My Hands Have Not Been Idle

Well, with all of this house selling and buying business, it has kept me quite busy lately. Although I kept on crocheting small items such as dish cloths, it was not much of a challenge. My step son came for a visit and reminded us of how soon our next grandchild will be born. Two weeks! on the 17th of April. Oh my god I thought, what do I have for our newest arrival? Well I know they are expecting a boy and I knew I had a couple of baby boy cardigans made, but something else was needed. I had a bag of scrap baby yarn, shades of blue, white and cream, perfect starter. Now what to make? I thought a starghan would be different and searched for a 6 pointed babyghan pattern, there are plenty out there for free on the internet. I came across a simple written pattern and began with that one. I should have had more confidence with my crochet ability and adjusted the size of the corners in the beginning of the pattern as it became too tight in some area's, then when I did increase in the corners it would also become too loose. It did not help at all that I was going from 3 ply yarn to 4 ply yarn, so once I had the ball rolling and knew what to do, the whole thing became more even. I used a size 3 mm hook through out and it was oh so slow, especially when I was using some yarn that would split if I was not careful. It took me 5 or 6 evenings, so that was not too bad at all.
So here is the out come, I have since washed it and also used a lovely smelling fabric softener, when it has dried I will try to block it for better shaping.
I have another project on the go now, it will be one with a free and easy pattern for a winter item, so I'll be back with that one soon.

Here is the original link to the free pattern I have used here.

Oh Dear, Things Are Happening So Quick!

I wrote about my house being up for sale on Monday the 23 of March, by Thursday 26 of March my house was sold! We had 4 lookers and 2 buyers in that time, we accepted the offer that gave us our full asking price on the house. I had been down to view some some more houses in the small township we had chosen to move to in between those days. There seemed to be nothing on offer that suited us, but we had seen the out side of a relocated display home the week before. So I booked an appointment to view the house from the inside.
After much discussion and doing the dollar figures we decided on that one. But we had to crunch the seller on the figures a bit to make it worth our while.
As it is a relocated house, there is much to do on the outside. It sit's on a quarter block with a double car port, so you can imagine all of the extra's we need, to improve the block.
It's almost like a new home, even though it has been a display house, we will be the first to actually live in it.
Down went the deposit and we are currently in the waiting stage for our buyers finance to be approved. So that is where I have been of late, in the real estate world, which I knew barely nothing about until just recently.

I thought I'd throw in some picture's here of my naughty dirty dog's. Dad (Louie) look's remorseful for getting dirty, but playful and naughty little Rev, doesn't seem to care, he was out having fun!

Am I Bad?

My crochet hook sit's in my basket with a piece that has been on the go for more than a week. It's a piece of work that should only take a couple of hours to make, yet it is still there. So why is it not finished? Well we've made up our minds to sell our home and move to a bushy coastal area in which we can set up for our retirement later on. It won't be too far away from any of our children or to the hustle and bustle of the busy city's, just far enough to get away for a quiet retreat.

I've been on the go giving the house a spit and polish from top to bottom. I have also de cluttered every room except for where I keep my crochet supplies and yarn.

Below are some picture's that the real estate agent took for advertising our property.

Not one of the picture's show any sign of my crochet, but if you look through the TV in the 1st photo, you can see the reflection of where I keep my yarn stacked up against the wall behind my chair.

This is a room I made up for my grand kids when they come for sleep overs or just to play in.

This picture was used for advertising and you can just see little Rev, peeking over the decking.

How Would You Teach A Person To Crochet?

My eldest niece Roslyn came for a long week-end visit. She is from Queensland a good 2 and a half hour plane trip away.
Teach me to crochet Aunty? she asked. Well okay I said.
So how does one begin to teach another to crochet?
Firstly I showed her how to make a slip knot onto the hook and demonstrated how it pulled apart with out knotting, easy part.
I then showed her how to hold her hook and the yarn and expressed how each person finds their own comfort eventually.
Next it was making chains, lots of chains until she felt a little more comfortable.
Then I pulled it all un done and said let's try a chain of 10 and an extra chain for a turning chain, as we are now going to learn how to make a sc into the chain.
Now the chain of 10 plus 1 more chain for turning was easy for her.
In through the 2nd chain from the hook and draw through a loop, yarn over and draw through 2 loops, we repeated this to the end. Ch 1 to turn, now make a sc in the first sc and in each sc across, good, she had the hang of it. So once again I rip it out and ask her to make it all by her self.
Rip it, rip it, rip it, I said, sounds like a frog and that's why it's known as frogging it. So she is learning some crochet slang too!
Once she was confortable with the sc (by the way she was a fast learner, which made it quite easy for me to teach her) I asked her if she wanted to learn a dc and she said she was ready.
I also told her I was using US crochet terms as they are more popular.
We kept the same piece of work going and I told her to ch 3 to turn, but not to go into the first sc, but into the next sc, as the ch 3 to turn will now become her first st of the row.

Once again she picked this up quick and with comfort.

Do you want to make a scarf? Oh yes, she said.

So I chose some yarn similar to a beret I had given her and she began making her own scarf.

Her she is, in MY chair having fun with her new found hobby.

This is the first row of her scarf.

I asked her to count her dc's every now and again, some time's she had extra but mostly she had less. So a quick lesson of an increase or decrease was necessary. The missing dc's were from the beginning of her row's. So that was soon sorted.

Now shortly after her lesson she had to catch a plane to return home to QLD, so I loaded her up with some nice plastic hooks that she could use on the plane, the steel one's would have been conviscated as a lethal weapon.

I had the time to teach her to crochet in a circle too.

She was also thinking of making her self a blanket/aghan, but I did not have the time to teach her how to make a granny square and I advised her to youtube it for visual lessons and she did! I turned around and here she was on the computer, yelling out "this lady is too fast", "well pause it" I said "or find a better one to learn from" and she did.

So Roslyn has gone home with a new hobby.