Author: Karen Stewart

Grapes

Our family has always worked together to bring in the fruits and vegetables. I remember doing this as a young child at my grandma’s house. Back then, it was either corn or purple hull peas. Our treat at the end of the work session was cold, homegrown, ripe watermelon. Grandpa and Grandma always had a big garden–that’s how they put much of their food on the table–and any family who lived nearby came to help. Family helping family has always been one of our priorities. Yet we don’t think of it as a priority, even though we make it one. It’s just something we do, like other families who attend football games together.

Our children have grown up with this tradition of helping as well. When we had an apple tree, all of the kids helped with the apple harvest; they helped make applesauce, apple pie filling, and apple jelly. Last week we worked on the grape harvest at my father-in-law’s. It was hard work, but many hands made light work. It was incredibly hot at 102–August in Oklahoma is always pretty hot–but the grapes were good.

After lunch, we loaded up and headed home for more work in the air conditioning. We juiced the grapes and placed the juice in the freezer, where it is now waiting until we are ready to make jam. It’s going to be so good!

Crocheting

Crocheting (another one of my priorities, of course!) has been fun the past week as I have finished up an afghan and also several fingerless gloves. The pattern writing was hit or miss, but thankfully more hit than miss. These particular designs are fun, quick and easy, which will make them perfect for the Fall. Watch for their release in a week or two.

Priorities

The end of summer has come all at once in a rush, and BOOM! school is starting soon. The get-ready-to-start-school meetings have begun, and they keep me out at night, which means less time at home to crochet. Yesterday I spent time mapping out our weeks, trying to make sure that the necessary and important times are listed first.  Rather like the jar of rocks story. Have you heard that story? It goes something like this …

The teacher stands in front of the class. He has in front of him a pile sand,  a pile of pebbles and a pile of larger rocks next to a jar. He fills the jar with rocks until it is full.  Then he turns and asks the class is the jar full. They all nod yes, the jar is full. 

Then he adds the pebbles, and they slide in around the rocks until no more pebbles fit in the jar. He asks the class is the jar full. Yes, they all nod.

He then takes the sand and it slides in around the rocks and the pebbles completely filling the jar. Is the jar full he asks his class? Yes, they all say.

They are surprised to see him pick up a bottle of water; he then pours the water in the jar over the rocks, sand and pebbles. Now the jar is full he says.

The rocks represent things that have real value; the people in your life,  and your health. The irreplaceable things; we must make sure to make time for them.

The pebbles represent things like your job, house, car, etc…

The sand represents small stuff–laundry, dishes, returning the library books, errands–things that will always be there.

The water represents the spirit or attitude that we have when are doing everything else. It will color our lives and make or break relationships and jobs. It will touch every grain of sand, pebble and rock in that jar, just as being happy or grumpy can affect everyone we meet.

This story is in my mind as I go about writing a schedule for our school and work. Rocks first, then the pebbles and finally the sand. All encompassed in a spirit of prayer.

Talk to you later,

Karen

PS: How do you get ready for school? Leave a comment and share your planning tips with me!

I use the term tutorial very loosely. This is a very simple description of how I crocheted this blanket and the yarns I used. It does not give you step by step instructions. If you are new to crochet; then this isn’t the tutorial for you. The yarn is a pain to work with as it doesn’t frog easily.

Skills needed

• ability to crochet circles and then square them
• ability to add the granny square stitch to the squared circle
• ability to change colors
• join as you go

I added this border.  http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/all-shawl/people?view=&search=all+shawl+pink

(This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small percentage of any sales.)

• Lion brand Fisherman’s wool in Oatmeal 2 skeins.
• The yarns I used were Lion brand Amazing yarn in all colorways. 2 skeins of each colorway for the centers
• size g crochet hook .
• 5 skeins of  Amazing yarn to add the borders and join all the squares together.

I’m sorry that this is such a sketchy tutorial. This is what happens when you spend almost a year crocheting an afghan and run out of yarn three times. 

I used two skeins of yarn for each square. This was easiest by dividing the yarn into two different batches. Those that were light and those that were darker.  I then crocheted the centers out of the light yarn and then squared the circle with the dark yarns. Then I blocked the squares. I also let them sit for six months while I decided what to do next and ordered more yarn.

The next  step was to crochet around each square granny square style with the oatmeal fisherman’s wool. I felt that each square was busy and need a bit of a visual break. I added five groups of double crochet on each side including corners.

 This worked well. I simply used the join as you go method to join the squares together with more of the Amazing yarn. 

After joining all the squares I made sure that the oatmeal granny square was completely surrounded by  the amazing yarn in granny square stitch.

I crocheted granny square style around the whole blanket with the oatmeal.

This row was followed by a row of granny square in the amazing yarn.

Another row of HDC all the way around

1 row of oatmeal  double crochet long stitch (into the base of the HDC) chain two repeated all around the blanket, being sure to square the corners.

Then I started with the Doris Chan all shawl border. I adapted it so it wouldn’t be quite as ruffled but still add a nice ending to the blanket. The goal was to use up all remaining Amazing yarn. (I left out some chain spaces in between the double crochet groups.) I only completed five rows instead of six as she has in her border. I also added a 3 chain picot in the middle of each peak. There are 2- 3 hdc groups in the valleys. I hope this make sense to you.

It is a really rough tutorial but I didn’t write anything down while working on it. The yarn amounts are estimates at best and I used a size g crochet hook throughout. I was worried through the whole thing that it would be too small. It has turned out to be larger than I expected and also more expensive than I imagined it would be in the beginning.

Thanks for reading this and if you have any questions I might be able to answer just let me know.

Thanks,
Karen

Here is my Patriotic Wreath. July 4th is coming up and I wanted to crochet my Mom a patriotic wreath for her door. If you read my post yesterday you read how I glued my wreath back together. Now that it is together I started designing it. It is so much fun,  quick and easy. I was going to put lovely white stars on it but ended up just putting the flags on it instead. The flags look wonderful. This is a free pattern to my email subscribers and you should be receiving it. If you do not wish to sign up for my email list but you like the pattern then you can buy the pattern in my Etsy shop.

Isn’t it beautiful.

It has been a frustrating morning but I have hustled around and put away the laundry and threw a bunch of cluttery paper out. The house feels better now and my frustration is going away. Too much clutter tends to shut down my creativity and just irritate every last nerve, or at least it feels like it. I hope your day is going great and things just keep improving as the day and week goes on.

This week I will be concentrating on cleaning, putting away, writing, peeling more wallpaper, filming a Youtube video and  painting my daughter’s room. One daughter is at camp so the other can use her bed while we finish removing wallpaper and get ready to paint her room. We are painting it a shade of blue-grey. If you watch Fixer Upper then you know the soft color range that I am talking about. She already has soft blue curtains and the blue grey paint will go nicely. We are hoping to make the room feel larger than it is. I’m off to get my work done so I’ll talk to you later,

Karen

P.S. Why is that when one of the kids is gone we think we morph into Super -Woman and get everything done that we haven’t done in the past 12 months? I really will settle for just three of the things on that list!