Getting Started on the Temperature Crochet Project

Temperature Crochet Project.

The Little Lady's Squares: January 1-16. (Purple is 60s) (Multi-color is 50s) (Pink is 70s)

Carmen: Jan 1st -17th. (50s multi color, 60s black, 70s brown)

Temperature Crochet Afghan 2016

"Crocheting keeps me from unraveling" - Crochet Quote

The Little Lady and I are doing temperature afghans this year!
We are going to do the High Temperatures for our area each day. 
We live in a very "hot" area of the U.S.  So, unlike most people we don't get to start our afghan colors in the low 30s. Our afghan tempertures are lucky to get in the low 50s.  Our summers, however, get in the 120s!

The Little Lady picked out her colors for her Afghan. She will crochet either a line or a granny square for each day in the corresponding temperature color! She is still deciding on which one she will like to do. I think she is leaning toward doing a granny square each day. 
50s- Muliple Color
60s - Purple Neon
70s - Fushsia Neon
80s - Pink Neon
90s - Orange Neon
100s - Yellow Neon
120s - Blue Neon
Crochet Hook 5.00mm

I am not so fond of the brighter color!  So, mine is more earth tone.
50s - Natural Stripe
60s - Black
70s - Coffee)
80s - Terra Cotta
90s Autmn Stripe
100 - Dark Olive
110 - Green Camo Stripe
120s - Brown
Crochet Hook 550 mm

This is our High Temps for January so far...

The Little Lady and her Loom Project

"The difference in who you are and who you want to be is what you do."  - unknown

The Little Lady is doing a service project this year. She is trying to loom knit 500 children hats this year. She probably won't make her goal as it requires her do a lot more than what she has time to do as life gets in the way regularly around this place.  But,  she has several hats finished this month. She will be sending them to a Missionary who will distribute them to Children and Babies in need of hats.  

She makes them with a little brim. 

 Her little sister helps out a little too. 

Little Lady makes Pillow Case Dresses

A lady in our nearest city teaches sewing classes for young and old. So we decided to check them out!

Several months before we moved here and became aware of the sewing classes,  the Little Lady saw a video from "Little Dresses for Africa" and thought it would be a great project for her to do. I have known about this ministry for many many years so I was familiar with the video.   So, we checked into this Lady's sewing classes to see if she can help her on learning how to sew these dresses.

And wouldn't you know it!  I am a huge believer that nothing happens by chance!  The teacher makes over 1000 pillow case dresses each year for the "Little Dresses for Africa" organization.  And, she makes over 500 shorts for the boys too! We were totally excited! When the Little Lady becomes better at making them, than she will be doing this project next school year as a ministry project.  

The Little Lady has taken 2 pillow case dress classes. The first class she made a pink pillow case for her 5 year old sister.  The next class she made a blue/brown pillow case for her 3 year old sister.

A few weeks ago she made this one for her 5 year old sister. 

 

 http://www.littledressesforafrica.org/blog/  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXYRgVILJxc

Quilt Block 2014

"One who sleeps under a quilt is comforted by love." - quilt quote

The Children finished their 16x16 quilt block squares. This year the squares are not nearly as decorated. They are super simple. It appears that everyone is just pretty tired of projects as we did these on the heel of finishing up state fair projects.  But, at least I can count this years craft project skills completed and someone else judges it!

The Little Lady did a quilt block piece that she named, "Elephant Hole." 

She stuffed the elephant and stuffed the water. 

She hand sewed some details on the elephant but other wise she used the zig zag stitch to piece the fabrics together.  She only used the fabric that they gave her. 

The Little Man calls his "Submarine Explorer". 

He hand sewed his entire quilt block piece. 

In the picture, it is hard to see the embroidery floss that gives details to the submarine. 

He only used the fabric that was given to him from the challenge packet.  

He may add a fish our two to the quilt block but right now he is finished.

The Little Gentleman calls his "Castle".

He was the only one to add fabric to his quilt block. 

He used the three that they gave him plus he added the yellow. 

He used the zigzag stitch around his castle. 

The rest of the items he hand sewed.

He did not sew the flag down. 

He wants it to wave off the quilt piece.

He calls it Sea Beast

"Measure twice. Cut once." - Quote

                              The Little Man finished his pillow for the State Fair as well. 

Looks like an Elephant, A Submarine, A Castle

 "Give enough glue sticks and pins and I can rule the world."  Sewing Quote

Ideas are beginning to take shape around here. 

Fabric Block Idea Thinking

"When life gives you scarps make a quilt." - Quilt quote

Our Nation Quilt Museum's School Quilt Block Challenge Fabric arrived in the mail. 

I think these colors are going to be a little hard this year to come up with something unique.

I bet we see a lot of water, grass and maybe some space stuff going on in a lot of the 16x16 top piece squares for the competition this year. 

The Kiddos are looking in drawing books for some ideas!

What do you see coming out of this fabric?

Block Piece into Dog Pillow

"Crafting your heart out makes room for your soul to grow." Crafting Quote

We are spending our afternoons after our "paper school" is completed trying to get some last minute crafts finished.  The Kiddos are turning their quilt blocks from the National Quilt Block Challenge into a project for the State Fair.  We are running up next to the dead line for the pre-registration for  our State Fair projects. So, a bunch of "creative messy" stuff is going on in the formal dinning room.

   As you can see, I got smart. I put a piece of cloth on the table specifically for our mascot! So, she would not get on all the other items. We don't have time to run her off on a regularly basis so we had to figure out how we could get the upper hand on the situation with out her knowing!

 The three colors for the quilt block challenge last year was yellow, a red print with different color star type shapes and a blue/yellow material. 

The Little Lady turned her block piece into a quick pillow project.

(The ear and the tail have stuffing in them.)

Teddy Bear Blanket

"Crocheting keeping me from unraveling." - Unknown



The Little Lady made this Teddy Bear blanket for her littlest sister.
She saw the basics on a youtube video several months ago.
Then, last week she just decided to make her own design. 
The video she saw was a bunny. But,  she decided to make a Teddy Bear and crochet her own design for the blanket too.
 
The Little Lass adores it.

Reading and Crocheting

"You can't buy happiness. But, you can buy books. And, this is somewhat the same thing." - Unknown

 "Alice's Adventure in Wonderland." 

This weeks Read-Aloud.

I read.

She crochets. 

It is going to be one very large blanket! 

She started on it this past weekend.

Little Crochet purses

"Crochet gives me an inner peace that I treasure every day." - J. Ferrett

The Little Lady has been crocheting purses for all her little friends. 

Little Lady is Quilt Piecing

 

The Quilt of my life was made of imperfect pieces lovingly fit together by the Master craftsman to form a beautiful pattern. He make no mistakes. - Unknown

 

First Completed Scarf

 

“What more do you need besides a crochet project and some hot cocoa?” – ChompCake

 

The Little Lady finished her first scarf the other day. 

The Little Miss swiped it.

 

 

Wacky Purple House Quilt piece

 

 "When life gives you scraps make quilts."  - Unknown

 

Before Thanksgiving the only thing the Little Lady knew is that she wanted to make a house quilt top for the school block quilt top challenge sponsored by the National Quilt Museum. She really didn't have any other ideas at that point. So, she worked with a few scraps and the three pieces of fabric that are required to do her quilt top this year.

 

The three fabrics are (1) the black with orange dots, (2) green with orange dots and (3) the purple fabric that you see her cutting.

 

However, she just didn't really like it well enough.

So, the pieces got folded up and put in the material bin.

Since they were not sew together except for the background, 

she will create something different with it at another time.  

 

 

Thanksgiving vacation came and so everything got put away.

But upon returning, her creative juices got to flowing.

She drew out a simple house scene on a piece of paper again.

 

She ironed her fabric.

 

She cut strips of green grass from two different fabrics.

(The green fabric that was required and another one that she just liked.)

 

Sewed them together with a straight stitch.

 

Then, She learned how to iron the seams.

She chose to iron them in one direction instead of separating the seams flat in both directions.

 

She sewed a straight line to attach the grass to her purple sky.

 

Ironed it again.

 

 

She cut house shapes out of two fat quarters.

(The darker purple and the orange-purple were added fabric pieces)

 

She cut out a side walk from the required black fabric.

 

Then, she played with the idea of buttons being placed on the house for a door and windows.

 

 

She cut out a tree from black fabric.

(Plain black fabric was added)

 

Then, she used the required black with orange dots for a tire swing.

 

Still trying to figure out her buttons!

She added the purple one to the fabric.

 

She added a folded black ribbon for the chimney.

It is a flap ribbon so it is a little dimensional.

 

 

Her original thought was to sew a black embroidery string from the tire swing to the tree. But, working with ribbon was fun so she added it to the tire swing too. 

 

 

Then as everything was placed on to the fabric the way she liked it,

she sprayed it down to keep it in place for sewing.

 

She sewed around the pieces with a zig zag stitch.

She did the zig zag stitch several times around her pieces.

 

Then, She sewed on buttons.

Sewed on more buttons.

And, even more buttons.

 

A full days worth for her just sewing on buttons.

 

 

 

 

Relieved to be finished!

She loves the wacky colors.

2012 Truck Quilt Piece

Sewing fills my days, not to mention the living room, bedroom, and closets. ~Author Unknown

 

This above quote describes my formal dining room over the last several weeks.

 

Well, anyway, before Thanksgiving break, the Little Ones were all working on their quilts for the National Quilt School block challenge. Go Here for Details  So, now that the Little Gentleman's quilt is finished I will show you the details. 

 

The Little Gentleman wanted a truck for his quilt. Absolutely must be a truck or a tractor!

Nothing else will do!

 

So, he drew a truck and then cut out the paper. The Paper was pinned to the fabric and cut out.

 

He also did some free hand drawing on fabric as well.

 

 

 

He had to use 3 fabrics. 

This year the three fabrics were (1) a black one with orange spots, (2) a purple fabric, and (3) the green fabric with a tad bit of orange.

 

So, after talking it over we decided the truck should go up an incline.

 

Because, this was his first time using a sewing machine, could not do a straight line with out my help or keeping the pedal from zooming, (speeding up and slowing down) nor could he reach the pedal, he ended up sitting on my lap to do the straight line extremely slowly and to sew a zig -zag stitch around his truck, his sun and his cloud. I did the pedal and helped him with the turning.  The zig zag stitch is perfect for this project because it hides all their little oops! And, since we go over it twice it hides even more "oops!"  

 

 

He picked out brown buttons for the tires and with help stitched them in place.

(That would be his monkey friend helping him with the project. It was stuck in the back of his shirt for several hours.)

 

 

He helped tack on blowing wind which he did with ribbon.

 

Then, Daddy drew a blow moon face on a paper cloud.

He patiently traced it by putting the white fabric over the paper.

 

Again, with help, he sewed a face on the cloud with black embroidery floss.

A white button was put in place as well.

 

 

                                                       

         The only problem now is he likes it so much he doesn't want to send it off to the competition. 

                                                                          Go figure!
                                            He wants to make it into a pillow right now!!

* See how uneven his truck is (at the bottom) a true cutting, drawing creation! ;) This project requires lots of breaks for his age. It took him 3 days and they were not consecutive days.