Summer crochet and knit patterns.

We had had so much rain this past month that everything is blooming.  I love this time of year.  Flowers are so inspirational.  Here are some pictures of our various gardens and the patterns that they helped to inspire.

Iris are so beautiful and was the inspiration for this luxurious iris lace scarf.  You can find the patterns on Craftsy here or on Ravelry with the buy now button or from this link. 

Morino wool and silk long scarf

This is very long scarf [100 inches (254 cm) long] and is made with a wonderful yarn that is not only soft but also has the wonderful shimmer than goes with silk.  The scarf keeps the iris alive all year long.





 Columbine are my absolute favorite flower and so I had to try and make some accessories that included this flower.  In honor of our granddaughter I made a headband or hair clips that include this wonderful flower.

Pre-made hair clips on Etsy

This pattern includes instructions for making the headband for any size head and can be found with the buy now button on the right, or on my Ravelry store or at my Craftsy store. Of course I had to make some bookmarks for my Etsy shop.  I love how they came out.

 

Another favorite flower is the rose and with our recent rain, our roses are blooming like crazy.

I love to crochet roses.  They are fun to make and they never lose petals to the Kansas wind.  Here is a doily pattern at my Craftsy store or on Ravelry.

already made for you on Etsy

 

Here is a pattern that has more blooming roses. If you follow the instructions and add a prism you will have rainbows on your wall when you hang this from a southern facing window.  (I love rainbows on the wall.)

pre-made window sun catcher

 

If you would like to make one of these for yourself, using the colors you would like to see, the pattern can be found at my Ravelry shop or on my Craftsy store.

 

With Father's Day coming up, how about making Dad a pair of fingerless gloves?  I made this pattern for my husband who wanted a pair using cotton yarn which is so much easier to launder. 

 





pre-made for you in my Etsy shop

 

If you like to make cable knits, this fingerless gloves pattern has both a chart and written instructions and as with all my patterns has been tested by two other people to find mistakes in the instructions.  The pattern can be found in Craftsy here or at my Ravelry store.

 

 

I am still designing bookmarks and should have a new one out soon.  In the meantime, I just found a Russian blog that is featuring my bookmarks.  The Google translate does a pretty good job and I was so honored to be featured.  Here is the here,  My designs are now international, lol.

 

I hope everyone has had a wonderful spring and that you are now ready to for summer.







St. Patrick's Days gifts to make or buy from Etsy

February flew by and it is March already.  I am almost ready for my new lace knit scarf design to go to the testers.  I thought I would showcase some of my favorite Etsy sellers gift offerings in this post.

If you want to make you own Lucky Irish Leprechaun bookmark, just hit the buy now button on the top right of this post and you will get the pattern.  If you would rather buy it pre-made,  the link below will take you to my Etsy shop.  Here is what he looks like.

Lucky Irish Leprechuan bookmark

 

There are some wonderful Etsy artist who have some great gift ideas for St, Patricks Day.  I love this baby outfit in QuinnysCrochet shop on Etsy.

 

baby girl emerald green outfit

 

She has some darling headbands and hats with shamrocks on them.  She does some wonderful work.  Well worth the visit.

 

Another Artist's shop that I love is Crochetbymsa on Etsy.  She has some wonderful doilies.



Lucky Shamrocks N Lace doily

She has a couple of doilies that feature shamrocks.  I love how the one above came out.

 

NadiasKnits has this delight green tam that is adjustable for head sizes.  Just the bit of green needed for St. Patricks day.

adjustable emerald green hat

 

knitbypearl on Etsy has this wonderful Emerald green bow headband which should keep all the "pinchers" away.  I love how it looks.

emerald green bow headband

 

PennyRugsPlus in Etsy has this gorgeous kit that comes with everything you need to make this delightful table mat including the floss.

 

shamrocks table mat kit

 

Another shop I love is SnowNoseCrafts on Etsy. This shop features some delightful kitchen towels that are made to hang on a draw pull or stove handle.  This one features shamrocks.

shamrock kitchen towel

What a gorgeous way to brighten your kitchen in time for spring.

 

Etsy is full of some wonderful fiber artists and it is hard to narrow the list of my favorites down to just a few.  With spring just around the corner, St. Patricks Day makes a fantastic transition between winter and spring and it is so full of fun traditions.  What is your favorite tradition around this holiday?

 

 

 

  

 









Designing for new blessings

I have a new granddaughter that arrived this past year.  What a blessing she is.  (Of course, so is her mommy and daddy and big brother.)

 

She arrived just after we had spent a week in my Colorado Mountains.  There were Columbine flowers all over those mountains.  I took these pictures because I just wanted to try to design these wonderful works of art.

 Here is another shot from the side view.

 

These wonderful flowers are so much larger than the domesticated variety but they do not come in all the wonderful color combinations as the tame ones.  I always try to grow these in Kansas.  Here is a shot of one of my efforts.

Now, something that seems to hold true with all my children and now grandchildren is that they are all bald.  I spent two years taping bows to my oldest girl's head just so people knew she was a girl.

 

I just knew I had to design a beautiful headband for my new granddaughter that would accentuate her beauty.  I have always wanted to crochet Columbines because they are so wonderful so I got to work.

 

First came the flower which can look so different when it is a side view or a front on view.  So after many, many hours of frogging steps I came up with the flower from both the side view and the front view.  My daughter loved them and suggested just making them into clip barrettes that she could add them to an already existing headband.  (I wish I had had headbands like these when my children were young).

 

So the pattern continued.  It included instructions for just making the clip barrettes and I continued to work on the band. 











It calls for really soft elastic because babies head are so tender and I chose to buy some of the baby headbands and cut them up to fill the elastic gap.

 



The pattern has a lot of picture tutorials to help others through the process of making this work of art.

I love how it came out.  God gives us so many examples of his love.  For me, His gorgeous Columbine flowers that are here today and gone tomorrow are one example.  Daughters and now grandchildren are are such precious blessings that even when I doubt that He cares, I just have to look at them and know my doubts are lies.  What have you found that proves God's love in your life?