THURSDAY THREADS - Jen Nipps

 

Jenn Nipps has been a dear friend for over twenty-five years. We met at a writer's conference. She is an excellent author but I think she may have found her passion.  

Young Adult Fantasy Author, Sarra Cannon says: 'Write what lights you up!'  In Jenn's case, it's no longer the writing, but the crocheting. 

She crochets and is developing her own patterns. Did I mention she is also legally blind?  Yep. This woman, with her blindness and other health issues does not let anything stop her completely. She is constantly creating.  

Here is a picture of one of her original designs, a twisted scarf. You'll find this one available for sale in her ETSY shop:

This Friendship Prayer Shawl was designed by her friend Malena of Straight Hooked Designs: 

You'll find Jenn Nipps by clicking any of the following links:

WEBSITE   FACEBOOK   TWITTER   INSTAGRAM   LINKEDIN

Creative Blessings

~ Kelly

THURSDAY THREADS - Back to the Mitten Tree

 Good morning, crafty friends!

One of my Reindeer Club goals is to get the scarf/had sets finished for the Mitten Tree. When our bank closed over a year ago, we lost the mitten tree so I didn't keep that crochet project at the top of the list.

Since then, another bank has purchased the building and brought back the 'home town' feel, including one of the gals who has spearheaded the Mitten Tree project for our local grade school. We usually turn them in just before Thanksgiving so I have less than the 52 weeks I need to empty this bin. This may be the last year I do this project. Time will tell.

This is the bin of yarn all divided up with matching mittens:

Under the bed storage box

Full of yarn and mittens waiting to be turned in to hats/ scarves

Sets I've done in the past

Next week I'll introduce you to a dear friend of mine who has learned to overcome her disability and is building her crocheting business. 

Until then, 

Creative Blessings!

~ Kelly

THURSDAY THREADS - two babies on the way!

Happy Thursday, everyone!

I had a chat with a young lady last week. I've talked about Kassie before. She is my mini-me...  has been from, the first moment she entered my daycare at 5 weeks old. She is almost 22 now! Where does the time go?

My 'baby' is expecting twins in December! That means I have until mid-September to crochet two non-gender specific afghans. Once the reveal in August happens, I can begin to plan specific colors for the crib quilts.

I tried to choose a pattern I could work up quick. I'm not sure which I'm going to use yet. Tonight, I'll do a base work up of each one and see which of the two runs through my fingers the quickest.

I also chose Dew Drops Baby Bee yarn in Lots of Dots  for the first afghan.  Here's a close-up of the yarn:

I should have a good start on the first afghan by next week. 

New video tomorrow for Friday Freebie.

Creative Blessings!
~Kelly

THURSDAY THREADS - All About the Pink!

Good morning, crafty friends!

I'm trying to get back in routine so Thursday Threads has returned.

I can't remember if I told you my plan to make afghan's for the grandgirls' beds here.  Abby is all about pinks and Adrian is usually about black's/ reds but she went with blues for hers. I haven't even purchased her yarns yet, but pinks for Abby was an easy go.

I started with the variegated from Red Heart then chose a lighter tone to act as a bridge between the variegated and the white. I do two rows of the variegated then one row of pink, one row of white then repeat.

I'm not sure what possessed me to do a single crochet. I know Adrian's will probably be a double. The single gives the blanket a heavier weight, which they probably won't need. 

Each afghan will be a little larger than an afghan but smaller than a twin... perfect fit for their ottoman - turned - single beds from Wayfair.

I do most of my crocheting in the evenings when Bob is home since that's our tv time... if I can get the cats to lay in his lap instead of mine. That isn't always an easy feat. They are such mama's babies. LOL

THURSDAY THREADS - A tip

I haven't had a thread post yet this year and thought I should get them rolling again.

I've brought the crochet hook back out. I have problems crocheting in the evenings because the cats want to help... usually lay in my lap. But I usually go to bed around 9 so I can turn on my fan and just wind down a bit before going to sleep. Tabby is my bed mate. She's a cat and cats play with yarn. To make it possible for me to still work on something, not have to chase the yarn off the bed and to keep her out of it, I've devised a plan.

After rolling the yarn into balls, I put each inside a gallon zip bag then cut a small hole in a bottom corner to feed the yarn through. Cat-hair free, Tabby can't get to the yarn (for the most part) and the ball doesn't roll off the bed away from me. I keep the three of them in my project bag and just rotate them out as needed.

This particular color scheme is to be a lap-gan for Abby's bed here at our house. The girl is all about PINK so I know this is a safe combination. I'm using Red Heart. Fiusha, Soft Pink, White.

The stitch is a simple single crochet, chain one, single crochet. the single crochet is worked in the chain space. I am doing 2 rows of the Fiusha then one each Soft Pink, White then repeat. I was planning a full size afghan for a twin bed but only chained 205 stitches for my base. Will be wide enough to go over her ottomon bed and provide a little extra something if the AC is too chilly for her. 

Silly me, thought I could do this in one month then do Adrian's - in blues - in May so they'd have them when they got here. I'm not even an 8th of the way through Abby's. Hmmm Oh well, if I can finish them up this summer, they'll have them for their next visit. 

What are you working on?

Creative Blessings!

THURSDAY THREADS - Floss Storage

While digging out embroidery floss for those dish towel projects, I decided the time had come to make a change in my storage.

When we decided to move out here in the middle of nowhere, I wasn't sure what my shopping options would be for floss. So while working at Michaels and making use of my employee discount, every time thread came up on sale I'd buy about twenty five colors. I bought the bobbins, the number stickers that coordinated with the DMC colors and 2 big 3-ring D binders to hold the handy dandy bobbin pocket pages. 

They looked like this:

What I didn't realize was that having the pocket openings face the rings would become an issue when I wanted to turn the page. Every time I attempted to turn the page, bobbins would fall out of their pockets. Those handy dandy number stickers have come loose over the years (okay, so it's been 12 years. I know.. nothing is supposed to last forever but the knowing doesn't make the issue less annoying hehe)

Saturday morning, while I had the ironing board set up to press the summer kitchen curtains. (yes, I know spring is still refusing to arrive but it is after Easter - so summer decor it is!)

I decided to empty all of the pages and store the floss by Rainbow:

Here's an up close at the pretty Pink/ Red pile:

By the time I was finished, I had two full floss boxes:

As I went, I wrote the numbers in perma pen on each of the bobbins before the number labels became lost completely.  I also have a third box with the empty floss bobbins, marked with those colors I still need to acquire. 

One more task in the organization out of the way!

As to the dish towels, that process is taking longer than I'd hoped. Even with my cheaters, I'm having problems seeing some of the lines. I'm thinking of going back over them with a water color pencil. I'll try to have an update for you next Thursday. 

Do you embroidery? Have you found a way to store your floss other than in the bobbin boxes? I'd love to hear!

Creative Blessings!

THURSDAY THREADS - Dish Towels

Thank you for your patience. I'm running on about four hours sleep and I have a full day.

Last fall I talked about wanting to do dish towels for Halloween. I still do and the towels/ embroidery thread are still paired up for that project. But I'm in serious SPRING mode around here. The dish towels I embroidered for a county fair entry twelve-plus years ago are seeing the last of their days so I decided with fresh spring kitchen towels/ dish rags I'd get at least a couple of dish towels up.

The designs I chose are from Stampin' Up! sets - Daisy Delight and You're Inspiring. Since I can only embroidery one towel at a time, I'm going with Daisy Delight this week. I'm also going to use two different forms of transfer. This week is all about the light box and a graphite pencil.

First, I stamped the design as I want it to look on the towel.. well, close enough:

I had a masked image of the daisy (stamped on cardstock then punched out with the Daisy punch) to do the overlay. I stamped the main full daisy, then masked it off while I stamped other daisy's and the leaves to make them appear as if they were in the background. Everything was done in Memento Tuxedo Black ink.

I started by folding my dish towel the way I do to put them in the drawer. This gives me the corner that will display when I hang the towel on the oven door handle:

Next, I took this image to the light box:

I sketched it out with the graphite pencil on a corner of the flour sack towel. I have to tell you, the ones from walmart are not the good towels. These are thread bare. I'll be lucky to get two years out of these. Gives me time to find better quality? Maybe something on the Spring Quilt Shop Hop next month. 

And here's the final product - ready for stitching. I'm thinking I'm going to have to start taking needlework away from the house one day a week to keep it free from pet hair while I'm working.. either that or turn my office into a no-critter zone. But I don't see that happening any time soon.

I decided to do the daisies in pink to give them a pop of color. White would just be to bland against the white background. Now if I were doing these on blue dish towels... hmmmm now I'm thinking.

Next Thursday I'll show the other design - Daffodils and how I plan to stamp them directly to the towel. I think it will work. We shall see!

13 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN - Day 5

In an earlier post I told you about plans to finally embroider Halloween dish towels. I'm making progress. This is the stamp set I've chose:

This set from InkaDinkaDo is configured to create a marionette. My plan is to stamp the images in position on white cardstock. I will place the cardstock on my lightbox then position the dish towel over the image and pencil-trace for embroidery.

Here are the DMC colors:

Top Row: #721, #740 (Pumpkin), #51, #741 (Med. Tangerine), #608 Dk. Burnt Orange

Middle Row: #552 (Violet Med.), #52 (Shading Purples), #208 (Lavender Med.), (Black),

 #53 (Black/ Gray Shading)

Bottom Row: #907 (Parrot Green, Light), #472 (Avocado Green Ulttra Light), #92 (Shading Greens)

I hope to get some embroidery time in this weekend and have an update next Thursday.

Creative Blessings

THURSDAY THREADS

For my first Thursday Threads post of 2017, I wanted to show you the beginnings (or maybe the leftovers) for the Mitten Tree project. As a refresher, the Mitten Tree is a Christmas tree placed in our bank foyer every year right after Halloween. Patrons drop off socks, mittens/ gloves, scarves and hats for the local school children. Bank employees take them to the grade-school office a day or two before Christmas break. Shannon Co, MO ranks in the top 3 poverty counties in the state. 

While we can drop off individual items, I remember being one of those children and wished I had matching sets like some of the other kids. So I purchase hats/ gloves in sets then crochet a matching scarf for each set. Last year, there were almost no hats to be found on clearance so I purchased enough yarn to use the Knifty Knitter to make those as well. Winter items are going on clearance now so when I go shopping later this week, I'll try to pick up as many hats as I can. 

The stash in the picture above is stored in one of these:

This is an Under the Bed Shoe Bag. The 22.75" x 28.5" x 5.5" is designed to hold 12 pairs of shoes. And that is originally what I purchased it for last year. But I've since turned a 5-shelf book case into a shoe/ purse cabinet so was able to re-purpose this. Mine is now holding the gloves I purchased last 

year:

28 pr. Cream

21 pr. Brown

3 pr Hot Pink

2 pr. Black

5 pr. White

4 pr Gray (with hats)

And all the yarn needed to complete the sets. These are what I did last year before things went haywire around here. I decided to hang on to them as 'seed' for this year's:

Because I know the arthritis in my right hand will give me fits if I just crochet, I'll be mixing the Thursday Threads post with updates on the Mitten Tree, Embroidery Projects and Rug making. I have some rugs I've wanted to make for the house for awhile now and I've decided this is the year some of these projects get completed. 

What is in your Un-Finished Objects project basket? Please share and let's encourage each other!

Creative Blessings!

Kelly