My first garden, and some deck improvments.

I was talking to one of my good friends about all these street tires that are in the shed. It costs so much to take them to the dump and get rid of them, so the hubby has been collecting them over the past few years. Anyway, she told me that she uses them as container gardens. She said that the heat from the rubber helps them to grow. I'm all for reuse and recycle, so I went for it. There are 6 tires in the garden area, and one in my flower bed. I also did two as planters in the front, I'll take some pictures soon to show you. My garden consists of tomatoes, green leaf lettuce, red leaf lettuce, sweet peas, strawberries, and green peppers. I also planted herbs in the one I put in the flower bed area.
I will keep you all posted on the progress, I'm really liking the idea, and they don't look that bad!

With all the neighbor troubles, more like we have headed back to middle school, stuff, we decided to put up some panels to make our deck more private. I've had so much fun decorating them, and my new obsession is making little fountains. I love the sound of the water, It's really soothing to me. I'm sure I will be making more, and I will also be looking for more things to decorate the deck with.

The finished Swirling bag

I finally finished the Swirling bag that I have been working on for a little over a week. I didn't pick it up every day, I got a little boring for me just with working in single crochet. I used Patons Grace for the yarn, and instead of making a cord I used ribbon, I think it looks pretty with the yarn. I'm thinking I will just use it for a project bag, I really don't want to try and put handles on it so that I can carry it around. The biggest thing about this project was that I never thought I could do it, it looked so hard to me for some reason, so I decided that I had to jump in and just go for it!
If you would like to make one for yourself you can go to Crocheted Swirling Bag and get the full pattern for free, and they have a video which is what made me decided to finally do this project.

If you are on ravelry go HERE to see specifics on what colors of yarn, and all of that fun stuff.

HaPpY Mother's Day... Fingerless Gloves Pattern

Happy Mother's Day everyone! Here is a free pattern for you to make on this awesome day....

Rockin’ Crochet Fingerless Gloves

The look of knit, with the speed of crochet!
By: Julie Fox
www.coziathome.blogspot.com
juliefox1971@mac.com

Rockin' Crochet Fingerless Gloves
The look of knit, with the speed of crochet

Advanced Beginner.
As long as you can read a pattern, and single crochet, you can make these gloves.

YARN: Universal Yarn inc. Classic Shades, or any nice, medium worsted weight. Classic Shades makes the perfect striped pattern.
HOOK: G size

Here we go!

Chain 8

Row 1 :  Single Crochet in second chain from hook.  Then Single Crochet across row.  Chain 1, this will be your turning chain.  Turn your work.

Repeat row one until piece measures  7 inches, or fits nicely around your wrist. End your row.

Fold the piece end to end (first row to last row) and single crochet together, it's o.k. if you have a seam, you will be turning them
right side out when you are finished. Very cool, you now have your cuff.

Along top edge,  pick up and Single Crochet around your cuff, number of stitches depends on how big your cuff is.
Place a  marker at the start of the round if you like, this does help when your gloves get longer. Make sure you move your marker up with every row.

Continue to single crochet  around until the entire piece (cuff included) measures  5 inches, or measure on your hand from the
cuff to the base of your thumb. Have fun with these, you can totally make them yours.
 
TIME FOR THE THUMB

Single Crochet until you are four stitches before your marker.  Now with stitch still on your hook, insert  your hook into the fourth 
stitch after your marker and make a slip stitch.  This will create a hole for your thumb.  Continue to Single crochet  around the 
hand portion of the glove until the entire piece, including your cuff, measures 7 inches or fits your hand the way you like.  Finish off and weave in the ends. Turn glove inside out to hide seam, if you wish.

O.K. you've done it! Now repeat for your second glove.

Permission to sell finished items, GRANTED! Please do not sell actual pattern.

Beanie Hat Pattern

 I hope you guys enjoy making these as much as I do. You can do so many thing with them! I'm planning on making one with scrap yarn, a different color for every row. You can use a single strand of worsted for a lace look, just watch what the size looks like after the 5th row.

What you need:
K size Crochet Hook
1 Skein Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride Bulky yarn, or any other 5 bulky yarn. You can also use 2 strands of worsted held together.
You don't need to worry about a marker at the end of each round, and the round are wide so you can easily count them instead of keeping track. You can add more rounds at the bottom to make it longer and more slouchy.

What you do.....
Main Hat:
With Worsted Weight Yarn
Rnd 1: Holding 2 Strands of Yarn together, ch 3, work 11 dc in first 3rd chain from hook, join with a slip stitch to top of beg ch-3 (12 dc)
Rnd 2: Ch 3, dc in same st at base of beg ch-3, work 2 dc in ea dc around, join with sl st to top of beg ch-3 (24 dc)
Rnd 3: Ch 3, dc in same st at base of beg ch-3, dc in next dc, *2 dc in next dc, dc in next dc, rep from * around, join with sl st (36 dc)
Rnd 4: Ch 3, dc in same st at base of beg ch-3, dc in each of next 2 dc, *2 dc in next dc, dc in ea of next 2 dc, rep from * around, join with sl st (48 dc).
Rnd 5 to 7: Ch 3 (counts as first dc).DC in next DC.  DC in each double crochet around. Join with a sl st. (48dc) Switch to next yarn color if you wish, or you can continue on with the same color.
RND 8 to 11: Ch 3 (counts as first dc).DC in next DC.  DC in each double crochet around. Join with a sl st. (48dc)
Fasten off and weave in your ends. If you have a teenager in  your life you know that they like their hats longer now a days. So if you want to add 2 to 3 more rows after 11 it will really be a rockin’ ski beanie

All my patterns for free to my coolio blog followers.

I'm working on making all of my patterns free for all you cool peeps that follow my blog. Tell your friends, anyone that you think would like my blog.
I really want to make this blog popular, and I think with your help it can be.
I plan on developing more patterns, and from now on they will all be free.
So please check back soon, as I try to figure out the best way to make my patterns easy to download.

Crocheted Swirling Bag

Wow, it's been a long time since I have updated my blog! And it's been a long time since I've been crocheting. It seems like I search for patterns on Ravelry more than I crochet! This winter I did learn to knit, and my first project was a cool felted back in just the knit stitch. I'm hoping to do more knitting, but I really love crochet, and want to explore the Amigurumi (I just know I spelled that wrong, but you all know what I'm talking about, lol) sector.

Right now I am working on a Crocheted Swirling Bag from the book Crocheted gifts by interweave. I'm almost done, and glad of it! It's a really fun bag to make, and a lot easier than I had expected, but it's all done in single crochet, so gets a little boring. If you want to check out the bag, and get a free pattern, go HERE. I always looked at this bag as being too hard or time consuming for me, but after I watched the video of how it worked, I just had to try it. It also has opened my eyes to doing more of the projects I think, "might" be a little on the hard side, instead of being lazy and sticking with easy patterns. Here are some pictures of my progress so far.

So there you have it, so far. I'm hoping that I will get it done this weekend, and I will post it as soon as I'm done. Then it's on to the next project, who knows what it's going to be.