Beautiful Spring Day Outing

My gorgeous daughter is in town from Oregon this week (squeel!!!) and we all went to our local state park to sit in the sun, listen to the creek and enjoy a day outdoors. It was lovely. Quiet and calming. Best part; I could still crochet! It's one of the very best things about crochet; you can take it wherever you go.


I love making Lion Brand's Bear In A Jif pattern. It's very easy to make and you can make the pieces anywhere, then wait to stuff it when you can.

Do you have a pattern that you like for that kind of 'portability'?

And a discussion for another day... Do you have a favorite bag to carry it all in?

Scraps and Spring

It's only the beginning of March and it's beginning to look a lot like Spring is here in our front yard.  Our daffodils and crocus are blooming and the birds are chirping.

Wait. What?  The birds are chirping?  Augh!  I just emptied my cut-off scraps into the trash!  Why did I do that?  Those poor little mommy and daddy birds were probably looking to make some comfy nests and I just threw away some beautiful little bits of yarn they would have loved to incorporate into their new home.

Well, I couldn't just sit there thinking of the itty bitty little new birdies being brought into the world without something warm and snugly in their nests so I grabbed it bit of left over yarn and ran outside.  I cut up some small bits and draped it over tree branches and flowers and our large bushes on either side of the garage where I know a couple of chickadee's nest each year.  Ahhh.  The world is in balance this morning again.

How are you?  Have you ever thought about tossing your bits of scraps out for the birds?

Nesting material

Big and Little Craft Fairs

Hey there!  How's everybody?


This weekend was a big craft weekend for me.  On Friday afternoon, a friend and I went to the American Craft Council Show at the Baltimore Convention Center.

Elena Rosenberg of Tickled Pink Knits

We've gone for the past 3 years together and have a really good time.  This year's show was so much better than the last.  There were many more exhibitors and the fibre arts were well represented.  I saw a couple of booths with knitted items but only 1 booth that had crochet and it was actually wire jewelry.  The gal with the jewelry was talking to another customer so I really didn't get to talk to her or even grab a card.  I was so disappointed.  I have been trying to remember her name but it's just not happening.  I did drool at Elena Rosenberg's booth for her shop "tickled pink".  She had some really gorgeous things.

That was the big craft fair.  As for the little, well that is on Saturday, March 31st at our local high school.  This will be my second craft fair and I've been working on baby blankets, purses and teddy bears.  I was greatly inspired by many booths at the convention center and I'm keeping it much more simple this time around.  I also started a Pinterest board  to help me keep track of things I've seen online that I really to keep in mind.  I keep seeing banners (or bunting as it's also called) in booths online so I decided to crochet  some for mine.  Here's some of the latest items.

Thanks for stopping by again.  Hope you have a great crochet day!

Warning! This post has no value

Hi all! Just thought I'd warn you, ya know, that this post will be all about me. So if your perceived value is learning more about a new friend or how things are moving in my world, well read on. But if you like posts that are well thought out and leave you with a new crafty trick, well this ain't Martha's house.
I've been trying to become more of a part of the "craft community" and do all the right things and say all the right words but it became a bit too much for me to handle while maintaining a full-time paying job. I was also starting to feel like I had to dedicate 3+ hours every night "keeping up with crafty Kat" and it started to cut into my crochet time. Don't get me wrong, I love reading all the great crochet blogs and commenting on them. But my "day" job is working on a computer all day long and coming home to sit and be on the computer instead of holding yarn and crocheting was making me nuts. And then I would start to feel guilty for not reading! Oh how my Catholic guilt can kick in!!! So will you forgive me if I don't drop by every day? Will you drop by to see me here?
If the answer is "yes", I will feel honored. Thank you.
And while I've been away, I was working on these;

Experiment vs Design

What's the difference between experimenting with crochet and designing?   I've been pondering this question for a while now.  The dictionary gives us these definitions:
Experiment: a test, trial, or tentative procedure; an act or operation forthe purpose of discovering something unknown.   
Design: to prepare the preliminary sketch or the plans for (a work tobe executed), especially to plan the form and structure of.
When do you feel you get to say that you are done experimenting and you move to designing a pattern for a crochet piece? I've been working on a purse for myself that I just made up to see if I could.  So I guess  you could say I'm designing a purse?  Well, the structure of the purse is nice and it's a good size.  I used 100% wool and tried to felt it but it's not quite as tight a felting as I would like so I guess I'll make the same purse but in a new yarn.  Do I need to write down the pattern notes and "viola" I'm a designer?  There is a good article written by Helen Free in the February issue of Inside Crochet with great tips on how to use the auto-correct in MS Word to write a pattern.  Have any of you out there designed a pattern?

Now as for experiments... if I only make the 1 purse is that an experiment?  Even if I write down the pattern?  I think the word "experiment" is more appropriate for what I would like to try for the first time.
When it comes to things I want to experiment creating:

• Cardigan for me
• Lacey shawl

Materials I want to experiment with:

• Wire
• Rope or twine
• Beads
• Tule

The "Other" World of Crochet

I've crocheted for a long time.  My grandmother taught me to chain stitch and oh how I love to make "snakes" with the scraps of yarn she gave me.   She used to make us slippers and the new babies of the family blankets but she mostly worked in thread.  That was my first impression of crochet: slippers, baby blankets and doilies.

GG Bonnie

After I was married, my girlfriends were looking for something to do while the husbands worked or played sports and we decided to have "Super Craft Saturdays".   Sandy taught us all how to crochet and off I went.  Since then I've crocheted afghans, baby blankets, baby sweaters, baby shoes, hats, softies, doilies, a table runner and so on.  I would buy pattern books and occasionally searched online for patterns.
I thought I knew crochet.  :)
This year one of my resolutions was to become more involved in the "craft community".  And since doing so I found Kathryn Vercillo's blog Crochet Concupiscence.  And as I told her today, she has completely opened up a new world of crochet to me!  She has so much information, job postings, yarn reviews, quotes and more!  By far my favorite has to be her weekly crochet artist posts.  Seriously WOW!  This is NOT my grandma's crochet.
I think my favorite so far is Toshiko Horiuchi-MacAdam and her incredible piece called "Rainbow Net".  Kathryn has also spotlighted Magda Sayeg, Sarah Applebaum and many more.  Go and check them out and find yourself into a new world of crochet!

Toshiko Horiuchi-MacAdam's "Rainbow Net"

Crochet and Football - Oh Yea!

I love to crochet and watch sports; football, hockey, or baseball. I like that I can hear the excitement from the crowd and they give me cues to look up and watch the fun parts. Movies are good background to crochet but sometimes a movie needs more attention. How about you? Where do you like to work? Is it a quiet room by yourself? Are you outside? A passenger traveling? Or are you in your room rockin' out to Lady Gaga?

A Little Totoro to Make you Happy

My friend & I have daughters the same age. Last time we had dinner she told me she was interested in spinning yarn but didn't know where to go for help or instruction. "RAVELRY!" I cried! She visited my site and saw Totoro. One of her daughter's loves Miazaki films as much as my daughter and she asked if I would make her one for her birthday. Cute, no?

New Year - New Calendar

Happy New Year! 2012? Wow, how'd that happen?

A new year holds such promise doesn't it? For me it starts when the new years calendars start to show up in stores. Who am I going to be this year? What do I want to inspire me? Every year I amaze myself with how long that inner struggle takes. Now that I really think about it, the calendar for the New Year is always based in what happened the year before or the goals I want to carry me through the next year.
Last years calendar at work was one from the Alzheimer's association and the one at home was a "Get Fuzzy" cartoon one. My father passed away in March 2010 with Alzheimer's at the young age of 72, I needed that calendar as a reminder of him and what I could do to further the fight of a most terrible disease. The cartoon calendar was for my daughter. She graduated from HS and moved to Oregon to volunteer with AmeriCorp for 1 year before going off to college. Guess I wanted her last year at home to be filled with laughter and love.
This years calendars where purchased without thought but now that I'm filling them with info could really only be described as "spot on!". Here's what I bought:

Christmas Bear Skin Rugs

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everybody!
Hope you guys had great holidays. We went out to sunny southern California for Christmas. The only thing I like about the flights there and back are the 5+ hours of uninterrupted crochet time while listening to a good audio book. On this trip, I listened to the Hunger Games (book 2) and worked on more teddy bears for the Spring craft fair. After making the first one, I decided to use up all my scrap cotton yarn and make more "patch-work" bears. I think they will be very cute. I was able to create 4 "bear skins" before I got home. Creepy or cool?

Did you think I was gone?

Yea, I would too if I were you but really it's just crazy around here. We've really decided to downsize our house now that the kid is out and going to college. So almost right after the craft fair we started a structured schedule of de-cluttering. See:

And getting the rooms "neutralized" with new paint. So it's a bit of a mess around here but between all that and 2 trips out of town (crocheting on a plane) I managed to make 2 Minnie mouse hats and a purple bear for friends. Whatcha think?

Before

After