.  I was able to get the cow print material (see above in the cow bib), but not the Woody shirt material.  I bought some plain yellow material and will use a red material marker to put the stripes on it.  It will do. I will need to make the vest for Woody, chaps for Jessie, and shirts for both.  I bought the jeans and accessories. I found cowboy boots for Lexi, but I cannot find any for Joey.  I am going to check upstairs and see if I still have some left over from my boys when they were little.  I always had them in boots, but I don't know if I kept them.  I have a lot of stuff that I did keep, and just maybe, there will be boots that will fit.

A Pair of Birds for a Pair of Sisters

A lady in my congregation at church just had a baby girl this past week.  I wanted to make a toy for the new baby, and since she has a big three year old sister, I felt that two toys were in the order.  When I looked at my patterns to see what I would make, I was quickly drawn to the chicken.  I thought that would be a nice toy...a chick for a new chickadee. Next, I wondered which animal I should make for the big sister.  I decided on the owl...making it two birds for two sisters.

Two birds of a feather flock together.

I have almost finished the last afghan for Christmas presents.  This one has taken me a very long time to finish.  I started it, then took a break while I worked on the quilts.  I felt that knitting when I am watching my grandchildren is easier than working on the sewing machine like I had to do with the quilts.  I got back to work on the afghan after I finished the quilts, but for some reason, it still seems to be taking me longer than it did for the other three.  I'm not really sure why this is so, but I will be finished soon.  I only have three more square blocks to knit.  Most of the afghan has already been assembled.  I just have the two short rows to add, and then I will knit a border around the whole afghan like I did with the others.  It will be nice to have everything made that I plan to do for Christmas, but I'm not sure what I will do after I do finish.  I will think of something; I'm sure of it.  I may make some baby hats and donate them to the hospital. I guess they can always use them.