It has been raining steadily here since late Tuesday night. We’ve been wanting some rain, hoping it would cool things off since the humidity is so bad. What we got was not what we wanted, however. My beloved Aunt Dimple’s funeral was yesterday, and it was raining heavily all morning and when we left for the funeral at 1:00 it was still coming down. I had talked to my Mom a few hours before and they were flooded in. They have three ways out, but the same creek flooded over the road in two places, one of them the bridge at the end of my parents driveway. They have an 18-acre farm and this creek runs along the edge of it. Along the last road, a little “stream” that is dried up 95% of the year had flooded the road and washed a deep rut. When we came home from the funeral we were shocked to discover that the bridge at my Mom’s had completely washed out. Before they left only one of the really large culverts had washed out. Now all three were gone. I hope it doesn’t take the county six months to fix it like it did another bridge. In the meantime my Mom will have to go out the longer way around.
I’ve been using the opportunity for cooler weather to curl up on my bed with my crocheting (and a cat or two lol). I have been finishing up my designs and working on a Round Ripple Tree Skirt using this free pattern on Crochetville. I will post photo’s later. I don’t have any taken and uploaded right now.
I created this simple crochet cell phone sleeve and I thought I would share the pattern. I was taking a break from working on a design and decided to make a cell phone case for my mom, and this is what I came up with. I made me one to match my iPod Touch case. I hope this works. I am trying to make it open as a PDF. We shall see. I am also going to post the pattern here on my blog as well.
I’ve been busy working on my designs and have gotten several done. These are for the Holiday Mystery Gifts group on Yahoo, an awesome group of knitters and crocheters from all over the world. It’s one of my favorite groups, and this will be my first year designing for them. I am indeed honored. Here is a photo of my first design. It is my “It’s Cold Out Winter Set”, which is a hat, scarf, wrist warmers, scarf, and a cowl, all made in double crochet stitch. I’ve also finished a “Scrub A Dub Set”, which is a cloth with matching sponge cover. I’ve been making a couple of other things that I haven’t finished yet. I am very close, though! 
One of the things I’ve been working on is the Christmas in July Stockings, in both knit and crochet. Although I can knit, I’ve never done stranded or Intarsia knitting. You can see these stockings on the designer’s website at 
Another member of the group, Mindy, designed the crochet pattern. These are all mix it up patterns, but I decided to crochet mine in a simple back post/front post double crochet repeat pattern. I made it in a blue yarn (my youngest DD’s favorite color), then went back and added the fuzzy yarn by what I call “top crocheting”. I’m sure it has a name but at the moment I can’t recall what it is. In knitting you can do duplicate stitch. Since I was using fuzzy yarn I just attached my yarn and single crochet, ch-1, around then moved to the next row.
My mother has a new baby, her name is Kricket. She is a Yorkinese, only a few months old and weighs 2.2 pounds. She has become a great companion to my mom. It is one year ago that my Mom lost her best friend, Glendes, from cancer. She found out she was sick and within a couple of months she was gone. My mother was there for her right up until the end. Here is a photo of her (she REALLY didn’t like the dresses, although she was so darn cute lol). She’s a sweetheart and already an important part of the family.
So I finally gave in and said ok, I’ll pick you, and I’m so glad I did. The photo’s here don’t really do the colors justice (I really hope to have a new camera sometime this year), but the orange just makes it so cheerful.
I hope to post more often now that I’m not having to share my PC with my DH (who broke his and then 2 days later broke mine!). If he knows what’s good for him he won’t break anything else for a while lol.
