M.I.A.

In the last couple of days, a few people have either asked when I'm going to update this blog or simply pointed out how slack I've been where updates are concerned.  My main response was surprise and shock that anybody had noticed.  There are a million excuses I could give, none of which are very good, but I got lazy at the very end of April over the weekend of my birthday, then I just enjoyed the quiet peacefulness of spending the evenings with my family instead of stressing over what I would create for the blog.

That's not to say I haven't been getting my craft on over the last couple of weeks.  I've discovered the website Ravelry, which is a knitting/crocheting community, filled with oodles of patterns for practically anything you can think of.  So my evenings as of late have been spent with my family and my crochet hooks.  Here are some examples of what I've been up to...

This is a ruffle scarf I made out of some leftover yarn from a baby afghan I made a couple years ago.  Since it was baby yarn, it's super soft, warm and snuggly.  

I found a pattern for this headband on Ravelry and loved the look of it.  I've modified mine slightly though.  In the original design, the headband was meant to tie in the back, under the hair.  I hate headbands that do that because I have such thin, fine hair that I always wind up with a bump sticking out at the base of my neck.  So I played around and used some single crochet stitches to hold the bands together at the bottom and it's hidden by my hair but lies flat against my head.  Meanwhile, the original design of the flower had an extra row of double crochets in the center so it was HUGE -like the size of my entire head.  I couldn't handle that, so I knocked out that row and readjusted the measurements to make it fit.  

Isn't this the cutest little thing?  It's a Chapstick holder!  What a great and useful little way to use up scraps of yarn and spare buttons.  Notice I used a Stampin' Up! button!

I haven't completely ignored my paper crafting.  These are the boxes we created at my May stamp club a couple weeks ago.  This is the last month of the current Stampin' Up! catalog, so we made these out of retiring cardstock and stamps.  The boxes actually fold up just like a pizza box.  I added the belly bands for a little pizzazz.

These little pouches are what started my crochet kick.  I needed a little case to carry my phone around in school without it being obvious on the days I wear clothes without pockets.  So I found a couple of different patterns online to try.  So far, I think the one on the left is my favorite.  I may try a few more though before deciding for sure, just because I'm having so much fun!