Sweater frogging not to be confused with hunting frogs or knitting tiny sweaters for frogs, can be a great stress reliever.
When I started frogging sweaters for the yarn. I found Dawn’s blog to be the best description of how to do it. http://dawnprickett.blogspot.com/2008/01/recycling-sweaters-for-yarn.html She has very clear pictures and great descriptions of what to do. The only things that I changed when frogging my sweaters.
 I do not have a swift to unravel the yarn onto. I use the back of a chair as my swift. It works great and holds my yarn for me as I unravel.
I also did not tie the yarn with a figure eight tie. I wish I had, my yarn was rather tangled after washing.
I used Dawn dish soap to wash the yarn and I frogged 100% cotton sweaters.I wanted the yarn as clean as possible before I start using it.
Kids often need toy extenders as I call them. Things that extend their play in an imaginative way, props would be another word for it. There are a wide variety of ways that you can make a city for your kids.
The kids and I usually made our toy extenders out of cardboard covered with paper that they cut out and glued on. It took more time that way and they were practicing their fine motor skills. We would use the houses until they looked like trash and then recycle or put them in the trash. What things do you make to help your children’s imagination to grow?
When I list out my goals it tends to look a lot like a To-Do list of a type A incredibly organized person. I have needed to scale back on my To-Do lists and just write the most important items down.
Family
1. Make cookies with the kids
2. Pick up the college girl for Christmas break
3. Take youngest DS driving so he can get his license
4. Bake Banana bread
Home
1. Do a basic clean sweep of the house.
2 Â Organize the Laundry room
3. Touch up the paint in my bathroom
Studio
1. Get shipping ready every day
2. Pick up the clutter in the studio
3. Work on custom orders every night
Personal
1. Water Aerobics once this week
2. Read pinned information about blogging
3. Complete devotional times
4. Plan 2 Christmas dinners….and see what needs to be done!
5. Complete Christmas shopping
6. wrap gifts
Ok, I just need to stop. This list is huge already and I keep tacking things on.
I love giving and receiving homemade Christmas gifts. It just seems to add a little more heart to the season. It also means that I don’t have to spend time driving around trying to find the perfect gift.
It seems that Christmas comes earlier every year. I know by the calender that it doesn’t but sometimes it feels like it creeps up on me. I am going to try to post some Christmas gift ideas as I am hunting some down for my Christmas gift list. So, I will start with gifts for the chef, cook, or kitchen.
Make your own in your own favorite color combinations. This pattern is perfect at using up small half skeins of yarn. Here are a few I have made over the years!
I had great fun writing this pattern and I hope you have fun crocheting lovely scarves for your family.
The Yarn
People have been asking me what yarn brand I used in these photos. These scarves were all crocheted using Lion Brand Vanna’s Choice. The exceptional bright colors and easy care yarns are perfect for this pattern.
I have included affiliate links in this post and will receive a small percentage of any purchase you might make.
I use this scalloped edging all the time on different crochet projects. It adds a nice finished edging. It also works well with Granny Squares as I think it is a variation. You will need a granny square stitch project either a granny stripe  or granny square blanket.
Supplies
yarn
granny square
hook to match yarn
The Sides
I am starting with 1 granny square. It has five holes on each side counting the corner holes.
Join your yarn to a corner.
*Crochet a double crochet from the joining stitch to the open space between the groups of    double crochet.
Crochet 5 or 6 double crochet into the space. Here I crocheted five because the yellow yarn is worsted weight and the square is a dk weight yarn.
With the last double crochet stretch it over to the next space and join with a chain.
Repeat from * across your square or squares until you reach the corner.
There are two corner options.
Corner Option #1
Join just as you have and then turn the square.
Do the next set of five (or six) double crochet just as you have. The corner will look like this.
and this when you finish two sides.
Corner Option #2
join just as you would and then double crochet into the corner space and chain two.
Do another double crochet followed by a chain.
It will look like this when you round the corner and finish another side.
This adds a nice finish to the edging. It will look great on a blanket or scarf.
The trick to this edging is that you need an odd number of spaces to finish evenly.
Have fun with this edging and share some photos with me on my facebook page of your projects with the pretty scalloped edging.
We are facing the first possibility of snow this year and it puts me in the mood for lacy snowflakes. I made snowflakes as Christmas gifts to my friends when I was a teenager. I will have to see if I can find the pattern. It was one printed in the newspaper but there are many patterns for snowflakes on the internet. Here are a few. I have given credit to the page I found them on and most of them are pinned to my crochet board on pinterest.
There are a few to get you started. I think I will try a few this weekend, unless we get snowed or iced in. I have some errands to run before the storm hits. Have fun! Do you have a favorite snowflake pattern. Please share it in the comments as I would love to make some more for our Christmas tree.
The great thing about having facebook is the links that people post are often interesting. This one really spoke to me, in fact it spoke so much that I have asked for the book for Christmas. It talks about the opposite of being fragile or Antifragile. The book is Antifragile:Things that Gain from Disorder is written Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I am taking my understanding of Taleb’s book from this website; http://www.artofmanliness.com/2013/12/03/beyond-sissy-resilience-on-becoming-antifragile/
The article discusses the opposite of fragile. They discuss the fact that the opposite of fragile isn’t robust or resilient. As being Anti-fragile should put you ahead of where you started before the bad time happened. Instead of breaking during stressful personal or business times we should become stronger.
I have come through a time recently when I felt very fragile and I am continuing to feel fragile. So this concept is very attractive to me from a personal standpoint and as a small business owner.
The article touches on how large often equals fragile due to red tape, an inability to swiftly react to market changes, or icebergs in the case of the Titanic. Â It talks about being optimized to make use of every resource. In my case it would be a calendar with no extra time for the daily life occurrences that happen ie a flat tire, a sick child, medical emergencies that all play havoc with our calendar, budget and life. Â People try to reduce this randomness in life by planning it out. An example of this in real life are parents that try to keep their children from experiencing small hurts like Johnny doesn’t want to play with Jimmy. The author states that stress strengthens us and removing stresses from our children’s lives weakens them.
Resilience or the ability to bounce back while a great ability to have is useless if you do not grow from your experience. Growing means that you have moved beyond randomness or become anti fragile.
The great news is that Taleb feels that being small is great for being antifragile! Small business are more able to change direction.
You really should read the rest of it and gather some great insight but here are some insights that I gathered from this article.
1. What doesn’t kill your small business should make it stronger. Will you learn from your mistakes? Change your focus if it is needed!
2. Have a back up plan! Having more than one critical piece of equipment isn’t a bad thing, for my business this would be to have more than one sewing machine that works well.
3. Add some stress to your life! Â You can do this by changing your work schedule, or how you do things. See if there is a new way to do what you have always done. Stress strengthens you as it forces you to change.
4. Play it safe and also take risks. In a small retail business this might be continuing to sell your best selling items while you learn a new skill or sell something else just to see how it goes.
5. Don’t take advice from someone that doesn’t also do what you do.Why would you take advice from someone that doesn’t also run a small business?
6. Reduce the negatives. Remove things that are detracting from your business or life. Do you have bad habits or debt? Get rid of the debt and work on the bad habits.
7. Keep your options open. So,keep some money in the bank for the slow times. If your best selling item stops selling then stop making it and move on.
I am excited to get to read this book as it reinforces what I have always known; What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger! We just have to decide that we are going to grow from what has happened and move forward or in a completely different direction.
I have to admit that I love to watch movies while I crochet. It can be documentaries, sci fi, classics or even cake boss. It just seems to help the time pass. A cup of coffee makes it much better as does a really long movie or series of movies. I am working on a custom blanket right now and it is going well. Â Here are some photos of some past work.
I’m thinking about making another one of these Granny Square blankets in the Spring! I will certainly have enough scraps to do so!
and maybe another one of these! I have had some inspiration hit the last couple months and I am ready to create some new crochet patterns! I just need to get this beautiful custom blanket out of the way. So, off I go to crochet and watch more movies!
