April Showers Bring Crochet Flowers

It’s April 27th and I have 25 1/2 hats made.

I’ll confess, I’ve been having trouble focusing on the project.  Hats are wonderful to make when it’s warm and sunny and I only have one eye for my knitting because I’m keeping one eye on the kids while they play outside.  But, we have had an unusually rainy month and I have spent too many days stuck inside with stir-crazy kids.  Knitting hats has gotten a bit boring.

Fortunately, I have a related project to work on.

A friend of my Mom’s made a heartfelt request that I make some chemo hats with beautiful flowers.   When she was undergoing treatment she wanted one, but they were all being sold for profit and were too expensive.

I’m not really a flower-on-hat type person, so I decided to make some flower brooches which can be put on any hat, on a scarf, or wherever the wearer wants.

I found these three five seven lovely flower patterns online.  I have links to all the patterns.

April Goals Update

It’s April 18th.  Despite it being an awfully busy month so far, I have made 20 hats!  I am well on my way to meeting my goal of 30, to donate to cancer patients, by the end of the month.

I always let the hats pile up and then sew in the ends all at once.

In other very exciting news, my sister successfully completed the Boston Marathon yesterday!

Bunny Lovey

I have a friend who is facing some unexpected health issues with her new baby.  I never know what to do when faced with news like that, so I turned to my yarn.  A couple hours after hearing the news I had this little lady made.  This is a lovey variation of my Chubby Bunny pattern.  I chose my yarns so the lovey will match a blanket I previously made for my friend’s baby.

 

Time Management

“I can barely handle my [one/two/three] kids, how do you handle five?”

I hear this all the time.  I always wish I had a good answer.  Setting aside the kids’ ages, personalities, the fact that my in-laws live in town and are usually willing to lend a hand, and things like that, I’ll do my best to explain my strategy.

This is all coming from my introverted, goal-oriented, used-to-be-perfectionist, anxiety prone, perpetually overtired, stay-at-home parent perspective.  I’m a little nervous about answering this here and opening myself up to the judgement of the internet, but here goes:

*note: there is an important aside at the end, which might actually be the real answer.

Donation a Day April 2017: Chemo Caps

I’m embarking on another one.

Baby Clouds DC Blanket

I was planning to finish this blanket last week, but then I ran into a couple unforeseen difficulties.  First, I had to backtrack.  Second, the cat wanted to borrow it.

I don’t know if I have ever mentioned it, but our cats are LARGE.   This guy is 17 lbs without being overweight.  His brother is a little smaller.  They came to us as 4 week old abandoned kittens in 2006, and we had no idea they would get so big.  Both cats are super sweet and gentle, it just wasn’t worth moving him to work on the blanket.