In remembrance: My Grandmother's Claddagh Wall Hang

In remembrance of my grandmother, one of the best and strongest and kindest women I have ever have the privilege to know, who passed away on March12th. I'd like to share with you the gift I made for her this last Christmas.

This hung by her window, on two thumb tacks until we had to empty her room. Now it hangs in my mothers kitchen and a soon as I finish my mother's very belated Christmas gift she will have a matching pillow.

The gift was very fitting I can see now for two reasons. First is that even though it was my mother who taught me how to crochet it was my grandmother who really introduced me to patterns (and pom poms, which I have sadly forgotten). Also I have found memories of drawing with her at the kitchen table and drawing the chart was a big part of this project.

                               

The second reason is something I didn't realize until it was pointed out in the eulogy by my cousin Nikki. That my grandmother lived the irish clyder everyday. For those of you who are not irish and thus might not be familiar with it I'll explain. The irish clyder is made of three components: the hands, the heart, and the crown.

The hands symbolize friendship, the hands that hold you up if you fall. My grandmother was one of the best friends your could have. She was always making new friends with everyone she met. This included the nurses and her roommate. A person would be hard pressed to find someone who didn't like her. She was always willing to give a helping hand. 

The crown symbolizes loyalty and she was very loyal to her family and if any of us ever needed anything she was the first person to offer help. You could always go and talk to her about your problems and she would give you the best advice she could. She inspired loyalty in her children which she always encouraged to help each other.

The last and biggest part of the clyder was love. My grandmother was full of love. Every time you would go to see her she would be so happy to see you, like you were the most important person in the world. And When ever you talked to her all she wanted to know was what was new in your life. She gave everything she could not only to family, but to strangers. She gave a large portion of her money to charity every month and volunteered at St. Vincent's de Paul until she no longer could. Also to show her love she made a baby blanket for each of her great grand children until her fingers gave up, I helped her to finish her last one.

I am working on my mother's matching pillow and I hope to finish it before Easter. When it is finished I will post pictures up here =)

My Dream to Yarn Bomb

I have always had the dream to yarn bomb and even though I'm much to busy to attempt it right now it is always on either the first or the second thing on my mind. I guess the planning phase of yarn bombing is being thoroughly covered =) There are quite a few thing that I could yarn bomb at my school, but one of these these I keep coming back to and say "if only" in my head is the statue about 20feet up on the front of the library. I pass it every day to go to class. I was re-reminded of my fantasy when me and my friend found this picture done by the school magazine. This is kinda what i have been wanting to do with slight differences and I would be using yarn (duh) =)

The one thing I worried about was damaging the statue. First off its my school and I didn't want to get in trouble for causing damage. Second its a really beautiful statue in the first place and i didn't want to have to mess it up just for it to look awesome for a short period of time. Third if all goes well and that includes not damaging the statue i thought it might be cool if it wasn't just a one time thing and that would never happen if I damaged the statue while doing it. So I've been thinking pretty consistently on it for about 4 months. I thought maybe duck tape, but that might damage the statue. I thought stick tack, but that might fall off. I thought many idea and just as I was about to give up I thought of this one. Command strips! They stick strong and come off easy. At first I thought I may have to staple the yarn to the command strips, then I tried it and realized it messed with the release mechanism. So I'm like "I might as well try it and it worked1 showed in the video below. I was pretty cool and this makes application soooo much easier. Wish i could get a discount on strips though. =)

 

Maybe soon you'll see a video/picture here when i get the time. Gotta ask permission first =) no way I could sneak that. 

Organization Part 1

Organization Part 1

I'm too busy with the play to make anything so I'll explain organization instead =) Organization is an important part of crafting. If you can’t find anything you can’t make anything. Having a messy system makes crafting stressful and crafting should never be stressful. 

You should have a set place for everything and to help you guys with some ideas I’m going to show you guys my system.

I have a little cabinet next to my desk at school. I have an identical one on the other side for my school supplies.








 

 

 In the bottom drawer is all my yarn that is

at school with me but isn’t being used at the moment. It dosen't look like much from this

view but it's actuallly a very deep drawer.

 

In the top are all of my projects currently being 

worked on. It is good that it is a small drawer so 

it limits the number of projects I can start and not finish. My chart book is the blue notebook under

the will be afghan.

 

Then I have two bags of my supplies in my closet one is the black to the left. I like bags because when you’re done you can just throw everything in the bag to clean up.  This bigger bag holds all  the small bags. So they’re all in the same spot and easy to find.

The Zebra bag inside the black bag holds all of my

safety eyes. I have plain black ones of 3 sizes and 

brown animal eyes in 2 sizes. The bag keeps them

from getting lost. Even if they get out of the plastic

bags they can’t get far.

Then I have a cloth bag. Inside that one is my embroidery thread and my black yarn. That’s what I use to put any faces on any of my Amigurumi.

Then I have a thing black bag. This contains my hooks, a pair scissors, and both sewing and crochet needles. You use these to embroider the face.

On the top of the picture above you see that orange thing, that’s actually and old pill bottle. It holds the needles perfectly and there’s no chance of getting poked and no loose needles roaming about.

 

 Next is the giraffe bag. It holds yet another pair of scissors(because you can never find them when you need them), a pencil, fabric glue, and a pad of paper

 

The pad is to keep count to stitches and to keep track of ideas. The stamp isn’t necessary, but I find it makes normal paper more fun to count stitches on, it was also just super cute at ACmoore.

 

 

Next is something I just got for Christmas. It’s a nice set of interchangeable crochet hooks. It comes in a cool zipper up case.

All these bags fit quite nicely in the bigger bag and since I like to save room I put the bag on a shirt hanger and hang it in my closet.

 

The other bag in my closet holds my biggest supplies.

  This includes Polyfil which is the stuffing used in toys, white felt, and my round knitting looms.

 You just have to figure out what works for you. However you need to set it up so you can find everything and get to it easily. I will continue on organization when I explain my yarn organization book. It was a neat idea and its almost like shopping through your own yarn catalog. Happy organizing. There will be a part 2 soon =) See ya again soon.

Finished Ninja

Hey =) So you know how I said the ninja turtle was gonna be a "craft along"? and I would update my progress about every other day? Well that didn't quite work out as planned. I went a little nuts and finished it in 12 hours. Half of those 12 hours were spent away from my work in the cafeteria. I guess it took me about 5-6 hrs while watching movies. I started out taking step by step pictures, like the ones below, but then my camera battery started to die.

By the time it had charged enough to take more pictures, he was completely done. One of the things I like is that even though I know his bandanna shouldn't be tied on the side and I didn't do so on purpose I think I like it better that way. If memory serves the red one had a lot of attitude in the show too, so it displays his roughness.

 The color in the pictures above and below have and odd color to them

 The bandanna is more of the color it looks in these pictures

A Ninja Turtle for my Brother's Birthday

           So my older brother's Birthday is coming up so I found the perfect pattern for him. When he was younger, like a little kid, my brother loved Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. So I'm gonna make him his very own stuffed ninja turtle. I wanted to make him the orange one named Michelangelo, which is his favorite, but I don't have the blue eyes. Since I only have only brown eyes I'm going to make his second favorite Raphael, the red one.

 The picture is not mine. It's from atsuko's post

           So I'm gonna do a craft along. So every other day or so I'll post how far I am or what I've done so far. I am going to be using the free pattern by atsuko at http://www.allcrafts.net/fjs.htm?url=www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=209461.%20msg2244445#%20msg2244445

           I'll post again soon =)

My Fantastic Parental Valentines: Part 2

So my Mom's package arrived today and I said I'd share with you what She sent me. It took me 15 minutes to get the box open. She and one of my younger sisters love tape =) She is a little more practical than my dad and sent me food!!! Not that I don't love my Dad's more sugary assortment. My parents are like the opposite side of a very awesome coin. Got microwavable rice for a while now =)

The orange packets are microwavable rice which is what I eat if I don't have time to get to the Student Union Building or it's after hours and closed. The roasted chicken variety, of which there are 3, are my favorites and I'm sure that's why Mom got me more of that flavor than any other. Also she sent Peanut m&m's which I love. Yellow and Blue are my favorites. I'm looking forward to the Hershey mini's too, the assortment will keep me from getting bored =) The huge XOXO is probably my favorite just because its a huge hunk of solid chocolate in the shape of love. My parents rock! I know most teens wouldn't say that, but its true. Post again soon =)

My Fantastic Parental Valentines

So my parents are awesome =) they knew I wouldn't be home for valentines day so both my parents sent me big packages full of valentines day stuff. Mom mom's hasn't arrived yet, but I'd like to share what my Dad sent and I'll add my Mom's tomorrow or whenever it gets here.

 

This is a picture of all the stuff arranged on my laptop. There is an owl paddle ball, sweetheart, a heart shaped bendy straw cup, heart cups and napkins, chocolate lips, two New York puzzels cause my school is close to New York, two cards, Valentine's Day themed Wack-a-packs (in video below), four heart shaped boxes of chocolates, and seed beads for my crafting =) Isn't he awesome? It was a total surprise too

 These are Wack-A-Packs. They are Valentine themed so they say things like "Bee Mine", "100% Love", "All I need is your Love", and "I love you forever". The instructions on the package said 1) wack packet, shake, and drop on ground 2) Wait. The one that worked best I don't have a recording of, but here's what two of them looked like. The balloon that pops out fills up a bit more and become hard. The Bee mine one is shown in the big picture up top.