I'm Still Here

Happy Monday everyone!

Sorry it has been so long between posts. The first part of the month I went to Virginia for a week to visit my nephew, his wife and their two adorable baby daughters. A few days after I got home I got sick with a cold or flu, but am finally feeling better.

Here is a picture of one of my nephew's adorable babies wearing a crocheted hat I made for her while I was there:

Isn't she a doll? It was so much fun spending time with her and her big sister, I hated to leave. I got their Mama into crocheting while I was there, and she was happily working on a scarf when I left! She kept commenting to me how relaxing it was... so happy I made another convert... ha ha!

Thanks so much to everyone for your comments on my post about my father-in-law. Several of you asked about patterns for chemo caps. You can really use any hat pattern that you like. I found a great website called Knots of Love that has some excellent patterns for both crochet and knitting. If you go to the link "Our Caps" at the top of their home page, it will take you to their pattern page. I made one called the  Red Poster Cap and it turned out really cute. I don't have a picture of it because I made it while at a chemo appointment with my in-laws and donated it right then.

My father-in-law is doing pretty well, all things considered. He has found a doctor and oncology clinic closer to where they live, which will be easier on them. They have decided to start radiation in addition to the chemotherapy to try to shrink the mass in his lung. He has already started losing his hair, so I will be making a couple of caps for him.

I can't believe that it will already be Halloween on Wednesday. Before we know it, Thanksgiving and Christmas will be here and another year will have gone by. Seems the older I get, the faster the time goes.

Wishing everyone a great week :)

Getting Serious

Hello my crocheting friends. I have a serious subject to talk with you about today, so there will be no photos, just lots of words. I hope you will stick with me through it.

Our family was dealt a huge blow last week when my dear father-in-law was diagnosed with Stage 3 lung cancer. He has COPD, and his lungs are in such bad shape that he is not a good candidate for surgery. Therefore, his only option at this point is chemotherapy in hopes that they can shrink the mass in his right lung.

To say that this has knocked us all for a loop is a huge understatement. We have been feeling all of the emotions you go through when something like this happens - denial, anger, frustration, etc.

Since I don't work, I volunteered to go with my in-laws to the chemotherapy treatments. He had his first one yesterday. Thankfully it was not as bad as we all thought it would be, and we are praying that the side effects will be minimal. The doctors and nurses who work in the oncology unit at our local VA hospital are absolutely wonderful, and I know he will get excellent care there.

After his diagnosis, I knew that I had to do something, anything, to help, so I decided to make some chemo caps to take with me. I took several with me, and finished one while I was there. Later in the afternoon, one of the nurses saw me sitting there crocheting and asked what I was making. When I told her, she asked if I had made the ones that were sitting over there on the table and I told her I had. She was so excited, and told me that one of the patients there receiving chemo had already picked one out and was wearing it, and she wanted me to meet her. She took me over to meet Judy, a wonderful little old lady without a stitch of hair on her head. But there she was, proudly wearing that purple cap I had made with the biggest smile on her face! She thanked me profusely, and said she absolutely loved her cap.  Boy did that make me feel good. :)

A little while later, a breast cancer survivor came in to say hello to the nurses and she saw me crocheting and asked what I was making. When I told her, she got tears in her eyes and said that when she was undergoing chemo and lost her hair, it made such a difference to her that people cared enough to knit and crochet hats for her to wear.

This is where you, my crocheting friends, come in. As crocheters (and knitters too) we are blessed with an awesome gift. You may never have thought about it that way, but you are. You have the gift to make a huge difference in the life of a cancer patient.

I felt very strongly today that I needed to write this post to encourage you to crochet and/or knit some hats or caps and donate them to your local cancer center. It may not seem like a big deal to you, but to someone undergoing chemo who has lost their hair, it IS a big deal. All you need is a skein or two of some very soft yarn (Caron Simply Soft is what I used) and any hat pattern, although the less holes in the hat the better (hides the fact that there is a bald head underneath it).

Thank you so much for reading this, and I hope you will take some time to make a few hats and donate them to your local cancer center.

Completed Projects and Other Stuff

My Granny Shawl is finally finished.... well, sort of. Here is what I mean:

All the crocheting is done, I just need to weave in all the ends. However, our Black Persian cat Pepe has sort of adopted it as his blanket now, so I hate to steal it from him to finish it up! He is our 15-year old with kidney disease, so I figure I will let him have it. :)

I also made a Round Scarf that I absolutely love:

 

The picture does not do it justice. I plan on wearing it wrapped around my neck twice like a cowl. Neicee from Insomniac with a Hook posted about this scarf HERE.  As soon as I saw the video, I knew I had to make me one. Once you do a row or two you will have the stitch memorized. It is a very unique stitch, I don't know if it even has a name, but it makes the scarf very stretchy. I used a "K" hook and Red Heart Super Saver yarn - think the color was called Cafe, and I made 10 rows. I am currently making a blue one for my sister, then will do a red one for my niece! I may even make a few more as Christmas gifts.  Note that there is no written pattern for this one, you have to watch the video to learn how to do it. It is very easy once you get the hang of it, and doesn't take too long to make.

 

 

Several of you asked me about the ergonomic crochet hook handle that I showed you a few posts ago. Here are all the parts and pieces to it:

 

It is made by Boye and comes with eight "washers" so that you can use the handle with hooks from size B-D all the way up to K. There is a color-coded card that shows you which color washer matches with which hook size (although frankly it would have been a lot easier had they just engraved the hook size into the washer, because some of the colors are very close to each other!) The handle comes apart, and you stick the end of your crochet hook into the blue part of the handle, add the appropriate washer onto your hook, then attach the green part of the handle. I got mine at Wal-mart and I think it was $5.96.

 

The only thing I didn't like about it was that I felt like it slowed down my crocheting. It also feels a little strange holding that bulb end in your hand when you are used to holding a slim crochet hook. I will keep using it, though, and see if it grows on me!  BTW, I keep the washers in an empty baby food jar so that I don't lose them.  Well, that and my cats would think these were play toys, and the dog would probably eat them, so I need to keep them away from them :)

 

 

 

Have a nice week.

 

 

 

Help Wanted!

Do any of you have any good chemo cap crochet patterns that you like that you could share with me? I searched around but didn't find any that I really liked.

Thanks in advance for your help :)

My Pet Peeve

I don't know about you, but I really, really, really don't like it when I try to follow a pattern someone has written and keep finding errors.

I crochet to relax, not to get stressed out!  I have been trying to make this simple dishcloth for two days now and am about ready to throw up my hands and say "ENOUGH!" 

Please, please, those of you who write patterns, please double and triple check them before you share them with others! I mean, honestly, is it wrong of me to expect a pattern to be correct?

Okay, I'm off my soapbox now.. going to give this one last try and then I give up!

EDITED TO ADD:

I just realized that this is the second time this has happened to me from this same person's patterns, so unfortunately I am going to have to stop following her blog. I figured out the pattern for the dishcloth, glory hallelujah!

Progress

I am making progress on my Granny Shawl. I am really loving the colors that I picked out for this too.

 

Picked up an ergonomic crochet handle at Wal-mart the other day. Still not sure if I like it or not.

 

Going to be watching football with Mr. S. today, so more progress to be made on it today. Happy Sunday!

Happy Wednesday

Hi everyone! Hope you are doing well, and that the weather is nice wherever you are. I absolutely love this time of year, it's not in the 100's anymore and the nights are cooling down. I will be getting out my Halloween decorations before long!

I started the Granny Shawl I told you about in my last post. I haven't gotten too far, only a couple of rows, but I can already tell that it will go fast once I get going on it. Here is the progress so far:

I am using Red Heart with Love yarn and so far, so good. It is way softer than the Red Heart Super Saver and is not much higher in price. Since I don't have a Hobby Lobby near me (yet!) this yarn will have to do.

Here are some pictures of random things around here:

Butterfly bush in our front yard.... it is huge and attracts the hummingbirds. Our cats love to sit in the window and watch the birds all day. Mr. S. calls it "kitty TV"  ha ha!

Speaking of hummingbirds, I was out back one day and was just sitting there with my camera and got this great shot of three hummingbirds at one of our feeders:

 

The area in Arizona that we live in is known for its hummingbird population. We get so many species of them, and they are just fun to watch. We have feeders in our front and back yard both and we have hummingbirds at them all day long.

 

I have not posted a recent picture of our adorable Malti-Poo, Lulu, in quite awhile, so here she is:

 

She will be a year old at the end of next month. We just love her to death and cannot remember what our lives were like before she came along!  One of my next crochet projects will be to make her a sweater. :)

I have been trying new recipes again. We are trying to eat healthier around here, and although Mr. S. loves vegetables, I'm afraid I am not a huge fan of them. I saw this recipe yesterday and it looked good so I thought I'd give it a try. Boy am I glad I did, because it is scrumptious!  It is a Raw Veggie Salad, and the beauty of it is you can really include whatever veggies you like. I did not add radishes because we don't like them, so I added more snap peas. I used pine nuts and pepitas, and since I had them in my pantry, some dried cranberries. Here is what it looks like:

 

It is mixed together with a Citrus Poppyseed dressing... as Rachael Ray would say, yum-o!! It is a great mix of sweet and sour, crunchy and soft, tangy and mild - well, you get the idea. Give this one a try, you won't be disappointed.

Recently I also tried making my own homemade pickles. The first time I made them, I used the method you can find at Jillee's blog here. They came out really good, although Mr. S. says I added too much garlic (I didn't think so!).  The other day while shopping at the Commissary (grocery store on the Army Post) I found a kit from a company called Pepper Creek Farms. It had three varieties you could make - Kosher Dill, Polish Dill and Bread and Butter pickles. They only had enough pickling cucumbers at the store for me to make two of the three varieties, so I made the Kosher and Polish ones. They turned out yummy too, and the nice thing about this kit is that it only takes 24 hours in the refrigerator and you have pickles.

I got eight pint jars of pickles out of it, four of each variety. I only paid $6.99 for the kit, and I notice that their prices on their website are higher than that (you can check them out here, the pickles are under Gift Sets).  I may go back and get a couple more kits.

Okay, I think that's enough rambling for today. I need to go buy vacuum cleaner bags, make a few phone calls and maybe head to the grocery store. Have a great rest of your week.