Crochet Me Crazy

Well, I'm realizing that we have now been living in the RV for over a year now! We sold our house last February. Hopefully some things will work out for us soon. There is talk around here at the RV park among the retirees. Quite a few of them are not going to put their deposits down to come back next year. The economy and the price of gas is affecting their decisions. Also, the RV park has been installing meters at all the sites. They plan to go down on the rent but start charging people for electricity. I'm afraid this could be a bad decision. They may not have a very good year next year.

Congratulations to Alison! This is a picture of her at her 2nd Pointe Class! She's doing great. It's takes a lot of strength and training to use these shoes!



Ugh...I'm feeling yuck. I don't know if its allergies or what. I just all of a sudden started getting a lot of congestion and coughing. The coughing at night is miserable. It's keeping me up at night.

I actually made deoderant from a recipe. Well, it worked just fine but the real test will be whether it actually works or not. I'm hoping it will work well for my son. He is very sensitive to smells and chemicals. I made it and put it in an old deoderant container.



I also made my yogurt today. I make yogurt every other day. Nobody really likes the homemade yogurt but my son so i make it for him every other day. I put frozen fruit and a little sugar in it. I have a friend from Equador who gave me these spongy plants they call "hongos". They make the yogurt for me. All I do is pour milk in and they turn it to yogurt. I rinse them and clean them real good and then do it over again! Here is my yogurt waiting for me to flavor it up for Michael.



I have to use a glass container and plastic utensils and strainer or it will kill the cultures. This particular batch has a lot more water at the bottom than it usually does.

We got to go see Princess today. Feels like we haven't seen her in a long time. She's always happy to see us though. And of course Alison is happy to see her...



We spent quite a few hours up there piddling around with the horses. Here is another one of my favorite horses. He always comes up to say "Hi" when we go visit. His name is Wishbone and he's such a sweetheart....



Not a very flattering picture. He really is a beautiful thoroughbred horse though. He's really dirty...all of the horses are really dirty right now. They haven't been ridden or brushed in so long and they roll in the dirt all the time. They are just out there being horses.

This post is a little off topic but because this is something that is taking up some of my crochet time I'll go ahead and mention it. I've been spending quite a bit of time researching and learning about some products that I am excited about. I won't even mention what they are until I have TRIED them myself and found them to be true. In the meantime, I'm learning and reading. Next, I have to somehow come up with the money to order the products to try on my son. He is the one with the most issues to address. Something I've learned about myself over the years is that I have a predisposition to natural health and making sense of things. I have a son who has struggled with ADHD and all types of allergy, behavioral, concentration problems. He's had a host of other problems with his eyes and he has join problems in his knees. I have tried all kinds of things with him but I know in my heart that his problems are environmental in some way. There are some very big success stories along with the products I am researching now. I am finding it difficult for my eyes not to tear up when I read and listen to some of the ways families have be helped. It gets to the root of the problem and helps your body on a cellular level begin to repair itself. I am very stubborn in my pursuit of answers and I often don't accept the status quo. One thing i have learned about myself is that I have a predisposition to dig things out and I also love helping people. All I can think of is that if I can research this out, there are sooo many people I know that can be helped! I realized today that one reason I struggle with happiness now is that I am no longer in a place in my life that I can help other people. I am now on the receiving end and I now truly understand why the bible says that it is better to give than to receive.

So anyway, time I would have spent today crocheting, I've spent doing this. If it pans out then I assure you, you will be hearing more about this. If I see the kind of results I hope to see in my son, then I will be shouting it from the rooftops! And if I don't then, well, ....there's no way I can get behind and promote a product that I don't believe in. So forgive me little distraction away from my crochet projects.

It was a absolutely beautiful day today! It got cold last night and I got cold so i woke up with my nose running and my throat a little soar. I managed to fight it off for the most part today and ended up having a very productive day. I got laundry washed and it was a perfect day for hanging it out on the line in the sunshine. I re-potted my two plants...one I got from my mom's funeral and the one I got at the Christmas party this past year. I used to have lots and lots of plants at my house! Now, I'm down to 2. We also got some tomato seeds started. Then, my biggest accomplishment was I cut Jeff's hair. The reason this was a big accomplishment is because I really hate doing it. I usually try to get out of it for as long as I can but I was a good girl today, and I didn't make him wait until he looked like a fuzzy pencil head!

Well, it's getting harder to get the pictures now. I couldn't seem to get a shot with all of the hexagons in it. In the small space of my bedroom, I had the camera on the ceiling! lol...


So, as you can see I'm progressing along nicely on it. It just depends on how big I want it to be. According to the pattern, I only have 6 more to go but I may go ahead and make it bigger. Obviously, I haven't sewed any of them together yet.

If any of you have started on this blanket, I would love to see pictures of how yours looks and how you decided to do yours!

Quick post here just to say I got my camera!! Yay! It's a neat little camera. Very easy to use!



Thank you so much to my special blog reader -- JULIE!



I appreciate so much her kindness and generosity to think to get this camera for me when she read that my camera broke on my blog. My camera was something I used practically every day. It would have been a very boring blog without a camera! Thank you so much to Julie, and the rest of my blog readers who are a great source of encouragement to me!

Now, it's going to take a little bit of effort to get all my afghan hexagons together to get a picture of them.

In the meantime, here's a picture of one of my little dogs. She is a little depressed right now because she is in heat and has to wear a sock around the house. She's not crazy about the sock but its either that or the crate.



I'm home along tonight. Jeff went to go work with some guys he's hoping to get to get in on working with a lot more. The kids are at youth and thankfully, tonight, our neighbors are picking them up and bringing them home for us tonight so I don't have to get out on the dark roads.

Today has been a beautiful day! We've been cleaning up around the campsite outside. We raked up the leaves. My iron skillets seem to be losing some of their seasoning so we started a campfire for me to season my iron skillets on. I feel some bit of spring fever coming on I think. The kids are fishing again. We'll see what they come back with!

I've got a pretty big stack of hexagons in there on my dresser! Can't wait until I can lay them all out and sew them together!

As I was downloading my freebie today, I thought I would share this link here with some of you that might be interested! I am on her mailing list so I don't miss any of her freebies. These aren't crochet related but neat stuff nevertheless.
Freebie Download for Today : How to Make Homemade Deoderant

This one is downright interesting to me because my son is so sensitive to chemicals and smells that deoderant is often a problem for him.

I was very shocked today to get an email from one of my blog readers, Julie, today saying that she was sending me a camera! (Hi Julie!)....I am really, really touched by this show of generosity. I'm still sorta mulling over what I want to say about this...it always sorta humbles me when people do nice things for me. I really appreciate it, is obvious but my next blog photos with PHOTOS will be dedicated to Julie! THANKS!!

I started feeling a little bad today. Just a little so I didn't really realize that I was starting to feel sick until this afternoon. So, I immediately took my normal routine to ward off sickness...2,000 mg of Vitamin C and my trusty old Oregano Oil. I felt even worse at Alison's dance class. I came home and took more of the same doses. I went to bed and read email and then crocheted. I feel a little better now. Hopefully I caught it soon enough to ward it off. Anyone who knows me, knows I will swear by the Vitmain C and Oregano Oil for fighting sickness if you catch it right away....two things I can't live without! It works for everyone in my family. Haven't had to take my kids to the doctor in YEARS.

Well, Alison is very excited because we got news that we will be able to do horse rides at the stables over Spring Break and over the summer! She is not even too upset to tell her best friend that she won't be able to come visit her over spring break unless her spring break is different that ours because she will be working!

We found out what the show will be for the spring show in ballet tonight...they will be performing "A Mid-Summer's Night Dream" Alison is scared she is going to get one of the parts with the boyfriend. She doesn't want to do any romance type scenes. She said to me tonight...was I going to help her if she tried to put her in one of those parts? The teacher said they are doing that ballet because she has so many good dancers this year and there are lots of lead parts...Alison said she looked right at her when she said that! There were parts in the December ballet that Alison would not have been comfortable in and actually, I wouldn't have been comfortable with her in either. They will recruit some boys from the local school to play the boy roles. Well, I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get there!

Well, pretty boring update here....I have got 9 hexagons sewed together on my afghan. I can't show pictures since I don't have a CAMERA. Alison had her first Pointe class and NO PICTURES for me! (boo-hoo)

Just a pretty normal and uneventful week we are having this week. On the brighter side, the weather has been beautiful! We even had to turn our air-conditioner on! It is really warm enough to wear shorts during the days. I love it -- it makes me feel so much happier!

I feel pretty bummed on the other hand watching the state of our wonderful country. I see things going on around me that make it hard to look forward to a happy future. The squeeze is on...gas prices, food prices, unemployment is not improving. I hope everyone is praying for our country, its leaders, and repenting.

Hey, I like my daily bible verse today! ~
You will surely forget your trouble, recalling it only as waters gone by
Job 11:16

My camera quit working. I literally use my camera almost every day! I didn't get any pictures at the rodeo. I went to take a picture and all I got was a black screen. Talk about a let down feeling. It was working fine the last time I used it. Jeff messed with it and messed with it but nothing but a black screen and it takes black pictures. The pictures that I had already taken on there were fine. I'm sad because I need my camera to take pictures of Alison first Pointe class this week in ballet! I sewed the ribbons on her shoes last night. Her tail bone is not completely better but it seems to be mostly better. She's going to go to dance this week anyway though.

We are looking on Ebay to try to find a camera that is like mine at a reasonable price. There is no way I'm getting a new camera like the one I have...this was a $300 camera. I'm hoping I can find a used one that will work with my batteries and accessories.

I've been too busy to sew anymore hexagons together on my star afghan. I have made lots and lots of colored triangles but not many white ones! Tonight, I'll bring my white yarn with me to Alison's dance class and get a bunch of white ones made up...then, I'll probably be able to get a whole of bunch of them sewed together at once. Too bad I won't be able to take a pictures of it!

I bought me some "reader" glasses at Walmart and now I can see! I've bought them at the dollar store before but they always seemed like they had a "haze" over them....sorta like the lenses weren't really clear. It felt like I was looking through a dirty window. I decided to buy some better ones at Wal-Mart and these are great! I even forget I have them on and it's amazing how much better I can see! I couldn't even read my bible because the print was too small for me to see.

We had to go into town yesterday to go to the thrift store to try to find Alison a dress. She has a field trip next week to go to the symphony with her dance class. She doesn't have any dresses. Not many places to shop around here. They didn't have a very good selection at the thrift store. We ended up buying a dress that i think she can get by with but it is sleeveless. She has a shrug she can wear over it.

We've been struggling back and forth on whether to try to go to the rodeo this weekend. We wanted to take Alison to see the horse show. I didn't know if we should spend the money or not. We're going to buy the cheapest tickets just to get in to see the horses. We're not going for the concert. We had to try to find someone to feed and let the dogs out, etc. Finally, it looks like we are going to go ahead and go. We're getting a bite to eat right now here at the house before we leave. I'm sure I'll be posting some pictures of our trip when we get back.

I've got my crochet bag packed to crochet in the car. I've got lots of diamonds crochted, I just haven't had time to sew any new hexagons together!

Do you see the "fog"? Well, that is not fog...it's pollen! I have been having trouble breathing for the past month because of this stuff. Well, they say the "Mountain Cedar" pollen season is over but I woke up this morning sneezing like crazy, my nose is running and my eyes are watering now. Different symptoms than I had before. They say the "Ash Pollen Season" will begin next.

Oh, how I LOVE my Kirby!! I don't have room for a vaccume cleaner in the RV so I just have this little shop vac I've been using. Well, today I had Jeff get the Kirby out of storage. I forgot how good that thing works! It feels so much "cleaner" in here! Well, then I decided I wanted my attachments to clean curtains and get all the dust from the ceilings, etc. but Jeff can't find them in the storage. Something else that is lost in the black hole of our storage building....sigh. Oh well, I'm keeping the Kirby out though. The kids made a space in their room for me to keep it. Yay! No more vacuming on my hands and knees and I'm armed to face all the dust and dirt that seems to plague me.

Today would have been Alison's first "Pointe" class in ballet but she is still hurt and can't dance. At least walking doesn't hurt her anymore but it still hurts to do certain things. Hopefully, she'll be better by Thursday! Alison also finally got to see Princess today. It's been over a week since she's seen her! Her daddy took her up there today. Princess was sweet as usual. I picked Alison up from the stables to take her straight to dance (the teacher wanted her to at least come and watch). I couldn't resist taking a picture of princess over the fence before we left.



Here are some thoughts on the Star Coverlet Afghan. You know I had come across the problem of some of my yarn scraps were actually too small to complete one of these diamonds. I like to have a project going that is a "true" scrap yarn project which to me, means that I can use any length of scrap yarn I happen to have. A lot of my scraps I just ALMOST had enough to finish the diamond but not quite enough. I was thinking though....you could make your diamonds smaller. There's no reason why you have to make them 14 sc across. You can experiment with size of your diamonds and make them smaller to be able to use even smaller scraps of yarn. You could also just scrap out your diamonds and change colors in the middle of them but I don't think it would look good unless you did them all that way. Also, you would end up with even more ends to weave in.

Well here is the progress on my other scrap afghan I have going.



I'm putting the scraps that are too small for the Star Coverlet here. This is super quick to throw them on this. I'm not even letting them build up bigger than a quart size zip lock bag. If it's too small for a diamond, it goes into the ziploc bag where I also keep my hook. I keep my "I" sized hook in the zip lock bag with the scraps so I don't forget what size hook I am using.

Now, I am up to 5 Hexagon Motifs!



This will be one of those projects that I will get a huge sense of accomplishment with once I'm done!

There are lots of ends to weave in with this project -- the not so fun part! I am trying to be very careful to leave long ends and do a really good job weaving them in...up and down over several rows and then through to the other side and doing more weaving in over there. I want to be able to wash this and not worry about it coming apart! I haven't sewed any together yet, as you can see. I'm still trying to decide whether to make this to fit a bed or just make it afghan size.



Okay, I've had a lot of people say they can't find this pattern online. As a matter of fact, I can't find it online either! I have looked. I have even looked for pictures of it and I can't find any! So, since this pattern is originally from a 1993 magazine called Country Afghans and it can no longer be bought unless you can find a copy on Ebay or some used magazine site, I am going to help you out on how you can make your own version of this afghan.

Diamond Motif

Row 1 - Ch 2, sc in second ch from hook (1)
Row 2 - Work 2 sc in next sc (2)
Row 3 - Sc in next sc, 2 sc in next sc (3)
Row 4 - Sc in each sc across to last sc, 2 sc in last sc (4)
Row 5-14 - Work as for Row 4 until you have 14 total sc
Row 15 - Work first two sc together, sc in each sc across (13)
Row 16-26 - Work as for Row 15 (2 sc remain in row after completion of this row)
Row 27 - Work 2sc together (1)
Fasten off.

You can look at the pictures of my afghan and see how they are put together. I am whip stitching mine together. The possibilities and colors are endless with this.

And if you're going somewhere, just grab your white (or whatever color you use for your background color because you need more of these than the other colors) and your hook and your good to go. After a couple of these, you'll have it memorized.

Please, please if any of you make this -- I want to see the pictures!

I have another motif completed on my afghan...


Yesterday we spend the day in Kerville. It was a gorgeous drive over there. We didn't really do much while we were there because we got off to a late start. We went into Home Depot to pick up the counter tops. It was really strange feeling being in a Home Depot! I haven't been in a Home Depot in a year! We used to go to Home Depot all the time when we lived in Houston. We did eat at Chile's restaurant. I had a gift card someone had given me forever ago. We are never near a Chile's so we decided it was a good time to use it. Not my favorite place...too pricey for the food that you get there. Alison and I did run into a Big Lots while Jeff and Michael were at Home Depot. That was about it...unexciting but still a nice trip.

Today, there was the obviously need to see Princess. Alison hasn't seen her in over a week. We tried to get a hold of the stable owners but no answer. We decided to drive over there. They weren't there but we saw the horses from afar. We finally got several of them to come over to say hello to us.

Alison wouldn't have been able to ride Princess though...she is hurt right now. As of right now, it looks like she won't even be able to go to dance tomorrow. They were playing some game at the church lock-in Friday night and she got a chair pulled out from under her and she fell down on her rump. She was in a lot of pain on Saturday and it hurts her to walk/sit-down. Well, I do believe it's going to be okay and I don't think she broke anything because she is a little improved today. She is still hurting but she thinks some things aren't hurting as much as they were yesterday.

We have another hard freeze tonight but its supposed to warm up to the 60's tomorrow -- Yay! All that cold and we didn't even get any snow! Seeing snow is such a rarity for us that maybe it would have made the misery worth it a little bit!

Alison wanted to go see Princess today but we didn't get to. She called and they weren't home so we didn't get to go.

Alison went to a "lock-in" game night at the church tonight. It was until 1 am but we are picking her up at midnight. Michael didn't get to go because he is grounded.

Tomorrow we may be taking a drive to Kerrville with Jeff. He has a job putting some cabinets in for someone and he needs to go there to pick them up.

I finished another motif on my afghan. Well, I started this out planning on it being a very long term project just working with scraps as I went along but I've found myself mainly working on it and neglecting my other projects I have going. I just love the way it looks when I finish one. Plus, its super easy project to take along with me to wait for Alison at dance, etc....I don't have to take much yarn and I have the diamond pattern memorized.



One looks slightly bigger than the other in the picture, but that is just the angle that I'm holding the camera.

This RV park is actually full of "snowbirds" staying here for the winter. They think I'm funny when I practically sit on top of the camp fire on "cold" nights. -- LOL...

Well, now our pipes are frozen even though I had the water trickling. Apparently, it wasn't enough to stop the freezing. I have them on full blast now and nothing is coming out. So no heat and no water right now. Well, I have the space heaters but I'm thinking the temperature must be dropping because it was staying fairly warm in here and now it seems like its getting colder. I am on the look-out for the elusive snow flurries. Am I going to have to get out there with the blow dryer? This is all new to me...we've never been in the RV when it was this cold before.

Okay, I was sewing together one of my stars because I couldn't wait to see how its going to look. I think I'm really going to love this afghan...it's so..."quilty"!

Well, another good thing about the cold weather is it gives me an excuse to stay warm under my blanket and crochet all day! I am about to get my butt in gear and get the kids started on a new book study today though. We are using Progeny Press Guide to literature and reading "Where the Red Fern Grows" ... one of my favorite books I read when I was young.

Okay, enough already...this is a bit ridiculous. Honestly, I can't remember dealing with weather THIS cold for THIS long. Sure, it gets cold sometimes but to get cold like this and hold for this long? Below freezing for days in a row??? Below freezing is not uncommon over the night.Well, maybe its been this way before and I didn't realize because I was inside my warm house...?? I don't know. We have to keep the water running or it will freeze up in a matter of minutes. Yesterday, someone forgot and turned the water off and then hose froze up and started filling up our tank. Jeff had to go outside with the blow dryer and unfreeze it. We had to go to the grocery store yesterday and Jeff was so paranoid about leaving the water running. If it froze up our drainage lines even if the water was running then we might come home to a flooded camper. We ended up unhooking the hoses and letting it run on the ground and left the hot water on a trickle.

Everytime someone opens the door and goes outside, its like every bit of warm air we've managed to get in the RV goes right out the door. Then, we have to spend time getting it back warm inside. RV's are not very well insulated. I keep having to clean literally inches of water in my window wells from condensation. Weird things are happening...my husband is wearing a beanie when he goes outside. I've never seen him wear one of those since we've been married. He was actually thankful when I pulled the camoflauge one I had crocheted earlier out for him. They say it might snow tonight...not sure I believe it. We'll see....my kids would be happy. They've seen snow flurries before but they've never seen snow on the ground that sticks. Some good things have come out of the cold. Alison always wants us to buy popsicles at the store but we are never able to because they will melt before we get home. Yesterday, we bought some since we knew they wouldn't melt. Matter of fact, we left them outside all night. I just got finished putting them in the freezer this morning. Yup, they were still frozen out there. I realize other places are having much worse weather than we are here but that's why I live in southern Texas!

Uh oh...as I'm typing, Michael just announced that we are out of propane. He is cooking something on stove and it just ran out. The bad news is that Jeff isn't here and I don't know how to change the propane tanks out. That means no heat. UGH....I might be spending the rest of the day under my electric blanket.

Even though we had our faucets dripping last night, the hoses outside had frozen so the water wasn't draining in the sink. We had to keep putting hot water through to try to keep it unfrozen. We brought out drinking water cooler in so we would have water to drink today. It kept freezing last night. It's kinda big and between that and the space heaters, it's pretty cramped in here. The power has been going on and off intermittedly. At least its only been going off for 15 to 20 minutes at a time.

I've started two different scrap yarn crochet projects. I started this star afghan quilt thinking it would be a good use of scraps. I have a lot more of the diamonds crocheted but I just laid these out quickly to give an idea of what it will be like. I tried to find a picture of this pattern online somewhere to show it to you. It is such a beautiful afghan when it is finished and really resembles a quilt. I can't find a picture of it anywhere though. It's a pretty old pattern that I have had in my "to do" stack for quite awhile. It has several names in different publications. It is called a "Star Coverlet" in the pattern I am using but I have seen it published under the names "Six Pointed Star Afghan" and "Six Pointed Star Quilt"



However, I'm finding that some of my scraps are too small to complete a diamond with so I started a rectangle granny square afghan for my even smaller yarn scraps.



(Sorry, the pictures aren't very good...I was trying to keep warm in my bed while the electricity was off while I was doing this)

I will just crochet my little scraps onto this as I go along. I can't bear to throw the yarn away and they were quite frankly driving me nuts because I didn't have anywhere to put them here in the RV.

Here's a little something I crocheted this week. I just saw the pattern and thought it looked interesting and fun. I'm packing it away for now but I figure it can be used to set something like a plant or something on. It could be a place mat but I'm not into place mats so I won't be using it for that. The pattern is a little bit lopsided. If you'd like to try this pattern, hop on over to Hooks, Yarns, Crafts & Gardening Blog: Ripples & Shells Pattern



Okay, now can we have our normal Texas weather back?

The sun is shining and it's beautiful UNTIL you go outside!! It's soooo cold and sooo windy today. I woke up this morning regretting that I didn't take my shower last night while it was still warm. When we went to bed, we were all hot and opened our windows to let the cool evening air in. I heard the cold front blow in and felt it in the middle of the night and it woke me up to close the window. We;re having a hard time not having everything outside blow away. Sorry, Princess...we're definately not coming to see your today!! It's way to cold for me...I can't take it. I'm staying inside today unless absolutely necessary. The kids are crazy....Alison caught 4 decent sized fish yesterday when she went fishing so she did her school assignments for today last night because she wanted to go fishing again today. She came home with a big stringer of fish just now!

That girl has some stamina to be able to stand out there all this time as cold as it is. It's supposed to get down to 17 degrees tonight! That's way to cold for us Texans!