Saturday, December 19, 2015

This Crocheted Pixeled Giraffe Child Blanket Is Ready To Go!





Please never underestimate the power and glory of what a single granny square can do!  I never thought that I would be able to pull something like this off but with some imagination, crochet supplies and google, I was able to make this happen!



This grid that you see above isn't my own but it is something that I found on google to help me along.  I only followed this grid for the giraffe itself then winged it after to get the border that I wanted.


So now that this is done I plan on going to do my best to finish up my husbands gift and once that gift is all set I'll be back to share that one with you as well!

What are you crocheting?

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

This Child Granny Sampler Afghan Is Almost Complete!!

I can't believe that I actually finished my very first giraffe granny square sampler!





The only thing that i have left is to crochet the finishing touches of the border and then I'll be washing and drying this so my kids can finally use it!

Never underestimate the power of a fairly large stash of extra yarn.  

Just in case you're wanting to try this pattern out for yourself, you can find this grid on google for free so make sure to try this fun pattern out for yourself!

Friday, December 11, 2015

Last Minute Gift For My Kids In Progress!





What a blessing it is to be back once again to write to ya'll about another project of mine that I'm currently working on.  I haven't given up on my husband's gift but I need a lot more black and white yarn so I had to put that surprise on hold.  So to keep myself from going insane I decided to gather all the extra yarn I could to make something sweet for my kids.  

At this point in my crocheting life I'm a HUGE fan of graphs because they're easy to read and straight to the point.  The giraffe graph that I used was found for free on google and all I have left to do on this is the border.  I'm in love with this project!

Sunday, November 29, 2015

More Progress On A Christmas Surprise.

I just finished putting my ninth row together and I'm starting row ten now.  Any ideas as to who this is yet?  This is coming out better than expected!!


Friday, November 20, 2015

My Granny Square Christmas Surprise Still In the Making!


I had to come here to share my progress on this HUGE Christmas surprise that I'm working on.  I'm a little under half way done with the main part of the afghan and, I still have to get a large quantity of white yarn for some of the main portions of the afghan and its' border.

Still wondering just WHO I'm crocheting up??  Keeping checking back in the find out!!

Sunday, November 15, 2015

My Granny Square Surprise Christmas Gift In The Making!!

A picture of my progress this past Friday.


Good evening readers and thank you for stopping by!  I know that I'm late AGAIN with updating you on my latest project but it really isn't all that easy coming to you on time like I would like to.  Between our puppy, kids and just trying to keep up with life, writing here sometimes doesn't make it on my daily to do list.  But thankfully I'm here to share an awesome project that I'm working on for someone special at home and I totally can't wait till I have it all done.  I can't say who it's for or what the afghan is made to look like but what I will say is that the character is pretty awesome.  Do you have any guesses as to what character I'm crocheting up? 

Well once this afghan is all done you know that I will be more than happy to share my much anticipated work with you!  What I can tell you is that I'm working with red, white and black Red Heart Super Saver yarn from Walmart and Joanns, and the size crochet hook I'm using is a size F.  I luckily found the pattern on google for absolutely free and look forward to sharing that info with you once this project is done.


Two of the MANY granny squares I have to work up.

More progress from tonight.


Thursday, October 29, 2015

My Very Own Sampler In The Making.

Good afternoon!  I'm preparing for a dear friend to come visit us within the next week but before I lost myself too deeply into all the house cleaning that needs to be done I wanted to share and update on my sampler that I'm finally knitting for myself.  There are a few more samplers and afghans that need to be finished but I'm taking a quick break on those so that I can get a decent head start on my own project.  

Here are rows one and two before I sewed them together. As you can tell from the picture, some of the top and bottom sections up my squares curl up naturally.

This was taken right after I finished sewing the two rows together.
 
Twenty squares are needed to complete this sampler and I've completed eight so far and I'm currently working on the ninth.



 




Wednesday, October 28, 2015

I sure was feeling my hair this day! Here's to Natural Hair Success!!

This was the very first time that I was able to get my low pony tail layed like this without having to blow dry or press my hair  It took a lot of product and time but my hair turned out cute!
 After going through recent photos that I had taken to showcase my 4C natural hair goodness I just HAD  to write a quick post to share some snap shots that I took, and  I wanted to write about the progress my hair has been making when it comes to the breakage that my hair had suffered a few months back.




These photos were taken earlier today and I'm happy to share that, even though my edges all around my hair are super short, my hair and scalp are making wonderful progress! I even used to have a thin rounded spot towards the middle of my scalp and that's grown back in as well!
About two or so months ago I shared that I had experienced pretty bad breakage towards the front and back edges of my hair and towards the top section of my hair.  This was very devastating for me because I had spent so much time, patience and money on making sure that my hair was growing to be everything that it could be, so for it to break on me was almost like a big slap in the face.  Luckily I quickly took action the moment I noticed my breakage and switched things around in my regiment and products to make sure that my hair and scalp could get itself together!

The trick that has helped my hair to grow back in a healthy manner has been to KEEP MY HAIR CARE SIMPLE.  I wash and condition my hair at least twice a week now and I use a whole bunch of coconut oil, thick creamy moisturizers, Blue Magic, Eco Style Gel and edge control every time I style my hair.  Every style that I have been doing for the past three weeks have been protective styles and they've ranged from low pony tails to pinned up twist. That's it!  I don't do different rinses or methods, and I stay away from attempting twist outs and braid outs.  I am well aware that this practice isn't necessarily needed to make everyone's  natural hair growth a success but it's been working pretty well for me. 

And another thing!  Silicons and sulfates are my friends again and I have missed them greatly! I did the whole trying to use all natural products thing and it's simply too costly for me to continue to do so for myself, so I'm back to using my faithful Herbal & Essence :-D  You'll be seeing me write about a few other low cost products that I've brought back in my regimen so be on the watch for that post!

Anyways, that's what's new with this 4C gal here:-D

Developing A Green Thumb, Slowly But Surely.

This is a picture of my lavender plant about two weeks ago!

My marigold and lavender a few days ago :-D

Never once growing up did I ever think that I would actually think that I would growing a desire to try to create my own garden, but here I am doing so now and it's been pretty interesting.  I've had  A LOT of failures along the way and a few good successes in this adventure, so I think it's easy to say that I have a LONG way to go when it comes to knowing exactly how to garden.

The whole reason behind me starting my own garden little by little is that I'm simply tired of having to depend on stores to provide ALL of my wants and needs for my family and myself.  And when  I take a step back and really think about it, being that dependent on an outside source to provide our every day needs make me pretty nervous so yeah.  Yes there is a big chance that I may be overthinking a little bit or I may just be a little bit on the dramatic side but I can't run away or hide from the true feelings that I have.

My main goal is to have a small farm for our family where we'll have an abundance of fruits, veggies, chickens and at least 2 goats.  This may be an over the top goal that I have for us but it's something that I'm slowly but surely working towards.

So with that said, cheers to dreaming big!





Sunday, October 18, 2015

Just Completed Another Square!!

This pattern is called Checkered Fleurette by Leisure Arts.

The lace areas of the pattern remind me of crawling spiders!

Saturday, October 17, 2015

DIVERSITY IS A BLESSING.


So earlier this week I was looking through my recent pictures that I had taken to help keep record of my natural hair journey, and I couldn't help but be reminded of how diverse my hair really is.

It took such a long time to appreciate the blessing that God bestowed upon me and I'm not going to waste anymore time not being thankful, because what I once thought was my curse actually turned out to be my blessing.  God is good.

Friday, October 16, 2015

Square Three Is Complete!!

The name of this stitch is Valentine Hearts by Leisure Arts Inc.

In my personal opinion this pattern isn't much fun, but it serves as a good filler for my afghan that I'm not.

I Finally Got My Natural Hair Layed!!



After YEARS and YEARS of trying to get my fly away hairs under control, I finally found a mixture of products to make my hair LAY down in submission!  All the products that I used where under ten dollars and they can easily be found in your local Sally's and grocery store :-)

Thursday, October 15, 2015

My Very Own Afghan In Progress!

Waffle Stitch by Leisure Arts.

I kind of goofed up towards the beginning of this square but I pulled work work together and finished strong.  Again I have to say that I'm not a huge fan of this yarn like I used to be before, but it's getting the job done so I can't complain.

This is a picture of the third square that I'm working on called Valentine Hearts and this pattern is also available in the book called Leisure Arts 99 Knit Stitches.  To be completely honest with you, I'm not a big fan of this pattern all by itself but I have good faith that it'll look much better with its' other counterparts once they are all knitted and sewn together.

Knitting samplers that would require me to sew pieces together used to scare me to the point to where I would purposely avoid these types of projects all together.  But now that I'm a little older and feel more comfortable with knitting, I've come to realize how much faith I didn't have in myself to be able to do something as pretty as a sampler.  And to tell you the truth, I wish that I would have realized how simple these projects are because I would have been making samplers A LOT more often that what I had been doing in the past.  All one needs to get a sampler started are the right tools and the right set of mind.  What creative activity have you been up to lately?   :-)

Monday, October 12, 2015

My First Wash And Go In A REALLY Long Time!!

Minutes after I finished styling my hair!  :-)

 Well for a good couple of weeks writing about my hair seemed to be pretty pointless since there wasn't much to update this blog on until earlier this afternoon, and that's because  I finally decided to do a wash again AGAIN!

Three hours after styling my hair!  I have some shrinkage and I don't mind that at all.

For those of you who don't know yet, I have 4c natural hair and it's been quite a journey trying to find out what works and what doesn't work for my hair.  From hearing what's "supposed" to be
great or bad for my hair, to what I've personally learned about my hair myself, it's been interesting to see what I have found to be true and false.

After everything is said and done the best person who can judge what's best for your hair and lifestyle is yourself.  So take advice when it's needed but remember that you don't necessarily  have to live by every piece of advice that's offered or given.  Trust me because I've had to learn that the hard way.




My hair's dream team for the day!















Saturday, October 10, 2015

Yes I'm At It Again. Knitting Afghan #2!!

Lacy Lattice by Leisure Arts.  This pattern can be found in 99 Knit Stitches.

It's only been a few days since I finished my nephew's afghan and I've already decided to restart on my very own.  I originally wanted to make long panels for my afghan but quickly changed my mind after I saw how lovely my previous project came out.  

Once again I'm using the same book I previously used and I'm using the same circular knitting needle as well.  The only item that's different this time is the yarn difference because I'm using Red Heart Super Saver instead because it's what I have on hand, and trust me it's not by choice, but I surely can't complain because I could have no yarn at all!  The thought of that seriously makes my stomach hurt so I'm thankful!  

Square two will be coming soon!


Friday, October 9, 2015

Another Peak At Baby Boy's Knitted Afghan!

I still can't believe that I actually completed my first knitted afghan this week!

Here's a recap on everything that I used to make this lovely afghan happen!

I used -Leisure Arts 99 Knit Stitches pattern book
- Three skeins of I Love This Yarn in the color of Terra Cotta
-size 10 6.cmm circular knitting needle
-Size H crochet hook for border
-Yarn needle
-Scissors 
-Bobby pins to help hold squares together while I sew them together since I didn't have any pins on hand :-)
-My imagination and optimism :-)
One thing that I was taught was that it was extremely necessary to block my work once I finished everything but I personally have found that to not be exactly true.  So instead of blocking my work I opt to simply wash and dry it and it's good to go! 

Another afghan is in the making now and I am excited to show you the progress on that one as well so keep a look out for my knitted afghan number two!





Wednesday, October 7, 2015

THIS KNITTED BABY AFGHAN IS ALL DONE!!

Words cannot express how thankful I finally am to have completed this today because I've been wanting to be done with this project for almost a week now.  Knitting this afghan up took a little under two weeks to complete which isn't bad since I had to continually stop in between knitting sessions to take care of my kiddos.

All together I knitted 9 squares till my work reached a little under 11 inches and then proceeded to finish the square off, so my finished squares are a little over 11 inches in length each.  I haven't been able to measure this afghan yet, since it's in the dryer, but by doing simple math I can guess that this afghan that I made for my nephew is a little over 33 inches in length.  The border that I crocheted on this project wasn't included in my estimate so I'm sure that I'm looking more so at 34 inches or so in length.

I used a size H crochet hook for my border and the only thing that I crocheted up for my border was a round of single crochets for round one and a round of double crochets for round to.  It was that simple!

Once this lovey is fully dry and I have fresh natural light to work with I'll take more pictures of this sampler, so you can get a better view of this afghan from all sides, since most of the squares are different. So yes this is a a show and tell of my finished work and I hope my nephew enjoys!!




Thursday, October 1, 2015

THIS KNITTED SAMPLER RIGHT HERE!

I'ts been a little under a week since I started this sampler for my nephew and I'm already over half way done!  I just need to finish up the last row and crochet my border :-)  This is probably going to be one of my favorite baby gifts I've ever made, so I'm looking forward to having it finished hopefully by the weekend.

Where did I find the patterns for each square?  Look up the Leisure Arts book 99 Knit Stitches for all the patterns featured in this sampler and the size knitting needle I'm using is a size 10 6.0mm circular knitting needle.  When it comes to the yarn I'm using, I'm using my all time favorite yarn called I Love This Yarn from Hobby Lobby.

Monday, September 28, 2015

MY NEPHEW'S SAMPLER AFGHAN IN PROGRESS!!

I'm making progress on my nephews sampler afghan slowly but surely.  Well to be honest my progress that's been made hasn't been too slow since I only have four more squares to go before I done, and I've already completed five of them, so I think that I should be done before this week is over!!

Sunday, September 27, 2015

KNITTING AWAY!!

 It's difficult to see but the first row of my nephew's afghan is done.
I just finished this zig zag eyelet by Leisure Arts earlier today and I'm not on the second square of the second row of this afghan. I almost want to kick myself for not taking the time to try to complete a sampler earlier.

Friday, September 25, 2015

FINALLY! MORE PROGRESS HAS BEEN MADE!!

Have you ever tried to master something but had the most difficult time doing so and, in response to that, became EXTREMELY frustrated????  Well that's been me for the past couple of weeks because I 've been having such a horrible time trying to figure out what my hair wanted and needed from me since it had started to break on me AGAIN.  Yes I said AGAIN.

Some months back, due to me having a new baby a brand new baby and taking care of my mom, I honestly had pretty much zero time for myself to breath, let alone try to take care of my hair, so I came up with a plan to wash my hair every two weeks instead to help save on time and to also save on products since we go through them rather quickly.  Within the first months my hair was doing well with the arrangement so I had no complaints but the last couple of weeks, before I made the big change, proved to be troublesome on my hair which resulted in some of my hair towards the front breaking.  And this doesn't include the breakage I experienced from my post postpartum breakage that I had!
 
So one to two weeks ago I decided that I was going to restart wash and deep conditioning my hair just I did before once every week.  Well I've been doing this for two weeks now and my hair feels like a completely different head full of hair because not only is it back to having some shine but it's very soft to the touch:-) 

There is no doubt here that I should have been deep conditioning more often and ESPECIALLY since I have color treated hair but again, I had to change things due the lifestyle that I had going on. But now that I'm in a different time in my life I know that it's time to continuing to practice the basic things that I was doing back when I first restarted my hair care journey and stick to it.

My hair hasn't been easy to understand but now that I'm understanding how to handle my hair with each day that passes, I'm getting that much closer to my ultimate hair goal which makes me super excited!  But until then I'm just happy to understand more and more with clarity on how to keep my hair healthy and strong.  So if you're one that's been having a hard time trying to understand your hair and you've been hitting a lot of road blocks with your hair, please be encouraged to not give up!!




EMBRACING THE REAL STRUGGLES OF MY 4C HAIR!

Thursday, September 24, 2015

KNITTING CHRONICLES : A SAMPLER FOR MY NEPHEW! SQUARES ONE & TWO!

This pattern is called Little Fountain and is available in the Leisure Arts book called 99 Knit Stitches.
This is Cloverleaf Eyelet and this pattern can be found in the book stated above as well.

I have three handsome little nephews and nothing makes me happier than knitting something special up for them and what makes me even happier is knitting something up for them that I actually like!  Maybe it's just me but I have a really bad habit of being extra picky when it comes to the pieces that I make for my family, which makes it hard for me to get their gifts to them on time.

Well after finishing a baby blanket that I just did not like at all I decided that a sampler afghan would be a much better assignment for myself, so here we are!  I plan on making 9-12 squares in total so this project shouldn't take all that long.

What am I using?

I am using the Leisure Arts 99 Knit Stitches book, three skeins of the I Love This Yarn by Hobby Lobby and size 10 circular knitting needles.

BANANA CREAM PIE!!!!!!

 My banana cream pie :-)

Recipe can be found here : http://www.food.com/recipe/old-fashioned-banana-cream-pie-14979

Good afternoon to you!  It never ceases to amaze me as to how quickly time can just go on by, so with that said please forgive me for taking so long to get back to this blog.  There's a lot that I want to write about so I want to get started with this banana cream pie.

Okay so we moved a little over a year ago and have settled in, for the most part, pretty well.  The weather is nice and the people are friendly but I've been missing my favorite spots to eat and I've been missing them BAD.  So earlier this week after making a killer batch of chocolate chip cookies, which I will try to write about later, I had the strong craving for Marie Callendars banana cream pie.  Sadly there isn't one around so after moping about missing one of my favorite pies in my life I decided to get up and look for a recipe to try, and not long after looking I found this lovely recipe online. 

I followed the directions ALMOST exactly but decided to casually spread whipped cream all  over the pie, which wasn't in the instructions.  Let me tell you right now that this pie is AMAZING and if you like banana cream pie and haven't tried this recipe out for yourself then you're missing out big time.  My husband, who isn't a dessert man by the way, loved it and even asked for another piece!

So in conclusion yes this recipe is great because its cheap to put together and it doesn't require a lot of skill to make this treat happen.  Let me know if you've tried this yourself!

Wednesday, September 2, 2015

What's Going On Lily Sue?!

LiLo (Lily Sue) and I!!

Hey ya'll it's a blessing to be back to share another post with you guys.  So after getting lunch, dinner and dessert started for the family I decided to look back on the past couple months of blog entries just to see what I may have missed writing to ya'll about.  And to my amazement I realized that I completely forgot to write about our Lily Sue, so here's the low down on our beautiful girl.

For the longest time my husband and I have talked about getting a dog of our own but just didn't have the money or space to make that kind of commitment.  Early last year my husband and I found out that my mom had become extremely ill and after a year long battle my mommy went up to be with Jesus.  Her passing completely BROKE us all  because we were all extremely close for so long and all our kids, excluding our youngest, had grown up living with her all their lives so her passing was a huge hit to us all.  My mom was the best mom that I could ever ask for and with her being gone it's like there's a huge piece of me gone that I will not get back again until we see each other again.  She was my best friend and my mom at the same time all throughout my life and the ache of missing her will never cease to exist.

Let me move on before I start crying..Alright so after we got back home from laying mommy to rest, we all decided that we needed an extra dose of LIFE in our lives so we decided to bring a puppy home.  It didn't take very long to figure out what kind of dog we wanted so we went searching online, found Lilo (Lily Sue) and brought her home not long after.  She's seriously brought so much mischief and joy into our home that I could not see our family complete without her here with us.


LiLo's first day home :-) She had just turned 8 weeks old.


Plenty of thoughts raced through my mind of all the judgements that we would probably get due to us bringing her into our lives, but that didn't matter to me because I knew that we had made the right choice.  LiLo today is a huge lap dog, if we allow her to be, and all she wants to do is play and relax with her humans.  
LiLo getting attacked by my toilet paper.  Can you tell by her eyes that she KNOWS that she's in trouble? :-D

All in all over these last 4 going on 5 months she's proven to me to be the best dog that I've ever had and I wouldn't replace my sissy dog for the world!  Yes we call her sissy dog at times but there's a reason for that  :-) I'll do my best to keep ya'll updated on how she's doing because I really did mean to write about her by now and I might even do a couple of dog product reviews here as well so keep a look out for that!  Be blessed ya'll!!



Lilo at 9 weeks taking over MY comforter, so we now have to get another one.  Silly goose.