Crochet Me Crazy

 Well, I've been busy.  Not to mention I have been having on going computer problems.  I packed up my sewing stuff and all my yarn for the past two week because I knew I would have my grandkids for two weekends in a row.  The first weekend the kids were here I let the kids bring the Bunny in the house.  The following Monday my external hard drive wasn't working!  Well, guess what?  The bunny had eaten a hole in my cord!  

The kids left on Sunday and I had started feeling a little under the weather on Sunday.  By Sunday night I felt worse.  Yesterday, I was in bed sick all day.  I slept and slept and drank lots of water and took my remedies.  I was determined to be well enough to go to work on Wednesday.  Today I feel a whole lot better.  I got up and started doing stuff and I started to feel a little bit bad.  Guess I'm gonna need to take it a bit easy for another day.  I think I will be well by tomorrow.  

I love and adore my grandchildren so much and I love having them.  I didn't have Brennan this past weekend though because he went to my daughter's.  Her and her fiance took Brennan shopping for his clothes for the wedding.  Brennan is a groomsman.

He's only 13 but looks much older.  He's quite handsome as a cowboy!

I've been working on getting the dresses for the girls.  Treelyn is a Junior bridemaid and Lanna is a flower girl.  

Got a seamstress lined up for alterations for Treelyn's dress.  This dress is only a sample and not the actual dress she will be wearing.

Also, trying to think about getting a bridal shower for Alison going for mid-March.  

So this past weekend I was letting Treelyn sew on the machine.  Oh, she really liked it so she made just a small bag first out of a shirt sleeve...then we made a bigger bag out of blue jeans...well, she was doing so good we went for a You Tube tutorial and I let her use some of my fabric.  I only helped her cut and guided her through the you Tube.  She literally sewed this by herself.  She did every bit as good as I could, if not better!  I was so impressed!!

Around the house:

I'm enjoying being outside on the sporatic warm days we are getting here and there.  

I'm staking down all the old feed bags in the garden path ways.  I got all the available feed sacks I have saved staked down.  

The grass grows out of control in here.  It's a major battle.  So the idea is to cover all the grass with the plastic feed sacks.  Then we will get a load of free mulch available at KMUD.  It's going to make it look a lot nicer too.

 Jeff got the new FREE chicken coop finished.  

This will be for the baby birds we hatch this spring and any other times we need to seperate birds.  The only thing he purchased to make this coop was the roof shingles.  The wood he brought home from a wood crate from work.  

 Set up at the craft market on Saturday.  It was soooo cold...Like 22 degrees setting up and I wasn't sure I was gonna be able to do it.  Well, turns out I didn't have to.  It was a bust and we packed up early and went home.  There were literally hardly any vendors and no customers.  Since it is a small town, I was told there was funeral and there was a big yearly fund raiser that day for the local animal control.  All the vendors were there instead of the farmers/craft market.  No vendors, no customers and it was just too cold.  I got to practice setting up again with more tables and hanging my hats.  I forgot my blanket rack.  I still don't like the hat display.  Gonna have to think of something else.  I just have too much stuff for people to look at.

 Here's fair warning for you!  If raising animals for meat bothers you, then please don't read these posts!  We will be raising the rabbits for meat for health and financial reasons.  I want healthy non-hormone, organic meat and food is becoming more and more expensive.  Spring is coming up and there will be a fair amount of animal and gardening project posts coming soon.  We will be starting to get our garden beds ready and we are about to order hatching eggs.  If our plan goes right, this will be the LAST year we ever have to order or buy chicks from an outside source.  My chickens are laying terrible right now.  I have way too many old chickens.  23 hens and only getting 8 eggs a day.  Not 100 percent sure how we will do this yet ridding ourselves of the older birds but will record more on that as we go along.  I will either give them away if I can find homes or we will cull the flock for food.  

For now though we got our first Tamuk Meat Bunny on Saturday!  This is Lucky!  I named her Lucky as a suggestion from my sister because well...she is very lucky!  She was one of the last two bunnies left in the butcher pen as my Rabbitry who is mentoring me through this process.  She will be our breeding Doe.  

I got a great deal on the bunny cages on Facebook marketplace.  She seems to be doing well...eating, drinking, pooping fertilizer for our garden already!  FYI: Bunny dropping are unique in that they do not have to be composted before adding to your garden.  All other have to go through a composting process of which I have yet to be successfull at.  Mainly because we just don't do it.  lol

So there's that.  

But later in the evening, my husband got it out of the trash and I started ripping again.  I eventually got it worked out.  I can make the bowl cozies now but they are difficult to get perfect.  I made my last one today that I had cut out.  I'm probably not going to make anymore of these.  I decided I don't particular enjoy making them.
But I've made a couple of wallets.  This is my first one.  I struggled.  Had to tweek and I snapped my pocket together.  But it works.

I made another one and it turned out much better:

Today I made a origami style pot holder.  Turned out pretty good.  If I had prettier fabrics this would be a lot cuter!  I'll probably make another one of these.  You can do make it where it is squares instead of triangles too.  

 

 I got started making these little crochet succulant plants!  They are so cute!  I love them! 

This first one is my favorite and also the quickest to make.  Hope these sell good.  I'm gonna put $10 on these little ones

This big prickly pear took quite a bit longer to make.  Not sure I'll make this again because I'll have to price this one at $20.

 I've got 4 additional ones the hook right now...pictures coming soon!  

 Oh wow I'm tired!  Gotta say, these other crafts I'm picking up are a lot more tiring that crocheting is!  

It's a rainy and very cold day here today.  I decided to sit down and try to see if I can figure out how to start make the Amish toothbrush rag rug I've been wanting to try.  It was between this and making the rug with another braided method I saw on You-Tube.  I may still try that way and see which I like better.  I had a false start and took it out and started over but once I got it, it is pretty easy.  

I did not crochet at all today.  I cut out some 10 inch squares from fabric and batting to attempt to make the bowl cozies.  I made my first one last week and was pretty proud of myself.  

It's not perfect and has some flaws.  Let's see how I do on the next ones.  I have enough material to make a few.

I went to the thrift store on Friday and found fabric there!  Cheap!  I tried to sew a bag on Saturday with a crochet square sewed to it.  It was a disaster.  I ruined my squares and got so confused.  BUT my Bernina sewing machine sewed through the material and the crochet squares, even the thick parts with NO problem.  So now I know that this machine with have no issues with combining my crafts.   Here's the material that I got.

Now here are the completed crochet projects I have finished in the past week or so.  





Getting ready for the craft market in a couple of weeks!

 I made this little chicken the free chicken pattern on the sweet softies website.  You actually have to watch the You-Tube tutorial to get it for free.  I really dis-like working pattern from You-Tube videos.  I prefer a written pattern but so be it.  lol

 https://www.sweetsofties.com/2023/03/pocket-chicken-family.html

I gotta say though...I love this little chicken pattern.  It's very quick to work up and perfect for craft sales.  I'll sell these little gals for $10 each.  Will see how many I get made before the sale but for now, here's what I got.  

 Also, I bought a used Bernina Sport 801 sewing machine on Facebook market place.  She came with the antique sewing table.  Here she is!

So apparently, without really realizing it, I fell managed to purchase some sought after elite type sewing maching with an amazing reputation among experienced sewers and quilters.  These machines are made in Switzerland and are built like tanks and will run forever.  This machine is basic and not fancy or complicated which appealed to me.  I don't need a bunch of bells and whistles for my purposes.  

I got the the machine and the table for $100!  I've been watching You-Tube videos to see if I can actually sew something. 

I have two patterns picked out and I went to JoAnne yesterday and bought supplies and fabric.  I'm going to try to make a simple elastic skirt for  Treelyn first.  

2nd project will be a bowl cozy.  

Also on my list of new project for the year that are not crochet:  An Amish Toothbrush Rug!  I bought some fabric to make this as well for my first rug.  It cost me $23 for the materials to make this rug.