Snowy Weekend

It's been a few months since I've blogged! Oh no! But it's a new year, and I promised myself that I would work my tail off to be an awesome knitter/crocheter/blogger this year! So here we are, and here we go!


First and foremost, I hope everyone had a terrific New Year! Can't believe it's 2014 and already half way through January!And winter, well is defiantly in full swing here in the States. Minus zero temps and snow! Lots of snow! I know I'm ready for Spring to hit so I can get back into my photography! However, it is winter so a hike down to my favorite waterfalls is in order soon!

Yep, snowy. But not to overly cold... For now.. After all this is Ohio..

 

Atleast it makes everything look very pretty :) 

Now, nothing like a hot cup of coffee to warm you up on just a cold Winter day. Mmm Vanilla and Hazelnut!

 A few weeks ago I had a nice little chat with myself. A new year means a whole new agenda in life. I decided that I really need to take a different approach to managing myself and my life. I don't have a lot to juggle these days, and in order for my to contine to feel happy and upbeat, it's essential that I keep on top of things. What this basically means is that I need to alter my natural free-floating tendencies and create a little more structure to my days. Yes, a little more organisation and structure would be very good for me, I decided. Just a little, nothing too harsh or stifling. This structure would allow me to carry on doing the things I love (and the things I am committed to) but in a less chaotic, stressful way.

I decided this year that I will go out of my comfort zone with well, just about everything in my life. Knitting and crocheting harder things to better my skills, such as, create my own patterns, continue with harder skills, and try harder more complicated patterns. And with my photography, go WAY out of my comfort zone and try newer things, play around with Photoshop more to create better images. 

So, lets begin this adding more structure and organization with my life. Today, well I organized all of my yarn, and tools (lets hope it stays this way). 

I have come insanely addicted to double-pointed needles in the past few months! Like, really really addicted! So far I've only been making hats with them, but I plan on going out of my comfort zone really soon and trying something a little harder. Can't be that hard riiight?

(Btw, doesn't that hat make you feel really really happy? I think it would make fun socks!)

I'm loving the double ribbed stitch! Makes hats so stretchy to fit over the wee lads head! 

One of my many goals this year, is to knit a bunch of hats to donate to the NICU at one of the hospitals here in town. My niece Twylah was born on Christmas day, 6 weeks early and she has been in the NICU ever since just to get a little help breathing on her own. But luckily, she's doing amazing and should be released this weekend!

But my sister(my best friend) told something very very sad. There are some babies who are there by themselves, their parents don't come to see them until they are ready to go home :( So my goal this year is to knit them up some little hats and some little teddy bears to keep them company! 

And with all of this said, adding some rows on this ripple afghan I've been working on for quite sometime now. It'll be done someday haha! But come Monday, I need to start on a Mickey Mouse graphgan for my nephew who turns 3 in two months! Wow time flies!

 Have a great evening everyone, and happy yarning!

A Little Hope

This past week has left not only myself but many in America at loss for words. So many innocent lives have been lost, and I'm sitting here wondering why. Part of a small town in Texas has been destroyed, and the city of Boston has been in lockdown. It's hard to not stare at the news, regardless if it gives me knots in my stomach or not. All we can do is pray that the worst is over and that it doesn't get any worse.

I wish I could send a little Hope and Happiness to each and every family who lost a loved one this week. But instead I stitched some colors that mean Hope and Happiness. I along with many others wish I could do more to help these families.

One of the blogs I follow, posted a link in her blog post today about a Boston Love Blanket project she found on Twitter this afternoon. They are collecting 8"x8" squares to make an afghan for a family of one of the Boston bombing victims. I will be making a few squares this weekend to send to them. After all it takes little to no time to make an afghan square.


With that being said, we have to keep these families in our prayers and move on with our daily lives even if we think doing any thing fun is wrong at this particular time.



So, along with the afghan squares for the Boston Love Blanket, here are my weekend plans....

I found some gorgeous new crochet hooks and a new circular needle this afternoon at Hobby Lobby! Aren't they pretty? I love the purple one(purple is my favorite color). The orange one is a mixture of green also, and if you know the Ireland flag, it's Orange, White, and Green. So that one suits me well.

How about those polka dot shoes from Target? Aren't they just adorable! And they are quite comfy and go with my skinny jeans just nicely!

My plan this weekend is to..

- Make a few afghan squares for the Boston Love Blanket
- Cast on to my new circular needle a baby afghan with that pretty pastel colored yarn to either sell or donate to charity.
- And possibly cast on a new pair of socks that will be for myself. I have not yet knitted a pair for myself.


I hope everyone has a great weekend. Hold your loved ones close, and lets hope for a better week next week!

-Taylor

Weekend Planner 4/12 - 4/14

It always feels amazing when you crochet or knit that last stitch on an item for charity, doesn't it? This past week I made a few new items for charity and it felt amazing when I got done with these :)


The granny square baby afghan was just a basic granny square and kept going for 22 rounds. The middle one I just knitted and CO as many as I want and just did a basic garter stitch.

The last one reminds me of watermelon, doesn't it remind you of watermelon? For this I used this Simple Lines baby afghan pattern. I just love this design!

I plan to donate these once I make a bunch more! Putting my stash of yarn to very good use!

It's going to be a little bit chilly and wet out this weekend. But April showers bring May flowers right? So here is what I have planned this weekend..

- I'll be working on some WIPs that I have many of; one being my Octagon and Square afghan! My deadline for this is very soon.

- Even though it's going to be a little cool outside this weekend, I may take my camera and shoot around German Village and Short North area. A little black and white in these two parts of town are my favorite.

Don't you agree?(I do need to visit this shop.)

But back to my weekend plans...

- I bought some Brown and Beige crochet thread, and I plan to make some coaster for my living room coffee table. So maybe I'll work on some to this weekend.

- And of course spending some wonderful time with my husband. It's hard to believe we've been married 3 years on the 23rd! Time sure does fly <3

That's about it for tonight! I hope you all enjoy your weekend whether you are snowed in out west or having a warm Spring weekend, doing what you love to do!

Happy Friday!

Weekend Planner

Happy Saturday everyone! Is everyone enjoying this lovely spring weather? I know I am!

It's a nice warm perfect weekend to do some awesome things!

First off, since it's starting to get nice and warm out, most of my days will be spent outside! So I'll be doing my crocheting and knitting in the evenings or if its a rainy day..

Right now I'm taking a break from my octagon and square afghan and knitting a little bit of preemie items. I plan to start some kind of charity group here shortly, so check back and I'll be adding a new link to my page.

I love the colors of this particular preemie afghan. Makes me think of Watermelon :)


I've been wanting to teach myself to do embroidery, and I saw this little kits at JoAnn's the other day for only $1 and had to pick up a couple of them to try out. Now I need to learn some stitches :) Can't be to hard right?



And of course since it's so lovely outside this weekend and this whole week to come, I plan to be hanging out with...

 my adorable little nephew taking some photos. He's usually shy about the camera so I giggled when I shot this photo. I love his expression!


Today we went to a local park that has a living historical farm that had 3 day old baby lambs :) They were so cute!

Here's some of the photos from that farm.. Enjoy and have an amazing weekend!

  

Doesn't this look like it was taken waaaaaay back then?

 

What I've been working on...

Good Monday afternoon everyone :) It's been a little while since I last posted, but I've been so busy with whipping up some beautiful crochets and knits to share with you all.

It seems that I make a ton of afghans, but it is still very much winter here in Ohio!

 But my wonderful husband is awesome and bought me my favorite flowers for Valentine's Day, so these are telling me that Spring is right around the corner!

Speaking of Valentine's Day, I hope everyone had a great day with their sweethearts :)


So these past few weeks, I've been working on a couple afghans, one for me, yes for me for once :) and another for my little nephew Shayne.

I made this warm beauty for myself :) It's made out of 6 different colors of Lion Brand Jiffy, and oh my is it warm :) And it was so easy to make! I'll throw up some tutorials of some of this stuff I've made soon, I promise :)


This next blanket, hurt my hands, and I'm only 22! The "puff" stitch takes a lot of work lets just say that.

Alphabet puff stitch afghan :) And little Shayne already likes it. I kinda messed up at the bottom there with the puffs not reaching the end, but for being my first time making something like this, I think it looks mighty swell!

A newborn diaper wrap shirt...

diaper cover to match the shirt...

a beanie to match the shirt and diaper cover...

And what do you get???

 A adorable newborn outfit :) Now I just need a baby to model this on! Ohhh, someday I'll have my own to make a ton of pretty things for :)

Now, how about a look at what I'm working on now?

Another afghan :) it is winter after all and nothing better than cuddling up with a nice warm blanket! Give me a few days and it'll be complete!

Hope you all enjoyed what I had to share today. I will have more, promise, and tutorials :)

Toddler hoodie!

I don't think I've ever been so happy to force myself to work on a harder project! Although my hands hurt worse than an old lady with arthritis, believe it or not this only took me 4 days to complete with minor complications. 

The only complicated part was the hood believe it or not!

So without further due, 

This size I made fits a 24 month old. This one I made for my 21 month old nephew for Christmas. But the pattern goes down to 12 months. 

Obviously you can tweak it to make it smaller or larger, depending on the little one's size. For this one in particular, I followed the pattern for the sleeves, but they turned out to reach all the way down to Shayne's knees HAHA! 

So a tip for everyone who wants to make this easy toddler hoodie, do what I did, take one of the toddlers actually shirts, and keep it for reference for the measurements. Comes in handy :)

The pattern for this little thing can be found here.

(Those are car buttons btw)

They may be to young to fully understand just what they are getting! But this makes a great gift to get them through those cold months :) Enjoy!

Yay for Socks!

These are Christmas present for my mom, and my mother-in-law. The bind off is a little eh, because I'm still trying to master the invisible bind off method. But overall these look amazing!

These were knitted toe-down, and oh my they were supper easy! These were my first attempts making socks, and they are so warm :)

The pattern is here. But I will write it out to in the next couple of days. I just wanted to post these tonight to finally add some of my work! Enjoy!

Hey there...

Hey! Welcome to my blog. My name is Taylor and here I will be posting about my knitting, crocheting, and looming work, my life and basically anything that I feel like sharing at that moment. 

My main purpose is to attract others who like to knit, crochet, and loom for either fun, charity or for side income. I love to make baby items, and I plan to donate a bunch of items to the local hospitals here in Columbus, Ohio, especially the children's hospital. They take care of a lot of babies and small children and most of these families have nothing. I would like to supply them with blankets, hats and even warm socks. 

Now I have not been doing this a long time. Roughly 5 years now. And while I love creating things sometimes I get a little burned out making items and I have neglected myself this past year due to school. This year I have decided do more things that I enjoy doing. So I will be sharing my adventures in knitting, crocheting and looming.

Well that seems like a good start, I'll be back with more shortly and pictures and patterns to come. Even some of my photography that I just recently graduated college with!