LOVE hand made

Love this funky hand made piece of jewelry my DD got me for Christmas. She bought it at a craft shop in St. Louis. Said she knew I liked funky, and that I always preferred handmade over machine made. I like the uniqueness of handmade, I like knowing it's one of a kind, I like helping artists. So does she. The colors probably would have shown up better had I placed this on a dark background to take the photo. Perhaps I'll do that next time round.
More hand made wonderfulness. This is from my SIL, Julie who makes awesome things. This too was a Christmas Gift. Isn't it cool!

I encourage you all to consider shopping from an artist, from a art booth, art fair, or here on line. Supporting artist local or otherwise is a good investment.

Buckeye Baby Completed

Buckeye Baby got completed...just in time for the baby shower. Hat, booties, and sweater all knitted with Lion Brand Woolease (washable, soft wool). I love working with this yarn such a nice texture. Was thrilled to find the Buckeye Baby Bottle, Bib, and Binky(guess Binky is the "new" name for what we called a pacifier) to add to the Buckeye Theme. If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you'll see 2 football buttons to jazz it up. Hope Luke (soon to make his way into the world) enjoys his Buckeye Outfit. Here it was in the works.

Continuing to work on his baby blanket, as we speak. Hoping to get this blanket finished for his birthday. Stage 1 HERE.
And here it is at is progresses, worked on squares and joined these 9 in the car on our weekend jaunt to St. Louis to visit our DD.

The blanket is crocheted in granny squares, 8 inches with lots of shades of blue. The lightest shade you see here, is blue not white. Felt like good headway was made on the car trip, so stage 2 moving right along. Must check my blue stash to see how much more yarn I have and what shades of blue they are in order to move to stage 3. Stay tuned.

On the return trip from St. Louis I worked on edging knitted blocks for a ghan for Faith Mission for Bridge and Beyond. Got them all edged, and ready for joining.

Some Perspective Thinking on this 300th Blog Post

This post marks my 300th post of this blog. Sandy's Space covers knitting, crocheting, family history, family, and well...a variety of "STUFF". It began as only a place to post items I crocheted or knitted for charity, an aid to help me keep track of what was made and sent where. I didn't post all that frequently as it wasn't a particularly user friendly blogging format in those days. It was titled Crocheting and Caring Cause I Can. Notice the 4C's? Look at the url of the blog. Though I've been able to successfully change the title and everything else about the blog over the last several years, I've never been able to change the url. Troublesome, cause I would like to. No one looking at the url of 4ccccs.blogspot.com/ is going to remember know or care what it is. Back in those days I had a yahoo 360 blog, a multiply one after 360 went crazy. Prior to both of those I had an msn spaces blog, and heck before that I had an aol blog. I had several group pages on msn as well. Things change, just like the cell phone's above.

Sadly, the above photo of cell phones is a bit incomplete. It doesn't show our first phone. Our first mobile phone that was in a bag, that one plugged into the cigarette lighter in the car. That was really meant to be used in the car and be less portable. It's like a time line of technology. The phone on the far left is the first one we bought our daughter, it had limited minutes and was only to be used for emergency and so we could call her during her many after school activities back in the day. It was a huge thing for us to do that. It was her birthday gift when she turned 16. Each month, you purchased x amount of minutes. Now people think their kindergartners need cell phones. Or maybe they don't think they "need" them, but they want them. They want them to play games, to have apps, to take pictures. They have no realization that a phone is a tool, not a toy; that it's not cheap. Most, don't even have restrictions on when, or how to use it. And then kids get into trouble because of what they're doing with the phones....maybe not quite that young, but as they get older. Perhaps parents should reverse the time line with regard to cell phones and buy one that does less not more. What child needs a smart phone? What child needs a droid, what child needs the ability to access all that stuff in the adult world 24 x 7? I think, none of them do. Give them a phone you can reach them on when needed. Give them a phone that doesn't allow apps, pictures, texting etc.

We've donated all our previous cell phones, but am glad I took a picture first. The phones are reconditioned and given to women in shelters who've been battered.

Projects in the works:
Close to finishing Opal Ghan (started way back, frogged and restarted and stitches counted HERE
6 or 7 ghans designed and being edge and joined for Bridge and Beyond
Baby blanket in the works seen here

Recently completed projects:
Buckeye Baby (in the works pictured here)
Scarf for homeless pictured here
Recent ghan repaired...post pending
3 Oddball Baby Blankets Mossy Delights pictured Here, and Pumpkin Patch & Sweet Pea HERE

OddBall Baby Blankets

6 Knitters each on these Baby Blankets for the western group in RAV Oddball Baby Blankets. I love seeing the different stitches people use, and how they interpret the theme. Someone starts the ghan based on the theme and then it makes it way around with each person doing a section and mailing it on. I was the border patrol for both of these blankets. The blanket on the left is titled Pumpkin Patch and the one on the right is called Sweet Pea. I expected Sweet Pea to be lots of shades of green...my interpretation...however right from the start it seems everyone else thought of the flowers Sweat Pea's which are all different colors and thus the blanket begins to take shape.
Here's a close up of the 2 tone orange boarder. I did several rows of single crochet to try and give the blanket a bit of shape...even it up. As you can see in the first picture, there's quite an hour glass shape due to the differences in stitches and yarn used. Then with the darker orange did a simple scallop/shell. That darker orange to me is true orange.
Did some tugging to again even it out, and am hopeful when the blanket is laundered and blocked it will maintain the square shape. I also thought this blanket though appropriate for male or female looked a bit more boyish, and thus didn't want a real frilly border.
A close up Sweat Pea's boarder here. It's all in one color, made with single crochet, chains, triples, and V stitch. I like this boarder for adding a few inches to a smaller blanket. And with the name Sweat Pea, seems more girly to me. Plus the pastels so went with a more frilly boarder here. Considered doing a green border since it started and ended with green...and because green is the first color I thought of for Sweat Pea before seeing the blanket. But, since blue was the middle section on the blanket I choice that to pull it all together.
These blankets are done for charity. All given to hospitals around the country for babies and families in need.

Blue Granny Squares Project

I joined my first ever CAL awhile back. Blogged about here. Was initially grabbing whatever yarn was laying around and making squares different colors with no real plan of what to do with them, other then they would go into one of the many ghans I'm working on Bridge and Beyond as a result of Give a Square.

Then decided to make 2nd's of some of the squares from the CAL in blue, my nephew's wife is expecting next month and will need a baby blanket. So, above is the start. She's the one I made the Buckeye Baby Sweater Set for. I still need to post a finished picture....Hope I remembered to take a picture, must look through my files.

Happy Valentine's Day to one and all tomorrow.

Improving one stitch at a time

I keep trying, ever so slowly to improve my knitting skills. This is a close up of my portion of "Mossy Delights" Oddball Baby Blanket. The darker green, top of the photo is my section. I used a stitch called pique triangles. I like the stitch because it has lots of texture, and is completely 2 sided which is nice for a blanket. It's only a 4 row repeat which also nice...for me. Perhaps as I improve a bit more, I can expand on that.
Here's a picture of the whole blanket before I sent it on for boarder patrol so you can see how everyone does a strip, different stitches and colors (or in this case shades of the same color). The blankets each have a theme, a name and we're to do our bit based on our interpretation of that name/theme. The blankets are donated to babies in need at various hospitals around the country.

I think I'd like to do that stitch again, wouldn't it make an awesome scarf? Perhaps best knitted lengthwise vs widthwise? Would the pattern show up less is the scarf were done in the more traditional method of knitting it widthwise?

Lots of WIP (works in progress for my non crafting friends), but chipping away. Hope you're all staying warm. Sorry I've gotten behind in visiting your blogs, but hope to chip away at that today and tomorrow too.

**Adding this per hakucho's post, so you can see this blanket when it was finished. Here's Nancy Blog.