Crocheting for my Molly

What can I say? The girl inspires me!

Hitting a crochet rut? Throw a Crochet Party!

Last month, after having talked about getting ladies together to craft several times and having a few friends ask me to teach them how to crochet, I decided to make up a party surrounding the craft I love best: Crochet! Whether it was for inspiration, learning new techniques, patterns or how to crochet for the first time, I asked several of my dearest friends to come and enjoy a night of crochet, refreshments and fun!

Some ideas:

• Send out E-vites, they're free and normally you can reach nearly everyone who you would contact on a regular basis through email or some social-networking site, such as Facebook. Most E-vites have some sort of feature that allows you to post the invitations or access your contacts on that site.
• Don't worry about whether your invitation will be welcome to non-crocheters, you'd be surprised how many people are interested in learning how to crochet, and if you offer to teach at the party, they're more likely to show up!
• Offer to teach how to crochet at your crocheting party. I asked everyone who wanted to come and learn to bring a light colored worsted weight yarn, and a hook between G-J. Anyone who was apprehensive of obtaining those things I offered to supply those things for them.
• Ask those who do crochet to bring their projects they're working on, patterns they love, and so on.
• Display your goods! I set out several of my finished products from the past few months, along with their patterns, and nearly all my yarn, hooks, and supplies for my friends to see, use, be inspired by, etc.
• Use the party as an exchange: Bring your yarn you never use, see if someone is willing to trade from their stash! Bring your patterns and share with others the projects that you loved making! Share techniques and gift-giving ideas!
• Provide refreshments and an atmosphere that is comfortable. Winter is the best time to cozy up in a house with your yarn projects, there's usually loads of holiday food available for parties, and you have every excuse to play holiday music and have your house looking particularly lovely in it's holiday splendor. I let some of my friends who asked me if they could bring anything to bring goodies- cookies, a veggie platter, crackers and a cheese ball and I provided drinks! Tea, coffee, lattes, and water for those who didn't want something hot.
• Don't let this be your only party! Chances are, those who didn't come, simply had a time conflict, so schedule another! Maybe make it a monthly affair that those ladies can look forward to. Let your first party serve as a learning experience to throw better parties along the way!
• Don't let it become a burden. Let your friends help! Parties are supposed to be fun, so if you're stressed out about providing food, divvy up the load and have a few friends bring one dish each. Don't have enough room at your house/apartment? Ask a friend with a little more room to host, and maybe make something fabulous as a thank you present for her time/effort. Ask friends for ideas for what to do at the party, how to make it better.

Happy New Year!

Just a quick tip for those crafters out there who are low on supplies following the Holiday rush of crafting for family and friends, there are a lot of sales going on right now at craft stores such as Joanne's Fabric and Michael's. They have incredible mark downs on Christmas supplies, and I was able to get my favorite brand of yarn, Vanna's Choice at 2.49 a skein! I love that! So, go restock up for the New Year 2010!

My apologies

It seems the holidays, student teaching, and the fact that my digital camera broke have been very efficient in keeping me away from my blog. This is something I wish not to become habit as I find blogging can be very stress-relieving for me. I hope to come back and stay consistent in my blogging! My apologies for staying away for so long!

Life lessons.

Life is so silly, how one simple thing can poke and prod at our hearts disturbing our default mode of simply slipping through the day to day with little to no change. This evening I was gently reminded (certainly by the Holy Spirit) of what a prideful hypocrite I can be, and I am so thankful the Lord stopped me through one simple moment raking leaves to humble me.

You see, my husband is out of town on business and I am left to do all the nasty laborious chores he normally takes while he is here. Today, it was raking the yard. Leaves were everywhere, and I had some gloves, a small rake and some kitchen garbage bags. I jumped into the job with enthusiasm and as I made my way from side yard to the front, I thought to myself, "My neighbors must see me out here raking. I wonder what they must be thinking." My first guess was that they would wonder why Michael (who usually does the yard work) isn't raking the yard or carrying around a leaf-blower or doing something manly.

But my thoughts didn't stop there, as I noticed other neighbors out walking/playing with their children, carrying in groceries, etc. I sat there (piling leaves into bags) thinking they must just love having me as a neighbor! From what I've heard, the last tenant was not respectful of the property and ended up costing our landlord a lot of money. I figured the neighbors must love having a pretty yard to look at and love the fact that my husband and I are generally quiet, we don't do drugs, and don't have yappy/aggressive/big/stupid/whatever kind of dogs to poop in other people's yards. Furthermore, I thought, I'm not like this and such neighbor with this and such problem, and I went on and on in my head justifying what a wonderful person I am and how wonderful it must be to live next to me.

As I told myself that I respect my yard more than the neighbors across me because I'm raking my yard, I looked up to see the mom of that house handing her boys rakes. Conviction shot through me as I gaped at the little boys serving their mother by helping to pick the leaves/fruit that had fallen from their trees. I felt a push on my heart that what I had just been saying to myself was a pack of lies, that something evil, my own sin had been speaking to me, stroking my ever dangerously-large ego. Judgement had taken over because of some leaves accumulated on a person's yard, so very quickly I had elevated myself for the very purpose of looking down my nose at the "less worthy" neighbors that must be "such a burden" for their landlord.

Oh shame. Shame, Lizzy, that you do not love like Christ. Shame that you do not desire to serve, but only desire to be noticed and called great. Shame that you are impatient, so far from the Lord, our God, slow to anger and abounding in love.

These small things in life that bring me to a low place, these are the discipline of the Lord. Thank you Lord for your loving discipline! For disturbing my every day pattern of exalting myself.

A weekend with the fam :)

I love time with my family :) This weekend, I drove home by myself (hubby's out of town on business for the new job) and just relaxed, crocheted, held my adorable niece and ate yummy food! It was very restful and wonderful to not spend the majority of a weekend sitting by myself alone in an empty house! I made two amigurumi this weekend- a pumpkin, and a candy corn for the fall/halloween season. Both were featured on my weekly Lion Brand email updates so I downloaded the (*free) patterns and made them up in a jiffy! My sister loved the pumpkin so I gave it to her, and the dog, Piper got my candy corn. He (the dog) always loves it when I come, cause usually I make him a toy. He tries to dig through my yarn bag and steal my creations! It was really cute to see him with the candy corn cause it was just the right size for his mouth :)

Well, I hope you all had just as lovely of a weekend as I did! May your week be productive and full of good people!

OH! p.s. My sister and brother-in-law bought their first house! They close on Friday, and I am very happy for them, so congrats you two!

I love fall :)

I love when it starts getting cold outside, cause it just seems the time to curl up and crochet lovely things like hats and scarves! And that is just what I have been doing! Here's a beret I finished last night, and a lacy cap w/flower I just finished this afternoon. The flower I added to give some pizzaz to an otherwise rather plain skull cap.

The Joy in my life

Molly Joy 10 weeks old

I get to see Molly today!

I love this baby girl SO much, and today I get to see her again for the first time since before I started student teaching a month ago! She is so lovely and sweet, and I get to hold her :)...oh yeah, and I get to see the rest of my family today. (I love them too, just not as eagerly anticipating them because they aren't the cutest baby in the world!)

It's been a while...

My recent crafting endeavors. (baby hippo, booties, a card, and my finished blanket).