Monday, May 31, 2010

New Design! Elegant Beaded Wine Gift Bag




Whew, it's been a while since I posted! I really need to get in the habit of keeping up with a blog!
It reminds me of when I was young - I never was very good at keeping up with a diary or journal either! I really do need to work on that.

I finished a new design today that I'm pretty happy with. It's for a beaded wine bottle cover or gift bag - the pattern is for both variations. I'm working on putting the PDF together & getting it ready, so the pattern will be available soon. I really enjoy working with the beads - they add such a nice touch to even the simplest stitch pattern.

Let me know what you think!

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Trying to get back on my hooks, after my stash was stolen...

April 2010 -- I’m just starting to get back into crocheting again after having almost my entire stash stolen during a move. For hubby’s health, and to be close to ‘adopted family’, we made a rather drastic move back to FL last summer - we sold our house in AL, sold/gave up almost everything we owned & bought a small manufactured home in a 55+ community in central FL. We loaded our van full of personal items, and a (SUPPOSED) “friend” was going to bring his large van down a month later, bringing the remainder of our belongings. Well, “friend” disappeared with our stuff - we’re guessing he wanted the TV & electronics that he was bringing -- but unfortunately, 98% of my stash was boxed up to come in his van too. He’s vanished off the face of the earth, from what we can tell - no luck finding him or our stuff. Beh - and this was someone we’d known for quite some time & had gotten rather close with.

I was so depressed about it, I didn’t even pick up a crochet hook for months now -- and I was so terribly ashamed to even admit to what had happened - there were some sweet ladies here who had sent me some yarn gifts in the past, and more than anything else, I was so ashamed that I had lost the yarn they’d sent me. But I do miss stitching, so I’ve been trying to get enthused again. LOL - I’ve got some coned kitchen cotton, a bag of fun fur & another small bag of mixed hodge-podge skeins that were in our van, and that’s the extent of my pathetic stash right now. Living on hubby’s social security doesn’t allow for much spending outside of absolute necessities - and the dollar stores here don’t seem to have yarn, at least I haven’t found any yet.

If anyone has ANY extra yarn at all that they don’t want, I’ll gladly pay postage if you’d be willing to part with it. I mean, anything!! Cheap acrylic, fun fur, novelty weird stuff, kitchen cotton… anything at all, I’ll be thrilled to have it!

And DON’T ever ever let anyone else handle your stash for you when you move, under any circumstances!! I had so much wonderful yarn - I still have to fight the tears when I think about it - so I just have to try NOT to think about it….. losing the other stuff he stole was bad enough - but (if we had enough $$), it was all items that theoretically COULD be replaced. I had lots of discontinued yarns and other yarns that simply cannot be replaced, and I’m fighting tears just writing this again, so enough out of me for now…….