Happenings from the Bush homestead

Tragedy and afghans

Tragedy:
Back on Dec 31, a friend of mine was

Inquiring minds wanted to know...

 To the left, is the afghan I am crocheting for my little sister for her graduation gift.  She graduated in May.  It's now umm....October.  Atleast I am farther on it now than I was in May!  She is very anxious and excited about having this afghan, so since she has now moved to her own apartment in a different city (not toooo far away from us), I have been working on it everynight.  It sure does take a long time to crochet something that should be about as tall as I am. 

Here is a close up just to show the colors.  The multi colored lines are dark green, brown, burnt orange, dark yellow and cream.  Then there are the dark brown and cream rows in there as well.  I decided to do more of the multi colored rows because I had a ton of that color yarn.  Then I found the dark brown and bought a good bit of it.  The cream however, is not her favorite color, but I couldn't find any other color that matched good enough for my liking.  And, it cost more than the rest.  So it's only in there a few times to divde the multi/brown/multi rows pattern. 

Next are the other projects I've been knitting, when I should have been getting Connie's afghan done.  But shhh....just don't tell her.  These are just a few.  I've given some away as gifts already for birthdays and a wedding.  I need to knit much much faster than I do if I'm going to be done before Christmas!  Yikes!  I won't tell you how many days are left until Christmas though. 

The bottom two are the slip stich dishcloths knit on size 7 needles.  Then the other 4 1/2 are the Granny's Favorite Dishcloth from the same website, knit on size 8 needles.  I do have another slip stitch dishcloth on size 7 needles in Peaches and Cream's Faded Glory cotton and another Granny's Favorite Dishcloth on size 8 needles that is about 1/2 done in my purse in Peaches and Cream's Fiesta.  I think it's Fiesta anyhow.  I can't quite remember.  It's been out there for a couple of weeks waiting until we go somewhere again. 

And last but not least, are the put holders I have crocheted.  For myself actually!  So now I've knit a dishcloth with a whole in it for myself, a yellow dischloth with a flower in the middle and these two potholders.  After Christmas I will knit some more dishcloths for my kitchen.  I promise! 

The pot holders are two different lengths.  Partly becasue they are crocheted on two different size hooks.  But also because I wanted to try out a couple of different lengths to see which I prefered myself.  The white and green/yellow potholder is two toned because I didn't have much of the green/yellow left.  Not enough for a solid potholder.  So I threw the white in there for extra.  The cream I tried just didn't look good.  So white it was.  Funny things is, I don't know which of the lengths I really like better.  I think probably the short one, but the longer one came in handy today for a larger pan.  So who knows?! 

The yarn basket

I've been working on my Christmas knitting as well as my sisters afghan. 

So far I have 3 granny square disclothes knitted, 2 slip stitch disclothes knitted and my sisters afghan is about 1/2 done. 

I have a long ways to go on the afghan as well as the Christmas gifts.  I'd best get moving on them!  It's already the end of September! 

I will take some photos after my husband fixes the digital camera.  :)

More from the yarn basket!

Here is the finished wedding gift for this weekend.

And the poyholder upclose.  I did sc for the whole thing.

The dish cloths upclose.  Left to right:

slip stitch pattern

yellow seed stitch pattern

white knit ridges pattern

another slip stitch pattern

Thisorange hat looking thing will become a bag. 

Perfect for holding my small knitting projects when were on the road.

I bought the wrong color of orange for the afghan I'm making,

so I decided to make a bag with it instead. 

It will probably end up at the camp site with us.

These are the cones I'm very excited about!  *lol* 

It doesn't take much to get me excited. 

I had looked high and low for the big cones my friend

told me about at her Walmart in Utah. 

I finally found them in the big city here!  YAH! 

So I waisted no time in getting a slip stitch dishcloth on size 6 needles. 

My size 7's have a green and white slip stitch cloth on the already. 

No...I am not capable of doing just one project at a time. 

I absolutely MUST do 3 or 4 at a time.  *lol*

So that's all folks. In the knitting and crochet area anyhow. 

Next post:

Just off the sewing machine!  Aren't you excited?  *giggle*

Right off the machine...

The dresses from the 4th.

Starting with babies....

And Peanut's dress...

Then my oldest daughters dress...

The other two girl's dresses aren't pictured, but you get the idea. 

They are pretty much the same. 

I alternated the material for each child's dress. 

 So one had the star pattern dress and stripped star pattern for the bottom and pockets.  Just changed it around for the other dress. 

The other two dresses were in the wash.

The latest dish cloth

Here is the first dish cloth of this kind.  I saw it originally on another website, so I searched and searched for a free pattern online.  I found one here!  While I enjoyed doing the seed stitch dish cloths, I think this will be my standard gift cloth.  Actually, I think I'll be making some for myself after I've got the wedding gift basket done.  I have a crocheted pot holder started.  About 1/3 done with that.  But that's for a later date. 

A close up of the slipped stitching.

And then the whole thing. 

I was getting frustrated with all of the changing colors.  I don't like to cut and tuck in the ends that much.  So Marcia suggested that I just let it hang and pick it back up again instead of cutting it all the time.  It worked!  No more ends to tuck in.  Then I crocheted a single crochet around the edge since it looked so rough to me. 

This dish cloth is very easy to knit up.  I didn't use the pattern sheet after the first two sections.  Take a look at this lady's pattern, leave her a comment on her guest book and try it out :) 

Excited!

Save the toilet paper rolls! *lol*

My children got into my yarn basket this morning in search of the fuzzy yarn.  No biggie right?  They make things with it all the time.  But today,  the 2 yr old played with some of the yellow I'm using for the cloths.  I had a big twisted mess of a couple of balls of the cotton. 

I do not have a ball maker.  Sure wish I did.  I save the empty toilet paper rolls in a cabinet.  So I grabbed one and wound the yarn onto that.  Recycling at it's best.  *lol*  

A bonus with the toilet paper roll is that it stands up on end.  I like my yarn nice and neat.  And my needles nice and neat too.  But that's not the point.  If you roll the small balls of yarn like I did today, onto the rolls, they will stand up nice and neat in a row.  :)

Out of the basket

Out of the yarn basket

This first photo are the two clothes I have done for my cousins wedding.  The green is crochet and the yellow is knit.

The green one is chain 21.  Rw 1: hdc in 3rd ch from fook and in each ch across.  Ch 2, turn.

Rw 2: hdc in each hdc to end.

Rw 3 - desired length: repeat Rw 2.

To finish:  ch2 and hdc in same ch.  18 hdc across to corner.  3hdc in corner.  hdc across to corner.  3hdc in corner.  18 hdc across to corner.  hdc across to corner.  sl together.

Corner stitch: ch 3, sc, ch 3, sc, ch3, sc.

Ruffle stitch: *ch3, sc* across to corner. 

Repeat Ruffle stitch and corner stitch around to the begining. 

sl together and weave in the end.

This one is one currently on needles.  Similiar to the yellow one above.  Is it called seed stitch? or sand stitch?  I'm not sure.  You just purl the knit and knit the purl sts.  Here's what I did anyways.  I didn't follow any pattern, so I can't credit anyone with it.

CO 37.  Knit 5 rows.  All remaining rows: K4, P1, K1 across to last 4 sts, K4.

Repeat that pattern until 5 rows short of desired length.

Knit 5 rows and BO.

I have more done on this now though.  I am also going to knit along with a friend and do a tea cozy for them too.  Might throw in some knited cup mats to match (knitted coasters).

This is the yarn for the afghan for the rest of the wedding gift.  The colors are kind of hard to see in the photo, but I love them.  This afghan will be crochet. 

And this is what I'm going to use for my sisters afghan for her late graduation gift.  I might throw in some other light brown, but I haven't decided yet.  This one will be in the chevron pattern.

So, there ya have it.  I have actually been knitting and crocheting.  I got my nephews blanket done and I need to finish the second sock so I can send it with my mom and Aunt when they fly down to see Owen and my sister/bil.  I'm jealous that they get to go down.  I love babies.  And my own nephew to boot!  I just want to hold that baby!  But, taking this many of my own children down to invade her home would just not be right.  So I will stay home and knit and crochet until I feel better about not going.  HA!

So this past week...

Here is cabinet one that I posted about previously with the before photo.  This, is the after photo.  The second cabinet, looks the same, so I didn't take a photo of it.  I decided to go with a pretty cherry color, which is hard to see in the photo.  And the photo ontop of the cabinet is missing our youngest child.  I was pregnant when we had that taken for church.

The cabinets are missing the doors.  They have pretty etched glass doors, but I'm not done with them yet.  I hope to get to them today and get them hung on tomorrow.    So the cabinets were free.  They came out of my husband's, parent's home many many years ago.  They were in pretty ugly shape.  A little tlc and even more tlc after an accident tipping of one yesturday, and they are tucked into their places next to the couch in this room.  It's fun to put the doilies on and put things in them. 

A dress I made for daughter #4 the other night. 

In this photo, it still needed buttons for the top of the shoulder straps. 

The others will eventually have very similar dresses as well.

The others are all cut, just need to be sewn up.

The sewing room (and cabinet project)

These are the 2 little dresses I made for my friends baby :)  And the second photo is just a close up of the pink check dresses ribbon. 

Then here are the 2 cabinets I am refinishing to use in the house.  I believe my husband said that they came from the house he lived in as a young child.  They tore it down many years ago and I've had these sitting in the shed waiting for refinishing.  We desparately need shelves in the house, so I'm going to finally get to these.  They will be a lighter oak color I think when I'm finished.  I can't decide if I want to go cherry or light oak for the color.  Everything else in the house is light oak colored.  But I'm getting tired of that color, so I thought I'd do it in the pretty cherry color instead.  We shall see.   

Socks and other things

 Isn't he the cutest little emoticon? 

At this moment, I have a crochet blanket for my soon-to-be-born-nephew, Owen started.  A pair of white with red floofy cuff socks for our oldest on size 3 dpns and the pair of socks below for our youngest going. 

A bad photo of the socks I'm knitting for Olivia.  I'll see if the camera is working better and try taking it again maybe.  I've since finished that sock and am 1/2 way through it's match.  These are on size 5 dpns.

Here's one of the socks I knitted for my nephew Owen (who is due in June)  I really DID knit it's match.  I just didn't take it's picture since it looks just like the first one.  LOL!  For this one I used Lion Brand magic stripe.  

Back in January, I crocheted this scarf (modled by one of our daughters) for my little sister.  I used Lion Brand Chenelle Thick and Quick. What do you give a 17 yr old?  She likes to crochet too, so I did this scarf for her.  Again, the picutre is a little fuzzy thanks to the camera being not so good. 

 And Connie, with the wild hair, is the one on the left

(another of our daughters is on the right)