More Crochet Projects

Just thought I would quickly show what I have been up to the last few weeks.  I have crocheted several scarves for Christmas presents, DAR silent auction, or to keep.  The Mindless scarf is my favorite at this time. I love the self scalloping edge which looks nice folded back lapel style. I just pin under the "lapel" to hold in place.  I will get on Ravelry to give proper credit to the designers of these wonderful items. Or you can go to my Ravelry site for more information.

Mindless Scarf

Fast and Easy Cowl

Flight of Fancy Scarf

Artfully Simple Infinity 

Autumn, Time to Crochet

Go Cards- Cardinal Red October Cowl
Infinity Scarf 

Cooler weather means time to get back to crocheting.  I truly enjoyed watching our St. Louis Cardinals win the games necessary to propel them into the World Series.  I worked on this Red October infinity scarf during many of these nail biting games.  At the end Boston was a stronger opponent... but I will have this beautiful scarf to remember the outstanding pitching of Wacha, Rosenthal and Wainswright.    This scarf was adapted from the Calming Cowl  by Indigo Dot found on Ravelry.com.

Teal Chi-Town Cowl
Caron's Soft yarn in Pagoda made this cowl luscious to the touch .
Pattern from Kathy Kelly found on Ravelry.
I made it continuous and also added some picots as well as slight variations.


This fringed cowl I made last year and wore often. I think it was Red Heart yarn from Walmart
and a V-stitch pattern from Jennifer Dickerson  Fiberflux.blogspot.com .  I made it flat then slip stitched it. Next time I would make it a continuous round.   I love the way the purple fell into this pattern !  More of these to come.

   

Fringed V-Stitch Cowl   

  

I 

Artfully Simple Infinity Scarf 

Artfully Simple Infinity Scarf

These Artfully Simple Infinity Scarves are fun to make and the added button adds to their appeal.  These have been in the top 20 crochet patterns listed on Ravelry.com for several weeks.  So simple you can whip them up in no time!  Pattern courtesy of Tamera Kelly.

Wedding Glasses

 Wedding Glasses done in vinyl using my Silhouette Cameo. 

Great Vibes font      Leafy Flourish from the Silhouette store

Font " Shit Happens" from Font Squirrel on Champagne flutes
Font Great Vibes on wine glasses
Flourish "Leafy Flourish" from Silhouette store mirrored
Vinyl GT5 from H&H Sign Supply
Clear medium tack transfer paper
Wordmark.it to display fonts
Glasses from Bed, Bath, and Beyond.

5 bridesmaids glasses
2 sets of wine glasses for parents
4 Champagne flutes for Best man, Maid of Honor, bride and groom
1 pair of larger wine goblets for bride and groom
8 shot glasses - etched with L (not shown)

The Happy Couple

Review of Wordmark.it a font previewing app

I recently stumbled upon Wordmark, a free app from the Google Chrome store that will display a short phrase or group of letters using the fonts loaded on your computer.  Often I think I like a font only to find a letter not looking like I expected or not liking the ampersand symbol.  With this app I can quickly scroll through my fonts, select which ones to compare, print a listing of my favorites for reference, or show my preferred fonts to a client.  I love it. Here is a screen capture :

With over 1200 fonts on my computer, I can quickly get mired down as to which font to go with. Wordmark helps me to narrow down my selections.  And did I mention it is free!  Look for it in your app store.  I checked it for malware and according to McAfee it was safe to use. 

  Maybe I will spend some time and delete some of my never used fonts......or not. 

Sympathy Card

From Silhouette Files 

Card file     Nature Flourish Frame Card 

Bird welded on       Bird on Branch

Envelope     Artisan Envelope ( reduced bottom fold ) 

finished size 5.25 x 5.25

lined with solid gray cardstock

Hero Arts stamp  sentiment

Sentiment and bird on branch repeated inside

Negative from bird used to chalk envelope flap - Lavender Dewdrop 

Spring Snow Digital Layout

I spent a few minutes using My Memories Suite v4 software to complete a layout tonight while it is still snowing! Our St. Louis area received a record 12+ inches of snow today.   A friend of mine made a snow Easter Bunny which was pretty funny.  My little Sugar wanted no part of the snow once it was belly high on her, but Chloe, on the other hand, loved it.  My kitchen floor is strewn with dog towels and will need a good mopping once the dogs stop coming in encrusted with snow. I was too busy taking photos to clean house today !    ok, whats new?

    The software is very user friendly and I combined My Memories embellishments with some Samantha Walker digital paper I had handy. ( Will identify later)    It was a blank page and then drag and drop some photos, mat and shadow then add the elements and text.
                                    Happy Spring Ya'll !

My Memories Suite first digital scrapbook page

My Memories Suite v4  first project 

    I am now tackling Digital Scrapbooking. Not that I need another hobby, mind you, but I need to justify my hording of great digital items.  I blame it on Samantha Walker.  First I downloaded her designs with the intent of using them in print and cut projects with my Silhouette Cameo.  I see all the creative work done over at Jessica Sprague and I think I could do this as well.  I have Photoshop Elements 10 which I am using to edit photos for clients and myself.  I am strictly self taught, and must admit I have not invested in a class.  It is on my to do list.

     I was contacted by My Memories Suite to test and review their v4 software.  What you see is my first project. They were very generous in providing me with their program and extra spending credit for some basic papers and embellishments.  I decided for my first project I would see how easy it is to use digital products I already own.  I used a Design House Digital line by Audrey Neal called "Bit of Luck".  Can you say Drag and Drop ?  So easy.  And no glue to dry.  It was a bit tricky saving this as a jpeg rather than the album format they default to, but I had only spent 20 minutes playing with the program.  I am sure there are zillions of tutorials out there to check out.....another day.   They also provided me with a coupon offer giveaway for my followers. Cool.  I will set that up in a few days.   

   Shopping the My Memories Suite site is a bit overwhelming. So much to choose from and the prices seem very reasonable.  I will show you the vintage album I'm going to make as a tribute to my mom, using the template album from their site.  So.....Stay tuned !

Any one else familiar with My Memories Suite ?   Opinions?   How many of you dabble in digital scrapbooking ?  What software program do you use?  

Happy Valentine's Day !

 Samantha Walker's Silhouette files cut perfectly on my Cameo.  I cut an offset to line the cover with glitter card stock . I cut the heart flourish from the bottom of the card stock, thus utilizing the positive and negative cuts. Quick, easy, and beautiful.
  For these it takes longer to make the envelope than the card!

 How cute is this ?  I used the Lettering Delights Great Scotty cut file. Took advantage of print and cut features of my Cameo. Added a snowflake, and another scotty for the inside.   I love hybrid card making and now that I have the hang of Print and Cut I have far less glue on my fingers!


I am working on the darling Sheri McCully "Lockets of Love" cuts. Still need to apply them to my Whitman Chocolate boxes. Pictures to post later.

You can still get Valentine Day Special prices today at Lettering Delights and Silhouette Online Stores.  I have a Lettering Delights link for you to the right.

Hugs and Kisses!

Eagle Scout Card

 I liked the way this Eagle Scout card turned out and it will be quick to reproduce with my Cameo now that all the tracing, simplifying, shadowing / offset and welding has been done.

I started with this Eagle image I found from Google images, from a couple of years ago. I selected this one because the black and white is easy to trace with my Silhouette Designer software


I traced, took off High pass filter and got pretty close to what I wanted by maneuvering my threshold.  I decided I would cut my eagle in a dark rich brown and lay it on white and so I enlarged a couple of areas and also deleted some small areas that I thought would be problematic.

When I was happy with my eagle I decided to cut the card with the white offset welded to a window on my card front. I just needed to position my eagle at a slight angle with the wing tips overlapping the window opening.   I did not center my window opening on this card, but next time will.  It was easy to glue my brown intricate cut eagle to the offset area using Zig 2 Way Glue.  I lined the inside of the card front flap with DCWV blue textured card stock, leaving a white area to write my congratulatory note.  I added a bit of metallic gold with a Sharpie to the front of the card, but would skip this perhaps next time.

If I can teach myself how to do this, you can too! Thanks to tutorials from Kay at Clever Someday, I am tracing designs without  much difficulty !

DC, ch 2 ,DC skip and repeat.... My new Hobby

I picked up a crochet hook and after watching some YouTube I am now rediscovering this craft. My mother crocheted back in the 70's -80's, and I would watch her, occasionally start a project but  I don't remember finishing anything.  Mom made ponchos for my sister and I our of granny squares.

I have finished a wide scarf and then seamed a few inches in the back to make it a hooded scarf. Then I started making 8" granny squares with plans for an afghan.  My A.D.D. kicked in and I started this scarf this morning.  I love this yarn. An unwrapped orphan I found on the shelves of my local Jo-Ann store.  It has a luscious hand, just buttery soft and I loved the colors.  I stumbled upon a great blog site called Fiber Flux .blogspot.com. The easy to follow pattern I am using is from that site and is called Blueberry Pie by Jennifer Dickerson. She actually has several patterns I love, and may try next.
    I took the above shot with my new Nikon D7000 and a 35mm 1.8 lens using available afternoon sunlight, no tripod and a wide aperture. (On the fly) Perhaps I should have gotten the scarf in focus instead of the yarn ! LOL.      More photos as I progress.