Looking back at 2013 so many things were accomplished and marked off my list. I feel so incredibly productive. I keep a running list on my computer of what has been completed and what is left to finish. The list is enormous, but here are some photos of the year.
These are some of the blankets that I crocheted this year. Some are not in the collage and the other items from the shop are not shown at all.
We drove to our daughter’s college in Texas and back – 5 times. We had one trip to Kansas, and one trip to Houston, Tx, and one trip to the Waco, Tx area.
We had one wedding, one wedding shower, one major surgery, 3 months in a boot or cast, one set of wisdom teeth removed, and all the love and laughter that comes from living in a family of six.
It has been a spectacular year and I have loved almost every moment of it. There were some hard times but there are always some hard times in every year.
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.
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.
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!
I have finally finished the aqua granny square blanket and the photos were just taken today. You have seen it since the very start. I frogged three rows and started over in the plain Granny Square stitch. I like it much better and it isn’t ruffly like it was starting to be.
42″ square of luscious soft granny square blanket. It is wonderfully soft! I love the soft washable variegated yarn. It changes from a moss green to a lovely aqua and hits almost every shade of blue green in between.It is finished with a plain racetrack border. It is available in the shop ready to ship! Â https://www.etsy.com/listing/170542725/crochet-blanket-granny-square-blanket
Chocolate Dog Studio has now been open for five years! It has been a wonderful, exciting, stretching time. I have made many good friends through ChocolateDogStudio and sold many items. The shop has gone from one sale in 2008 to 1369 in 2013. It is time for me to thank the people that have made Chocolate Dog Studio what it is today. So this weekend I am offering Free Shipping on all orders $20 and over, even to the EU! Just use this coupon code 5yrsale  when you  check out. There are no limits to how many times you can use it this weekend.  I am excited with the new direction that the studio is taking and can’t wait for the next years to fly by!
Here are a few of the items I have sold over the years…
A knit and crochet shawl, some gift tags
A set of magnetic clothespins,
A knit child’s purse and a crochet blanket…
Thanks so much for your support! I could not have done this without the support and patience of my family and friends.
Inspiration can be as difficult to find as creativity. I think they are so closely linked that it is impossible to separate the two. What inspires you to do the creating that you do? What lights  your creativity? What do you find inspiring?
Sometimes it is nature or the lack of a jingle in my wallet, sometimes it is a blinding illumination when it seems the angels sing, and sometimes it is just a feeling of contentment that I am on the right track. If I were to pick which flash of inspiration I like best, you and I both know that we prefer the blinding flash and angels in a choir above my head. Occaisionally,the creative work can become to feel like drudge work. So how to keep that flash of inspiration coming? How do you keep your creating fresh and new?
I have to take a break from work and get outside for that inspiration to keep coming. I have to be on the hunt for new ideas and color combinations. Like in my Aunt’s needlework from the 70s. I love the wildly bright colors in it. Keeping my eyes open and off of Pinterest can come closer to guaranteeing  that my work is more original and less  “same song, second verse a little bit louder and little bit worse”.
Sometimes my inspiration comes from something as simple as pulling all the yarn out.
Today is a rest day and I have other things to do…which means that I will be inspired everywhere I turn!
I want to know what keeps you inspired and your creativity flowing?
I recently read an interesting article on how to be productive which immediately took me back several years (cough, cough) Â to Freshman orientation class at Oklahoma State University. Since I was undecided in my major at that time I was funneled into a study skills class instead of a regular Freshman orientation class. The class spoke a lot about dovetailing work or stacking things that need to be done ie do your laundry and study at the same time. I dovetail work all the time, today it was crocheting while waiting at the orthodontist office.
The article talks about batching which is a new concept for me. It reminds us to do our work in batches or groups of like items. If you are going to work on email then take make a commitment to check email twice a day instead of all day long. Which will save you time. Work on your paperwork at the same time everyday and so forth. Well, the study skills class spoke about the same kinds of things but added in another wrinkle…dovetailing. Sandwiching your work so that the washer is washing while the dryer is drying and you are doing something entirely different. Now in the crafting or handmade business this is a bit more difficult as we don’t have machines that do the work for us. So how can we dovetail or sandwich our work.
This is what dovetailing and batching looks like for my business ChocolateDogStudio;
While cutting out bibs I will also cut out cozies, and French press cozies. Then I arrange them by the color of thread and item and do all of the sewing requiring white thread at one time, then brown, blue etc…. I will also arrange them by the item. So all bibs requiring white thread, then all cozies needing white thread and so on.
Here the bibs are all arranged into thread color families. That way I finish multiple items before I need to change thread. I also sew buttons on in this way.
Here are the bibs and cozies all arranged according to color families before I start stitching.
When I package orders I print packing labels and then do all of the shipping at the same time. This saves me time in the long run but also saves me some walking.Â
What I really like about Ali’s article is keeping your distance from Social media and being careful about how often you check your email and facebook. Yes, I am guilty as charged. It started when I was worried about every little sale on Etsy and then I got a smart phone and the bad habit got worse. I have been working on disciplining myself to only check email and so forth twice a day or at most three times a day.
So now I am thinking about batching on my blog and writing several blog posts at once and having them post during the week. That way I am reaching my goals of blogging three times a week, without having to think about it every day.
If you run an Etsy shop there are several neat programs that will allow you to schedule your tweets. Â Check the Etsy apps and see which one will work for you. Â What a great time saver! It is time to get those set up again and keep them running. So I could dovetail my tweets and blog posts and then I could do other things during the time that I would normally spend doing those two things every day! Whew, what a time saver and a relief! Â I have felt a little stretched for time and I was wondering how to get it done this Christmas season.
Talk to you later, I’m off to write a couple of blog posts and schedule some posts!
This beautiful blanket has been finished for quite awhile. I have some great photos to share of it as our oldest son had time in his busy schedule to take some photos for me. It is beautiful shades of grey and purple. The colors vary from deep purple to magenta.
Just gorgeous and 54″ square. A perfect size for a throw on the couch. You can find it in the ChocolateDogStudio etsy shop. The pattern is also available on Craftsy and Etsy so you can make your own.
