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CrochetandKnitting Newsletter
Friday, January 25, 2008

In this Issue:

- News from BizyMoms

- Grape doily found

- Pattern search. Can anyone help?

- Make your slipper soles last longer

- More visitors for your site or blog

Hello Everyone,

I hope you are all well. I've managed to get a flu, but I
won't let it keep me down, not for too long at a time
anyway. Perhaps an early bedtime tonight would do
me good, though...lol

Susan Hutson from Bizymoms, where they help women
start a business from home, sent me an email. She wanted
me to pass on this information to you.

Susan says they want as many moms as possible to start
a home business this year. So they have dropped the price
of their Premium Career Kits. This includes their Easy Start
Program, helpful ebooks and a Lifetime Website.

She also said in addition to lowering the price, they have
also started creating new career kits at the same low price.
Coming soon is Event Planning, Jewelry, Errand Service,
General Crafts and more.

You can check out what Bizymoms has to offer here.
They also have home business ideas, articles and
advice.

At the Crochet and Knitting Forum
Cindy was looking for a grape doily pattern. I found one
here:
http://barbscraftbooks.tripod.com/barbscrochet/id79.html

Char found some more grape doily patterns. I like this one.
http://www.angelfire.com/folk/celtwich/GrapeDoily.html

Loraine gave us the link to one she made. I like this one too!
http://www.freepatterns.com/list.html?criteria=grape+doily

These are so pretty! I want to make some too. I was thinking
they would look really nice on my bookcase.

Jacqueline is looking for a pattern of a double knitting
cardigan from the late 1950's. Her mother had made this for
her when she was a teenager. Unfortunately, no one has been
able to help her find it yet.

If anyone knows where she can find this pattern it would be
greatly appreciated. She would like to have the pattern for
sentimental reasons. You can reply to her post on the
forum .

Here is her description of the pattern:
"The back was knitted in one piece - two rows knit two
rows purl up the armholes then casting on stitches on either
side to form sleeves when the stitches changed to a diamond
shape. Likewise the fronts were knitted up to the armholes
and then the diamond pattern. Stitches were then picked
up round the sleeve ends and the wristbands knitted.
Stitches were picked up down the length of the fronts and
the buttonhole bands knitted."

About the soles on yarn slippers.

In a previous issue, I mentioned Jackie had emailed me about
crocheted slippers soles that wear out quite fast. She really
likes my "Easy Slippers For Beginners" and I also make
many of these each year for my husband.

I never did get around to trying the Phentex yarn for the
soles, but on the last pair I made for my husband, I took
my glue gun and put the glue on the soles. I didn't just let
the glue set on top of the yarn, I would put a line of glue
across a row, then I would take the hot tip of the gun and
melt the glue right down into the fibers.

So far so good! He wears his slippers all the time while he
is inside and the soles on this pair show no sign of wear yet
at all! So I am happy about that. I thought I would pass this
tip on to you too, if you are having problems with the soles
wearing out on crochet or knit slippers.

Do you have your own website or blog?

Do you need some more visitors? I've just found this new
traffic exchange program that will get you targeted traffic,
people who are interested in what your site is about.

They have "craft and hobbies" and "home and family"
categories that would be great for getting more visitors
to your craft site.

There are many other categories too, so this program
would work great for any website or blog.

It's free! So if you have a site or blog and would like to
get more visitors go here now.


Sincerely,

Sue Norrad
CrochetandKnitting.com - Free Patterns, Craft Supplies
and much more.
Craft Discussions and Pattern Search Forum

Happy New Year and more.

CrochetandKnitting Newsletter
Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Hello Everyone,

I'm a little late, as we are 8 days into it now,
but I want to wish you all a Happy New Year.

At the Crochet and Knitting Forum
"Betty Crochet" is looking for a pattern by Priscilla
Hewitt called the Pinwheel Quilt Afghan. We've been
trying to help her find it, but so far no luck, so if anyone
knows where she can get it, it would be appreciated.

Anyway, while searching Cheryl came across an
interesting site.
http://www.freevintagecrochet.com/afghans/pin-wheel-afghan-pattern.html
It has a Pin Wheel Afghan, but it's not the one Betty
was looking for. It's a beautiful pattern, though.

While looking at that page, I followed the link in the left
hand column to the Sea Shell Afghan. I really liked that
one! I am making it, but using different colors for a baby
afghan. Another one of my niece's is expecting her baby
in April, so I decided to start on a baby afghan now and
this pattern seemed perfect.

That site has Free Vintage Crochet patterns so I
thought some of you may be interested in them too.
(Thanks for posting that link on the forum, Cheryl.)

Jackie had emailed me about crocheted slippers.
She really likes my "Easy Slippers For Beginners"
at http://crochetandknitting.com/slpprs8.htm
I like them too as I made many of them each year
for husband. Jackie asked me about repairing the
soles. She said she wears hers out very quickly
and was wondering if she was being too hard on
them.

I told her that she is definitely not too hard on them.
My husband will wear the soles out on his quickly
too. I have darned up the holes to make them last
a little longer until I could get a new pair made for
him.

Jackie tried crocheting a new sole and sewing it
on, but she said it would have been quicker to
make new slippers.

Anyway, I told her about the Phentex yarn that is
100% Olefin and a lot more durable. It is called
Phentex Slipper and Craft Yarn. I think I will start
using that for the soles of slippers too. I'm not
sure yet how that type of yarn will fit in with
my slippers patterns because of the gauge, but it
is something I want to try this year.

Just for fun, I made a new page on my site for my
Crocheted Pictures of people. These were crocheted
from graphs. You can see them at
http://crochetandknitting.com/forfun.htm

That is all for today. I am looking forward to 2008
and all the new projects we will be working on and
new craft ideas we will be sharing.

Sincerely,

Sue Norrad
CrochetandKnitting.com - Free Patterns, Craft Supplies
and much more.
Craft Discussions and Pattern Search Forum

CrochetandKnitting Newsletter - Ready for Christmas?

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Hello Everyone,

We are getting a big snow storm tonight! It's been
snowing since noon but not much down yet, but the
worst is coming overnight.

Are you all ready for Christmas yet?

I am almost ready.

Every year when all the knitting and crocheting was
done for Christmas, I used to wonder what I was going
to do now! I always like to have a project on the go.

So I would crochet ornaments. I liked doing the
little projects and adding new items to my
Christmas decorations.

But I have so many now that it would not be a good
idea to make more. :) I will give you some ideas for
last minute ornaments to make while you are waiting
for the big day.

There was a pattern I found online years ago and I
can't find it again. I thought I had printed it out, well
I'm quite sure I did, but can't find it now.

It was a crocheted mesh cover to put over ball ornaments
to hang on the tree. I put the crocheted cover on those
plastic balls that have the red thread coverings and also
on some glass ball ornaments. I used a white crochet thread
that had a gold strand in it. They look awesome!

I had some of these plastic balls that were getting old and
the red thread was beginning to unravel. So I took the
thread off completely and crocheted some new covers
using a variegated yarn of Christmas colors. They looked
great too. I can't find that yarn pattern now either.

So if anyone wants to give their old ornaments a new look,
here's some patterns I found online that are close to the
thread ornament cover that I had used.

http://www.wrights.com/wrights/class/needlework/croornamcover2/croornamcover2.htm
http://www.wrights.com/wrights/class/needlework/croornamcover1/croornamcover1.htm
http://pandacrochet.8m.com/ornaments.html
http://www.geocities.com/azulmaribel/curlyballcover.html

I also crocheted little wreaths to hang on the tree.
http://www.crochetnmore.com/christmaswreathornament.htm
http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/lffunt/wreathorn.htm
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/6340/wreath.html
http://www.jpfun.com/patterns/free/ornaments/f103012wreath.shtml

Crocheted snowflakes too! I'm not sure which patterns I
used for the snowflakes, so here is a link to LOTS of them:
http://www.crochetpatterncentral.com/directory/snowflakes.php

My daugher made a lot of these little crocheted angels to
hang on the tree. She made some for her grandmothers
too and they just loved them!
http://www.crochetnmore.com/littleangelornament.htm
She used a white thread with a strand of gold and she
made some with a white thread with a strand of silver.

I crocheted this Christmas Candle
http://crochetnmore.com/christmascandle.htm

I also crocheted a snowman and snowwoman, but
I had no pattern so I just made it up as I went and
didn't bother to write it down. This pattern is close
to what I made,
http://www.wrights.com/wrights/class/12_xmas/crosnowman/crosnowman.htm
but my snowman has a red stocking cap with green trim.
I stuffed my snow people with cotton balls and cut out a
round piece of cardboard to put inside at the base. This
made them stand up nicely. My snowwoman is wearing a
red cape with green trim instead of a scarf.

I just found this video that you may be interested in:
How To Crochet A Snowman
http://www.videojug.com/film/how-to-crochet-a-snowman

==> At the forum

Over at my forum, R3n331 has shared some of her
own patterns. They are really great! Come and see
http://crochetandknitting.com/cgi-bin/iB_cgi/ikonboard.cgi
A lot of these patterns would make great last minute
Christmas gifts! She has a holder for remote controls
for the TV, satellite, etc. She has a coffee cup cozy
(I love this idea!), a saggy hat, tablet cozy and more.
Thanks to R3n331 (Renee) for sharing!

In case I don't get another newsletter out before Christmas,
I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas and for those
who do not celebrate Christmas, I wish you all the best
too!

Sincerely,

Sue Norrad
CrochetandKnitting.com - Free Patterns, Craft Supplies
and much more.
Craft Discussions and Pattern Search Forum