Category: Chocolatedogstudio information

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#13 and #14

These are just a quick peek at #13 and 14 out of 100. I have to admit that it is hard to stay on track. I have been deleting about 15+ emails a day that have to do with sewing, yarn, craft supplies or patterns. I am also trying to use the patterns I have or free online patterns. #13 is a crocheted bowl using cord and variegated left over yarn. The other is a scalloped scarf like the red one only in bright blue and a little chunkier.

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There you go two more down and only 86 left and no #10 isn’t finished yet, I am waiting on a sewing machine part.

 

Talk to you later,

Karen

 

 

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#11, #12

Confession time

The quilt is quietly killing me. Well, not very quietly, I must admit that there is a certain amount of huffing and puffing as I haul that quilt around, between and through the sewing machine. If you add in the fact that my sewing machine isn’t quite happy to be sewing right now, then you can guess what I am going to say next. After fussing about it to myself anyone who will listen, I moved on to crocheting, and modge podging. Something that will actually allow me to complete a project. These photos are just quickie phone photos but they get the job done.

I found this pattern here and it is wonderful.

http://www.creativejewishmom.com/2011/11/crocheted-skinny-scalloped-scarf.html

I also decoupaged some tea boxes with fabric as I was needing some drawer organizers.

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Here they are drying.

 

Talk to you later, My FIL just arrived for lunch!

Karen

p.s. I am in deep trouble. My father in law brought four more tubs of fabric from my mother in law’s stash. oh wow. He said I could make 100 more items…!

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#8 and #9 of the 100 items in 100 days!

Here are #8 and #9 in the 100 items in 100 days!

I’m including the photos of the beginning of the project and then the finished product! Some I list in my shop and some I am using at home!

IMG_3650

 

This is a great cowl. Large enough to pull over your head if you need to but small enough not to be in the way! The buttons are handmade ceramic buttons. The yarn is dark charcoal grey and goes with anything.

#9

2014-01-24 10.35.45Here was the humble beginning of #9 a Head band with interchangeable flowers.

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Whew, this Challenge is a challenge but I am wading through it and I hope to get through #20 by this time next week. My sewing machine is acting up so I haven’t really been sewing much, but I am going to try.

Talk to you later,

Karen

 

 

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Week One of 100 Items in 100 days Challenge!

I have been working on my different 100 item projects and I think I am doing ok so far. I am worried that I will run out of ideas…not supplies… but ideas! I still have a ton of supplies but it feels good to take the before photos and after photos of different  little projects and see how much is actually being used.Here are some of them so far.

They looks so…so… FINISHED! Hooray! Stash used and finished up!

So I think that I am doing ok. I am finishing up little projects and bigger ones.

How are you doing? Are you getting a bunch done on cleaning out your supplies.  My sewing machine isn’t happy so I really haven’t been sewing much but I do have high hopes for my fabric stash.

Talk to you later,

Karen

 

If you are wondering what I am talking about here is the link to the original post!

http://www.chocolatedogstudio.com/2014/01/17/1-thing-for-100-days-challenge/

 

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Use Your Stash Challenge #6,

Here are numbers 6, 7,  and 8!

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I love this purse. It has such a clean classic look to it! I had everything I needed to make this from my stash including the lining and the snap closure.

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There is the tiny smidge of yarn I used to create the rose leaves!

Talk to you later,

Karen

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My Un-Word

My Un-word this year is Procrastinating.

I am working hard at not procrastinating. That is the reason for the 100 items in 100 days. The reason I am working hard at being in the moment. The reason I am teaching myself to not procrastinate. Everyday I ask myself. Is _____________something you are procrastinating? You CAN do this and I break the steps down into little baby steps. I am documenting each and every baby step I take so I can see progress and to keep myself motivated.

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If you want to know more about the Un-Word you can read this blog by The Nester here: http://www.thenester.com/2014/01/un-word-of-the-year.html

Talk to you later,

Karen

p.s. I am not procrastinating on the blanket that you see above. It is now 11 x 14 squares and well on its way!

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Heading to College Preview Week…revisted!

 

I originally wrote this two years ago and now we are facing the third child to graduate and leave our house, yet my emotions are much the same as they were then.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/103074242/comfort-coffin-fine-art-print-bird

Our oldest daughter is a senior this year. She will be graduating and  heading off into the great adventure called life which is exciting. I am sure that this is how she sees it. I know it is how I saw it. I am afraid that now I see it as an abyss full of dark and menacing shadows. Yes, I know I am being over protecting, but Moms do that sometimes. I did not feel this way when our oldest started out to college.

Well, back to the context, we are headed to a College preview week, not day or even weekend. It is a week of activities to help them get used to being at a college. It is a Monday to Thursday experience of living in the dorms, eating dorm food, even taking some mini classes, trying on a major to see if it fits. The college has bent over backwards for us. Which is exceedingly nice. There was one point on Tuesday that they had talked to me more on the phone than my mother had for the week.  I quickly remedied this on Wednesday and called my Mom for a long involved chat about sending your daughter to college. I came away with the knowlegde that it doesn’t get easier when you are a Grandparent. The abyss becomes the mouth of a hungry dragon that breathes fire.

I know that this weekend is set up to help us as home schooling parents cut the apron strings, and to assure us that they do know how to take care of our kids. So I will be there for the week as well, feeling I am sure somewhat like the third wheel. So there I will be living in the dorm, eating dorm food and even taking some mini classes about financial aid, helping your student prepare for college.  I  hope that I leave the week feeling that the abyss at least has some lights and a few life preservers stashed here and there, along with some friendly faces. I need to go and pack some super long twin sheets and my clothes, I keep putting this off as I am not quite ready to do the letting go required of me. Thankfully, I have a WHOLE YEAR of final events to get used to the letting go. Do I sound sarcastic, well I intended too. I rather wish that the letting go was like labor , BOOM there you go, and 24 hours later you have a graduate. They have fledged and left the nest successfully, but they don’t and it doesn’t happen this way.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/96487883/birds-nest-feeding-baby-birds-spring

Yes, well. She survived and did wonderfully well, loves college, made friends and has great grades. Her friends ARE the one she met at the college preview week.   So now on to the third child. Say some prayers for me as we head into the last stretch of the Sr. year of high school!

Thanks,

Karen

 

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Things I don’t do….

One of the joys of reaching this point in my life is the ability to say “I don’t do that well and I don’t have to prove that I can, or I can survive quite well not doing ___________.” In fact I reached this point one Thanksgiving when a very close and dear friend gave me a recipe to create a 3-d turkey cake. In fact it is this very cake here.

http://www.parentsconnect.com/parents/food/recipe-center/cake-recipes/turkey-cake.html

Susy made it and it was beautiful. “You can do this, won’t it be fun! It is so Easy” she said.When I was finished, my turkey was laying on his back with his little turkey feet up in the air. He looked like someone had blasted him with a shot gun. In fact, I made little turkey feet out of pipe cleaners and stuck them in so that you could see that he was in fact a true Thanksgiving turkey! I still smile about that turkey cake. Will I every make an elaborate cake like this again. Nope, never, ever, ever… I can make a bundt cake from scratch and I can cook good meals. I don’t have to make 3 -d cakes ever again! I don’t have to keep up with the other women in my life…they have their gifts and I have mine!

There are other things that have I have decided that I just don’t have to stress about anymore. I don’t have to have superstar perfect children. Bear with me a minute on this. Then there is the time we were signing some papers and I sent all four of  the kids 10 and under out the back yard to play. The lady we were meeting with said “what well behaved children you have.” I said, oh they are probably playing in the mud in the back yard. What were they doing…yes, exactly playing in the mud, rolling in the mud, throwing the mud. There wasn’t an inch on any of them that didn’t have mud on it or in it.

Our children are perfect children, and are perfect at being imperfect human beings growing, learning and making mistakes. Don’t even get me started telling you how I know what five rolls of toilet paper dissolved in a bathtub looks like…or how much water it takes on the floor to make it like a slip and slide,or exactly what kittens do when they are dunked in a kiddie pool, or what happens if you put a twist tie in an electrical outlet, or ….well the list is endless.

I don’t have to have a perfect house. Wow, I admitted that on paper. Really, all my real friends really already know, I don’t have a perfect house. It is usually in a state of perfect disarray. It has six visual people that leave things out so they can find them again. A perfectly logical thing to do. We also tend not to see the work that needs to be done, but I will admit that I am working on that. It is getting better and getting cleaner as time goes by but a neat freak I am not. Come on by and hang out.

Talk to you later,

Karen

 

 

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#2 out of 100 Crochet Headband with flower

I am using an odd yarn ball of chunky wool blend yarn. It is washable so if it ends up in a pocket it won’t get felted in the washer.

I am using a light lavender to crochet the rose for the headband.

This is the pattern that I am using for the rose..

http://jasminblancboutique.blogspot.com/2012/09/tea-rose-brooch-tutorial-free-crochet.html

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The headband and the beginning of the rose.

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There it is! Two completed now only ninety eight to go! My daughter loves this and it fits quite well.

Talk to you later,

Karen