Time Has Come & Gone But I'm Still Here.

It's been such a long time since I've written in this blog.  So long in fact that I don't even know how to start or where to begin in this blog post.

Let me first start off by saying that I feel very blessed and humbled to be present enough to write to you.  To say that a lot has happened over this past year would be a gigantic understatement for sure.  For starters we welcomed our 6th bundle of love; a baby girl that we all love to the moon and beyond.  I started working part time for an app that I whole completely believe in, I'd be been watching all of my babies grow and thrive and I started on my second set of locs.  It's been a pretty busy year.

Due to our household being that much bigger and my responsibilities around here being that much more demanding I can't write that long, but I make it a mission of mine to get back to writing and back to sharing a little piece of my life with you.

What's to come with this blog in the upcoming future?  I'll continue to share my loc journey, I'll get back to trying out different recipes that I find entertaining and will share my experience and outcome with you, I'll get back to finishing up a Deadpool blanket that I STILL haven't completed yet; yup it still isn't completed, and I plan on doing my best to get back to writing crochet patterns.  There's a lot more to come to this blog as well but I'm just going to share the main points that I can think of at this moment since the beautiful noises of my children are taking over of what used to be my quiet little space.  They're noisy little brats but they're my brats and I love them.

With that said I must sign off here but until next time be blessed and I hope to be back here to catch up with you soon!

CJ

Baby Love's Christmas Gift Is Complete!! | Another Knitted Sampler!

Happy New Year to whomever is reading this entry!  I wanted to write this very quickly to let you know that I finally finished my daughter's Christmas gift and I was able to do so right on time!  It took me close to eight months to complete this but please know that it was all worth it in the end.

All of the patterns that I used were from 99 Knit Stitches and 60 Easy To Knit by Leisure Arts, the yarns I used are both Red Heart Super Saver Solids, and the size knitting needle that I used is a size 10mm 6.0. 

I'm not quite sure what I'll be knitting next but I think I'm leaning towards knitting up a quick pair of booties for my baby girl.  The pattern that I will most likely use is a pattern that I've used off and on for a few years now due to how easy and quick the project is.

Blessings!

Crochet Flower Bookmark Pattern!!

What you will need :

-1 skein of Red Heart Super Saver yarn.  The color(s) can be up to you.

- Size F crochet hook

- Scissors

Let's get started!!

Start off my making a slip knot and placing your crochet hook in the middle of your slip knot.  Now you're ready to crochet!!

Round 1) Ch4, sl st in beginning ch to make a small ring, ch3,  13dc in the center of small ring, sl st in beginning ch.

Round 2) Ch 3, dc same st, 2dc in every stitch all the way around,  sl st in beginning ch.

Round 3) Ch 5, dc in the same st, *ch1, sk one st, dc in next st, ch 2, dc in the same st to create a v-stitch. Repeat from * all the way around until you get to the last 3 stitches, ch 1 sk one st, dc in next st, ch 2, dc in same st, ch 1 and sl st in beginning ch.

Round 4) Ch 3, sl in first ch 2 space (first v stitch from previous round), ch 3,sl st in same ch2 space, *sl st in ch1 space, sl st in next ch 2 space, ch 3, sl st in same ch 2 space, repeat from * to last ch1 space. sl st in ch 1 space, sl st in be first ch 3 space.

Round 5) Ch 28, sl st in third ch from hook to make a  small ring, ch 3 15dc in small ring, sl st in beginning ch. 

Bind off, weave in any extra yarn and you're all done!!

***I'm still working on this pattern and I have made a change.  I'll probably make a few more changes but I'll just start off with this one update.

If you want to make your bookmark longer you can always add more chains after you finish your fourth round and then continue on with the pattern as written.***

Just Another Natural Hair Update! Braiding Too Tightly Almost Costed Me My Hair!

Good morning again!  I seriously feel like I'm on a role today because I haven't written this much in one day in a really long time and I have to admit that it feels pretty darn good.  Anyways I wanted to share one more update and two collages with you because I feel that this topic that I want to write about is very important when it comes to natural hair care.

Now I love to do protective styles because they're so easy o keep up with and once I have a protective style set and ready for the week, I for the most part won't have to mess around with my hair for a whole week until it's time to take everything down and go on from there.  With that said I accidently reminded myself the importance of not putting too much strain on my roots by pulling too tightly when doing a protective style and I want to share that reminder with you.

Now what exactly happened?  Well two weeks ago I discovered that my hair was having a hard time drying with the protective style that I had had in previously so I came up with the solution to take everything down, wash and condition my hair, then part my hair into slightly smaller sections so that my roots could breath a little easier, and braid my hair versus the twisting because I wanted to see how my hair would do with the braids vs. the twists.

Now I wish that would had taken pictures when I took my braids down the first week because my ends were beautifully preserved and the moisture retention was awesome!  And to top it all off my hair did a much better job drying that week.  So with the success that I had that first week I decided that I was going to do the same exact thing all over again, so I changed a few parts but I took my grease mixture and proceeded to grease my hair and scalp and then started to braid my hair all over again.  My braids lasted me one day and then I ended up taking them down because I accidentally braided my hair too tightly towards my roots which was causing me some discomfort.  Whenever I set a protective style for myself I make sure that My scalp feels good and I make sure that there isn't a section of hair that's pulling too tightly, because I'm not stranger to traction alopecia.

What is traction alopecia?  It's a type of hair loss that happens over time due to to much pulling or tension on the hair and it's not something that I want to have to deal with again.  If you want to do more reading on traction alopecia I will have a link to a website that helped me learn about it so be sure to check that out if you are interested.

So what did I do to fix my protective style that was causing me discomfort?  I took the braids down but replaced the braids with loose twists.  I tried over and over to braid as loosely as I possibly could but I just couldn't do it, so I'll be practicing that until I can get the braiding down with hurting myself because I actually like how the braids protect my ends more.

Not to say that I don't like how my hair came out with the large twist because I was really feeling my hair on this day and the day after!  Well I just wanted to share my experience with almost causing more damage to my hair so that I could use my story as an example to be careful!  No hair style is worth the risk of loosing your own God given hair.

Be blessed and I'll be talking to you on the next one!!

Learn more about traction alopecia -  http://www.hairsentinel.com/traction-alopecia.html

Postpartum Shedding Is No Joke! Mint And Hair Grease For Hair Repair??!!

Well good morning!  It's been such a good little while since I've taken the time to sit down to write about my hair and what all I have been doing to it to get to stay healthy, so I really don't know where I should begin but I'm going to try.  I gave birth to my little miracle late last month and not long after that wonderful event I started to notice that my temples were starting to thin.  Now I wasn't too concerned about this then and I'm still not today because this is something that I've experienced before.

Now there different ways that people out there have combated postpartum and I have tried several different methods and products in the past to fight this annoying stage of my life after giving birth, but my favorite tools that I love to use when it comes to repairing my hair loss is castor oil and peppermint essential oil.

I actually looked into peppermint essential oil last summer when I was trying to grow my edges and crown section thicker while growing locs, and when I saw the improvement of my hair I decided to continue using peppermint essential oil along with castor oil and lavender essential oil.  The only reason why I did not add lavender essential oil back into my regiment as well is because I still can't stand the smell of it right now but I'm hoping that I will be able to do so soon because I really miss using that oil.

I'm going to leave a link in this post of a website that I found to be very helpful when I decided to learn more about peppermint and how it can help my hair so be sure to check the link out at the end of this blog if you want to learn more!


So what do I do with the castor oil, peppermint essential oil and blue magic?  All I do is add the amount of castor oil that I want into my blue magic and I add a decent amount of drops into my grease.  I then mix the grease and oils together very well and then apply the grease mixture all over my hair and scalp as usual.  I haven't figured out how much of castor oil and essential oil I add in because I'm still experimenting with different amounts of each oil, but once I have that all figured out I will be back to share that with you.

Have I seen any kind of improvement at all??  Well it's been two weeks since I started adding my little mixture to my hair and scalp and I have seen improvement in my balding areas.  Now I haven't seen a drastic change and I don't plan on seeing a drastic change for some time but I do know that the grease mixture that I made is helping move forward in the right direction.

If you have suffered through postpartum shedding before what did you use to repair your hair and scalp?

Be Blessed and I'll be talking to you on the next one!

Learn more about peppermint essential oil -  https://draxe.com/peppermint-oil-uses-benefits/

21 Question Natural Hair Tag!!

Here's a natural hair tag that I did earlier this morning!

Another Knitted Sampler Is In The Making!

Hello there!  Since my one of my daughters asked me to knit a knitted sampler of her very own, I picked up my knitting needles and got to work.  I actually started this project earlier this year but had to step away from this project for a while, but I'm back it to to finish this up so that it's ready by Christmas.  The afghan that I'm working on now will have 16 squares and will be somewhere near 12 inches in length.  I recently completed my forth square and I'm now working on my fifth.

The patterns that I'm working with will be found in two different leisure arts books, and the yarn that I'm using is the Red Heart Super Saver.  This yarn isn't my first choice but it is the easiest and the cheapest yarn that I can get my hands on at the moment.

My little love picked the colors and most of the squares that I will be working on herself so I know that she will LOVE this gift once it's all done and ready for her to receive.