In 2016, I became a grandma for the first time! I had so much fun crocheting for my granddaughter! Isn’t being a grandma amazing?
Well, fast forward 7-8 years and life is always busy (even for grandmas)! I’ve gone through 2 family weddings, 4 family deaths and the birth of 3 more grandchildren (all 3 are boys) since the birth of my first grandchild. And there have been many trips/vacations to other states, as well as countries, during the past 8 years, as well! Life is never dull!!!
All this to say, that in 2016, I designed a crocheted baby toy for stacking baby rings. Life got busy and I never published that pattern (okay, I’m a procrastinator and a perfectionist, too, which doesn’t help!!!). This crochet toy is like the plastic ones that Fisher Price made back in the day, and still does. I’ve always liked this fun toy for babies, probably because it’s made with rainbow colors and I LOVE rainbow colors! So without further ado, here is my newest crochet pattern, “Stacking Baby Rings”. Each ring is made with a different color. All 5 rings stack (in the correct order) onto the cone that is attached to the base. The rings, as well as the cone, are stuffed with fiberfill. Each piece is crocheted with basic crochet stitches: chains, single crochet, sc increases and sc decreases. They’re easy to crochet (even for an adventurous beginner) and fun to see come together into a beautiful tower of color!
These stacking baby rings would make a great gift at a baby shower, for a birthday or for Christmas. They’re great for babies and toddlers. They’re super soft and squishy, too!
I really enjoyed designing and crocheting these stacking baby rings. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do! If you do, you can find the pattern to purchase here.
I’ve known that I need to get a handle on my yarn stash for a couple of years now. The last time I purged some yarn was 3 years ago when we lived in our previous home. A few weeks ago, I finally took the plunge to purge some of my yarn/thread stash! Boy, does it feel good to have a more manageable stash now!
I started with 1 ½ closets full of yarn and crochet thread. I had a total of 23 plastic tubs full (or partially full) of yarn/thread. My goal was to go down to 10 tubs, but was that realistic? Nope! So I decided to amend my goal to have all my yarn/thread fit into just one closet and eliminate the other half closet full. Now that was an attainable goal that I was able to accomplish! I think downsizing my yarn by 1/3 was a great goal!
This was my yarn stash before purging:
Here is my reorganized yarn stash in both halves of my one closet after purging:
Here are some extra photos of my yarn stash in the purging process in my living room:
If you’re ready to purge/downsize your yarn/thread stash, here are some tips and suggestions to help you:
-Make sure you’re in the right frame of mind to downsize your stash (this is the most important point because if you’re not in the right frame of mind, you won’t be successful).
-Make sure you have lots of time (it took me 6-8 hours, so most of one day).
-Make sure you have plenty of room to work in. I used the living room to look at all the yarn and crochet thread. This gave me a good idea of how much stash I actually had! Putting it all in one area is a real eye-opener!!! The yarn can really accumulate over the decades of crocheting/knitting!
Ask yourself these questions:
-What do I know I want to keep for use in upcoming projects or designs?
-What do I want to keep for later projects or designs?
-What do I think I’ll need for later?
-What do I know I don’t want?
-How long has this yarn been in my stash? Why aren’t I using it?
-What fibers do I enjoy working with and which do I not like/enjoy?
-What colors do I like?
-What colors will I use/wear?
-What colors and fibers would my project recipients use/wear?
-What type of projects do I typically make?
-What type of yarn do I use for these projects?
-How much yarn do I use for these projects?
-Do I need multiple skeins of the same color or small amounts of different colors?
-What can/will I reasonably use in my remaining lifetime?
-Should I sell or donate the yarn and thread I don’t want (or a combination of them)?
-How should I organize my smaller stash (according to fibers, yarn weights, etc)?
-Do I need some smaller tubs/containers for some of my yarn categories?
To help make a decision about some of the yarns/threads to keep or purge, look up the yarn on Ravelry, and specifically the projects made from the yarn, to get an idea of how you can use the yarn. If nothing speaks to you, purge that yarn! Someone else will undoubtedly enjoy using it.
If you’re uncertain about what you want to keep, don’t give away or sell any of the yarn for about a week. This will give you time to change your mind and move something from the give/donate/sell area to the keep area or vice versa. I changed my mind on a few yarns this past week and I’m glad I waited to give/sell the purged yarn!
When I was done with destashing, I ended up reorganizing my smaller stash into some different tubs. I used to have them separated into my personal stash (according to yarn weight) and my business stash (because the yarn manufacturers sent me the yarn for free to use for my designs). I had tubs for different manufacturers so I wouldn’t mix different manufacturers’ yarn in the same design (this is a no-no when designing for publication in books and magazines). But now that I’m not designing for publication anymore (and haven’t been for a number of years), separating them into different manufacturers isn’t that important. What I decided now is to separate them into the yarns/threads I’m going to use for my self-published designs and the yarns/threads I’m going to use for my own personal enjoyment projects. I also sub-separated them into wool/animal fibers or acrylic/cotton so I could keep the animal fibers separated and put a lavender sachet in those tubs to help control bugs eating my wool yarn!
I hope you’ve enjoyed this look at my 2024 yarn destashing project and how I organized my smaller stash. How do you organize your yarn stash? Do you have a larger stash than you can realistically use in your lifetime? What suggestions do you have for purging and reorganizing yarn/thread stash?
If you’re looking for an easy, quick baby blanket project, I’d like to introduce you to my Easy Clusters Baby Blanket pattern. I started this baby blanket in June of 2020 during a camping trip in Zion National Park with our youngest son and his wife. The pretty colors of the yarn inspired me to design a pattern using the 4 colors of yarn, plus a white.
The pattern is a 2-row repeat with a 2-stitch repeat, as well. That means you can customize the size of your baby blanket (or doll blanket or full-size blanket) with this pattern! You can use the same colors as I did or customize the colors any way you want! This would even make a great scrap-busting project!
I purposely designed the blanket with less ends to weave in by working 2 right-side rows, followed by 2 wrong-side rows. The white (or main color) is carried up the side edge to be used again instead of finishing it off. The contrasting colors are finished off at the end of each row using them (every other row).
This past week, my husband and I filmed aYouTube video where I demonstrate working the blanket from the beginning chain to several repeats of the 2-row repeat in the pattern, including how to work the clusters. I also demonstrate how to carry the main color yarn up the side edge, crochet the edging and weave in the ends securely and professionally. In the video, I made a doll-size blanket to use up some of the scraps of contrasting colors that I had left over from the baby blanket. I think the doll blanket will make a nice Christmas gift for my granddaughter, who turned 7 years old this past summer!
Check out the pattern page hereto see what supplies I used and purchase the low-cost pattern. Get started on your baby blanket, doll blanket or full-size blanket today!
Do you enjoy traveling and seeing other parts of the world? My husband and I, along with our youngest son (30 something), his wife and their 9 month old baby, took a nice, long, 5 week trip to Europe in August and September of this year. It was amazing! We went to 7 countries: Belgium, Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Italy and France. The weather was between the 30’s (near the glaciers in Switzerland) to the 90’s (in Italy and Paris), so we had to pack accordingly.
I planned to visit and see several places with lace during our trip and I was pleasantly surprised to see several more! The first place I/we visited was in Belgium. I knew about the city of Bruges (from Bruges Lace Crochet that imitates Bruges Bobbin Lace), so I planned to visit the Kant Centrum (lace center and museum) in Bruges during our trip. I definitely wasn’t disappointed with the lace center at all! The museum was very nice, but the highlight of the trip for me was actually taking a bobbin lace class while I was there! I had read online a few weeks before our trip that they were having “lace days” during the time we were going to be there. I found a class online that I wanted to take the exact day we were planning to be in Bruges and contacted them. They said the class was full, but they’d let me know if someone had to cancel. Low and behold, the day before the class, someone had to cancel and I was able to take the class! I was giddy with delight! I had planned ahead for taking the class, just in case I could get into it. My local bobbin lace teacher loaned me some of her beautiful bobbins and some linen thread for the class. The lace center said I could borrow a bobbin lace pillow during the class, so I didn’t have to bring my own pillow, which would have been with me during the whole trip, taking up extra room in my luggage.
During the bobbin lace class, I sat next to the nicest lady named Ruth. She let me use some of her blue film to cover the bobbin lace pricking pattern. And when the class was over, she carefully pinned my piece in progress to her bobbin lace pin cushion that a friend had made for her and gave me the beautiful pin cushion to safely take my lace piece home with me! Wasn’t that a loving gift from someone who was basically a stranger to me before the class? I will remember Ruth and be thankful for her kindness for the rest of my life!
My bobbin lace piece isn’t perfect, but I learned more during the class. I’ve improved since returning home and working on it more, as you can see by the bottom part of the lace being more even than the top. What do you think? This style of bobbin lace is called Milanese. It’s a style of tape lace, which is one of my favorite bobbin lace styles.
When we were in Norway, my son’s friend, Fredrik, who lives in Hamar, took us to the local mall. It was a large mall for the size of the town (at least I thought so). Inside the mall was a yarn shop. Of course, I went inside! I didn’t want to take up a lot of room in my luggage with yarn, but I found some size 80 DMC cotton thread for tatting and bobbin lace. I bought some for me and some for a few lacy friends!
I went into another yarn shop during our trip, this one was in Bergen, Norway. None of the yarn “spoke to me” and said “take me home”, but it was fun to look!
Another one of the highlights for the trip for me was going to the island of Burano in Venice. Burano is famous for lace! There is a museum there called “Museo del Merletto”. It had a lot of lace to see. The museum also had lace making books for sale. Some of them were on Aemilia Ars needle lace, which I love and am slowly learning to make! I have book 1 of 3 in the series of Aemilia Ars books, but it’s in Italian (I use Google translate to help me understand it, but I’ve found Google’s translations are a little odd for craft instructions). They had the books in both Italian and English! However, they only took cash for the books and we only had 20 euros between us. Since each of the books was 15 euros, I decided to buy the second book in the series. I would have LOVED to purchase all 3 books in English, but we didn’t have the time to get to an ATM and back before they closed. So I had to choose between the 3 books. I think I made the correct choice so I can practice needle lace and improve!
Another highlight of the trip was visiting the lace shop near the lace museum in Burano. The name of the shop was “Merletti dalla Olga”. They had hundreds, if not thousands, of lace items for sale there! There was a nice lady who worked there (I didn’t get her name or a photo of her), who took my husband and me to the third floor and showed us some pieces that are absolutely stunning! She showed us a needle lace tablecloth that took 10 years to make and costs $85,000 euros!!! It was exquisite, to say the least!!!
There was a very nice shop in Brussels, Belgium that I looked in, also. They had beautiful baby clothes and lace doilies, tablecloths, etc. It’s fun to see lace for sale and know that it’s still going strong in Europe!
I’ve been learning a new crochet lace technique called “Veronese Crochet Lace”. This technique comes from Verona, Italy. Since we visited Verona, I decided to wear a Veronese Crochet Lace necklace and earrings one day while we were there! Here’s a photo of my husband and me in Verona at the Arena, which was built in the 1st century and is still standing! It’s used for operas and more. In fact, our son and DIL went to the opera one night at the Arena while we babysat our grandson. What fun!
We went into a lot of churches in Europe. They were spectacular! The architecture is wonderful to see. And the stained glass windows! Oh my!!! Many of them had beautiful bobbin lace or crocheted lace altar cloths. Here are a few of them:
It was lots of fun to see so much lace in Europe! I’m sure I’ll find more lace there when/if we go back for another trip/vacation! Have you seen lace, crochet, knitting, etc in Europe? If so, where? Where was your favorite place to see lace in Europe?
We had a wonderful time on our trip. We saw so many beautiful, stunning, scenic places in each of the countries we visited. And we got in lots of “grandparent” time, which was a blessing!
Do you enjoy decorating your home? I definitely do! This pattern has been several years in the making. Two years ago, 2 of our 3 grown sons bought their first house (and we bought our new/used house that year, as well). Then last year, our third son bought his first house, too! So there have been lots of houses purchased in our family lately! What a blessing!
What’s a mom to do when she sees a need and gets an idea? Fill that need, of course! So I set off to design and crochet a “Home Sweet Home” piece for each of my sons. Filet Crochet is one of my favorite crochet techniques, so that’s what I used. Now I’m releasing this pattern so you can crochet your own “Home Sweet Home” for you, your family or friends, too.
The first son/daughter-in-law I made this for didn’t want to frame it. She chose to mount it on canvas. She’s very creative and she painted the canvas before we mounted it (with the help of spray adhesive). Here’s their finished “Home Sweet Home”:
Isn’t that beautiful? I think so!
The second son who bought a house has a Japanese wife, so she chose washi paper and some strips of wood (with magnets) to mount her “Home Sweet Home” piece. This is where she purchased the magnetic strips to hang their piece. This is their finished “Home Sweet Home”:
I love her choice of mounting, too!
My husband and I bought a home in 2021, as well. So I set out to crochet one for our new/used home. I’m more traditional than my daughters-in-law, so I decided to frame mine. I used a 16″ x 20″ frame that I painted to match the blue matboard. Here’s our “Home Sweet Home”:
I gave a “Home Sweet Home” to my oldest son and daughter-in-law at the end of last year, after they purchased their first home. They haven’t framed theirs yet (I don’t think). I know whatever they choose will be just right for their first home!
If you love Filet Crochet as much as me (and you don’t mind using size 30 crochet thread), check out my new Filet “Home Sweet Home” pattern here. If you’re not a fan of size 30 crochet thread, you could always use a larger crochet thread to create a larger “Home Sweet Home” piece of your own! And don’t forget to block your piece for professional results!
I’ve enjoyed doing the Thermal Stitch for quite a few years now. Last month, Heather (on my YouTube channel) asked if I could make a video showing how to do a potholder in Thermal Stitch with 2 different colored sides. I thought about it and I’ve been playing around with it for a few weeks now. However, I took it to another level! I’m happy to introduce the marriage of Tapestry Crochet with the Thermal Stitch in my new YouTube video and my new Tapestry Thermal Stitch Potholders and Coasters patterns!
If you’ve ever done the Thermal Stitch, you know that you insert your hook in a completely different place than in regular crochet. And if you’ve ever done Tapestry Crochet, you know that you carry the unused yarn under the stitches you’re working and change colors across the row, as needed. So when I thought about doing color changes in Thermal Stitch, I immediately thought about using the Tapestry Crochet technique! And it works!!!
If you’d like to take your Thermal Stitch projects to the next level with designs on one or both sides, watch my YouTube video.
And if you’d like to give Tapestry Thermal Stitch a try, check out my new Tapestry Thermal Stitch Potholders and Coasters patterns on the crochet patterns page.
If you enjoy crocheting projects with the Thermal Stitch, but don’t know how to change colors and carry them up the side edge when you use more than one color in your project, check out my new YouTube video demonstrating how to do this. It’s much better to carry the yarn up the edge until you need that color again instead of cutting the yarn each time you change colors and weaving in all of the extra ends (and who likes weaving in ends anyway?).
If you haven’t learned the Thermal Stitch yet, check out my YouTube video to learn this fabulous technique, which is great for making thick potholders.
I’ve been playing around with Mosaic Crochet for many years and I have a new technique for Overlay Mosaic Crochet to share with you. I call it “Back and Forth Overlay Mosaic Crochet”! With this technique, you’ll ELIMINATE virtually ALL of the ends that you usually have with traditional Overlay Mosaic Crochet, since you start and stop every row, working all the rows on the right side of the project.
In my new “Back and Forth” technique, you’ll ONLY have a FEW ends to weave in (instead of dozens or hundreds) because you’ll work half of the rows from the wrong side, but you’ll work the stitches “backwards” on these rows, creating ALL “right-side” stitches in your project! If this sounds intriguing to you, check out my new YouTube video where I demonstrate my new “Back and Forth Overlay Mosaic Crochet” technique!
If you watched my video on doing Tapestry Crochet with some backwards rows, this may look familiar to you. But Tapestry Crochet and Mosaic Crochet are done totally different. Tapestry Crochet involves working color changes across the row and carrying the non-working yarn under your stitches. Mosaic Crochet is done with the same color yarn across the whole row (there are no color changes made in Mosaic Crochet).
There are a few other crochet designers who have done something similar to my “Back and Forth Overlay Mosaic Crochet” technique, but they don’t work “backwards” stitches, so you see the “wrong side” of those stitches on the “right side” of the project.
So what are backwards stitches? They involve inserting your hook into the stitch “backwards” and yarning over “backwards” to form your stitches. You also hold the yarn in front of your work instead of behind it. If you’ve never seen this done before, check out my new video demonstrating this backwards technique!
I hope you’ll give crocheting “backwards” a try, and specifically my new technique for “Back and Forth Overlay Mosaic Crochet”! Please let me know what you think about this technique. I know it’s not going to be for everyone (just like my COM technique for Overlay Mosaic Crochet isn’t for everyone). But I know there will be some of you who will say “Wow! Why have I never seen or thought of this before? This is a game-changer!!!”
Happy “Back and Forth Overlay Mosaic Crocheting” to you!
Who doesn’t LOVE a good sale? Have you ever gone to Hobby Lobby when they’re having their annual yarn clearance? This is the first year I’ve gotten a LOT of yarn at Hobby Lobby! You certainly can’t beat the prices! I got 55 items (mostly yarn, with a bit of crochet thread and tatting supplies) for only $97.80 (before tax), $106.78 (with tax)! Wow! That’s a lot of yarn and a HUGE savings! In fact, it was a total of 74.4% off! If I had paid full price for these, I would have spent $381.95 (before sales tax)! That’s a savings of $284.15 (before sales tax)!!! Wow! That’s amazing!!!
2023 Hobby Lobby Yarn Haul!
I went to Hobby Lobby on 2 separate days, 6 days apart. The first day I went, I found some clearance yarn, but not as much as I’d seen on some recent YouTube videos I had watched. The second day I went, I found a LOT more clearance yarns! I’m so glad that I went back the next week to find more yarn on clearance (mostly 75% off)!
Most of the yarn I bought was the Hobby Lobby brand, Yarn Bee. I also got some Lion Brand, Lily and Lizbeth brands (Lizbeth is a crochet/tatting thread). I found some tatting shuttles and a picot gauge (for tatting) also on clearance!
I had so much fun buying this yarn at these great, low prices that I made a YouTube video showing all the yarns and colors that I got. I shared the regular prices and the clearance prices that I paid. I also shared the yarn weights, ounces, yards and fiber content of each yarn. While I have a good idea what I’ll crochet (or knit) with each of these yarns, I’m not quite sure what to make from some of them (I’ve never used some of them before). You can watch the YouTube video here to see all the wonderful yarns I got on clearance!
Have you been to a good yarn sale lately? What did you purchase and how much did you save?
Do you enjoy crocheting decorations for holidays? I certainly do! I’ve got a brand new crochet pattern for an Easter Egg Potholder for you. This potholder is worked with 2 pieces: a front and a back for double thickness. Using worsted (#4) weight cotton yarn, it’ll keep your hands and fingers protected when removing a hot dish from the oven.
Easter Egg Potholder
The potholder is worked in rows of single crochet with increases and decreases, as necessary, to form the egg shape. After crocheting 2 egg-shaped pieces, one round of single crochet is added to join the pieces together and to form the hanging loop at the top.
This pattern is easy enough for a beginner crocheter, since basic stitches are used. I’ve done a YouTube video for this pattern, as well, so you can follow along with me in the video and learn to read a crochet pattern while making this cute, useful potholder!
Here’s the pattern page to snag a copy of this pattern at a great price! Then you can crochet some potholders for your Easter celebration (with about 27 days until Easter!) or give one/some to a friend or family member.
I hope you enjoy this pattern and all your crochet projects!
