Crocheted Market Bag

I've been spending some of my summer days sitting on my back porch crocheting. It's so relaxing and it keeps me from stuffing food in my mouth. This market bag is a pattern that I found here. The yarn is Lang Yarns that I purchased in Switzerland while on vacation.

Sunday Drive

It was such a beautiful day this past Sunday that Matt and I decided to go for a Sunday drive. We used to go quite often with my grandparents. PaPa would point the Caddy in the direction of the lake and off we'd go. MomMom would pack sandwiches and drinks to eat at her favorite spot across from Cedar Point. I miss those drives with my grandparents.

Today, however, we left PaPa's Caddy at home and went for our Sunday drive on our bikes. With a beautiful breeze coming off the water, it was nice and cool. Thank you polar vortex. We drove into the country for a ways before heading to Sherod Park. It's a beautiful park right on the water. We like to go down to the small beach to look for beach glass.

If you look way off to the horizon maybe you can just make out the sailboats. There were so many, but my camera on my phone can't zoom in that close.

After we parked our bikes against the tree we walked out to the beach. There were people swimming to the right so naturally we went to the left. There's a tiny stream of water we jumped across before getting to the other side of the beach.

The beach was made up of piles and piles of shells. That's why most people swim on the other side where there's more sand. I like to hear the crunch crunch of shells beneath my sandals.

Trees get washed ashore here.

I love how this beach is pretty much untouched.

It looks like someone tried to have a bonfire with this one.

This would make a lovely spot to rest in the shade and look out at the water.

Doesn't it look like it's pointing out to the water? The roots were the only thing left from the rest of the tree.

Matt and I miss having our boat. We'd be out there for sure if we still had it.

I just love, love, love the panoramic feature on my phone!

On our walk back to the bikes we stopped to admire the milkweed. Matt thinks we should plant some in our flower garden. Butterflies love it. When I was a little girl I would pull out the silky seeds from the pods and toss them in the air to watch them fly away.

Once we arrived at home I just couldn't go back in the house so I brought out my beach blanket and sat down on the grass to weave in the ends of my ripple blanket. I've been working on this one since Christmas break. It fits my queen size bed. All I have yet to do is crochet the border.


What a beautiful day. Thanks for sharing it with me.

Hugs,
HopeAnn

Snow Days

We have has some serious snow and bone chilling cold this month. Last Friday made it snow day number 6 for our school. We were right in the middle of exams that we had to push back because of all of the snow days added onto our Christmas break. Many fellow teachers and friends have predicted that we'll have at least one snow day this next week. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm ready to get back to a normal routine.

We've been keeping our feeders filled. Our squirrel pals not only eat all of their corn, but also eat the peanuts for the blue jays. We're going through seed and corn like crazy. We enjoy watching all of the activity in our backyard.

Our cat Sebastien has also enjoyed watching the birds and squirrels. He runs from the front living room window to the back porch windows. When he's not bird-watching I can find Sebastien sitting next to Bella in front of the heating vents.

I purchased new curtains for the living room. They really seem to brighten the space and help keep out the cold draft from the windows.

Our Amarilis bloomed in the kitchen. It's so pretty and pink. I wish it would last longer.

We found 10 rolls of film. We got them developed and were so happy with the photos. Of course the majority of them were of Michael. This was from Christmas. He loved his new big boy undies. I'm happy to say he figured out that the undies go under the pants not over them.

I was so excited when my yarn was finally delivered from Deramores. Just look at all of those juicy colors.

And my new crochet book arrived from amazon. Woot!

I immediately put the yarn to good use. My ripply blanket is well under way. It brightens my day and makes me happy as I work each new ripply row of color. The blanket has 227 stitches per row and I'm using 17 colors, four rows for each color. The colors look like waves rolling onto the beach.

No snowy day would be complete without some chocolate chip cookies. Of course the best way to eat them is to dunk them in milk. Yum!

What have you been doing to keep busy during these wintery snowy days?

Keep warm!

Hugs,

HopeAnn

Some Hooky Projects: Ripples, hearts, and snowflakes

Over Christmas break I began working on a ripply blanket for my cousin's new baby. She's having a girl and naming her Elsie. Her due date was just moved up by two weeks. I better get hooking to finish it on time. I love the bright colors. The yarn I used was Caron SImply Soft Watermelon, Soft Blue, and Sunshine. This is actually the first ripple blanket that I've made. Well I did make a round ripple for my cousin's daughter Claire. For this ripply blanket I used Lucy's pattern found here. Lucy's pattern is so easy to follow.

Another tiny project I began over our extended Christmas break was a snowflake garland. Our break was extended due to the "polar vortex." The temperatures in my neck of the woods dropped to nine below with wind chills -20ish. The roads were an icy mess because it had rained most of the day on Sunday and then the cold set in and froze everything. Plus it began to snow, and snow, and snow. We were off from school an additional four days. I made three different snowflakes for my garland. You can find the patterns here, here, and here. I worked this garland up in an afternoon.

Yesterday I decided to make some hearts to decorate for Valentine's day. I realized that I really go all out for Christmas, but when it comes to other holidays I don't decorate nearly as much. The hearts are going to be used to make two different decorations. I'll be stringing the hearts on a garland like the snowflakes to hang from my hutch.

The second way I'm using the hearts is to crochet two together and then stuff them with batting. I'll hang these ornaments around the house. You can find the pattern for the hearts here.

Finally I made some granny square hearts to place under some of my candy dishes. The pattern for these hearts can be found here.

I hope you can use some of these patterns in your own home.

Hugs,

HopeAnn