Rhododendron Park

Saturday a group of us went to the Rhododendron Park on the Weyerhaeuser Campus in Federal Way. (http://www.rhodygarden.org/page/page/1083572.htm) It was a beautiful, sunny day. Not too hot for walking but not so cold my fingers froze while taking pictures!

If you would like to see more pictures, I have posted them on picassa. http://picasaweb.google.com/pctrainer98/RhododendronPark.

Cozy Crocheted Capelets

It must have been the cold winter that made me decide to make soooo many of these! The first one I made was for my niece who is finishing up college at Whitman College. Her room is in the basement and so I thought she could wear it as she studied. I don't know that she ever used it but... I was sending her a fleece blanket and I remembered when I was in my basement bedroom, I had a hard time keeping my shoulders warm. It is hard to wrap a blanket over your shoulders and still be able to turn pages and/or type!

Then I made one for myself using the Homespun yarn. That yarn was too big so the capelet also was too big. However, it fit my sister. She has taken it to work to wear on those days that it is cold. I actually saw her wearing it! She liked it so well, she is planning on making one for her friend who is about to start chemo therapy.

I tried one more time to make one for myself! I used the Red Heart Really Soft yarn.

My older sister, only wants us to donate to her endowment at the University of Washington for her gifts. I did that, but I also make her a capelet. They have a condo in Sun Valley. While the unit is beautiful and has everything in it, it can be a bit cool. For this one, I used Vanna's yarn. The colors were pretty but it ended up taking THREE skeins of yarn. A review I had read about her yarn was that it was expensive for the amount of yarn per skein. I have to agree. Of course, I have used the Red Heart Super Savers for most of the afagans I have made -- they have lots of yarn!

Warm for Winter

At the Stitch & Pitch Mariner game this summer, a group was handing out flyers about making hats and scarves for the homeless. That was all it took for Carrie and I to go to town with making hats and scarves. I also discovered it was more fun to crochet while watching the games at the ball park than to keep score! I now have crocheting in my car all the time!

I have made over 20 scarves for 2008! The blanket was made by our friend Darcy who lives in Alaska. 3 co-workers also contributed hats and scarves. I have to admit a few of the knitted hats were so nice, I was temped to keep them for myself. Many of the scraves were made using a pattern I got in a breast cancer kit basically chains and single crochets with a LARGE (N or P) hook. Lots of the others were just solid singles, doubles or half doubles. I also started making single Mile-a-Minutes panels as scarves.

Want to participate? Here is more information: http://www.interfaithcouncil.com/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabid=161

Kirsten's Seahawk Afagan

I made this afagan for my oldest niece. I was working on a "mile a minute" afagan during a Seahawk game and she asked me to make her one. So, of course when I asked her what colors, she said "Seahawk!" This is a double-sided patterns of shells. The doublesiding happens by doing a row of chain-7 between the row of shells and drawing the chain up into the next shell row.