Tag: yarnspiration

Posted in Crochet

Creative Catch Up

Posted on by Vikki Lynn Sorensen

Against my better judgment, I started a 2025 Temperature blanket. I decided to do monthly granny squares instead of daily. Each month is one huge granny square and at the end of the year, I will join them all together to create one blanket. I have to say, I’m not as vested in this project as I hoped to be. I started it because “everyone was doing it” and I wanted to be counted among them. However, I made two major mistakes and have lost passion for it.

The first mistake is my color scheme. I loved the colors scheme I choose (color chart #3 found here on Kylee’s website) but I foolishly inverted them from their original order.  So my warmer months are actually much darker colors than the cooler months. I also decided to use the average daily temperature instead of a high or low temperature. This has resulted in much fewer color changes so it’s not nearly as colorful as I hoped. I’m still going to finish it but it’s not a project I have any passion for.

These are the winter colors for my 2025 Temperature Blanket

I also bought a pattern from Mel’s Homemade Craft called The 9 Square Granny Throw. Using Lion Brand yarn and the colors suggested in the pattern, this blanket worked up and was completed in a very short amount of time. As in under two weeks! That’s a first for me but I love how thick and squishy it is and I love the colors!

After that, I knew I needed to pick a WIP and complete it. Last year, after falling in love with Caron’s Simply Soft yarn, I bought a bunch in blues and silvers and began creating a rectangular granny square blanket. This was one big square instead of several small ones joined. My older daughter’s boyfriend has a mother who is very thoughtful. Each year, she helps him pick our cards and gifts for me for my birthday, Christmas and Mother’s Day. Shelby wanted to honor that with something homemade and after I found out her favorite color is blue, I designed this blanket.

Then it got put on the top shelf in favor of other projects. So once my 9 Square Granny was complete, I pulled this out and decided to get moving. I played with the colors going in and out instead of repeating and completed it with a simple single crochet border once around. Shelby shipped it and the feedback has been very lovely!

Since then, I’ve made a handful of dishcloths for Emilie at her request. I have a TON of cotton yarn that needs to get used up. I love making small projects like dishcloths and the like but for some reason, working with cotton yarn is not my favorite. It makes my hands tired. I also started a simple double crochet throw with this beautiful Red Heart Bitty Stripes yarn in Mermaid.

Still wanting to document the temperatures for 2025, I bought an embroidery pattern of a tree. Each leaf represents one day of the year. It’s a much smaller project and one I can catch up on easily. I also already had a whole bunch of thread gifted to me two Christmases ago that haven’t been touched so now I’m able to use some of that for this project.

In addition, I did a yarn re-organization which you can read about here.

So, I have been creating and it’s been so great! I have a ton of ideas including a yarn/fabric book for Sophia and tummy time blanket for her (and those who will come after her).

Happy creating!

Posted in Crochet

The Great Yarn Reorganization of 2025

Posted on by Vikki Lynn Sorensen

I’ve never bought yarn without a purpose in mind. My creative flow is get an idea (or buy a pattern), buy the yarn and complete the project. Every skein had a purpose.

Then Joann Fabrics announced it was closing its doors.

Like so many, I was devastated. If I’m being honest, I didn’t go into the stores that often. When we lived up in Grayslake, my girls and I would go to the location in the area. But since moving to Orland Park, I only went into the store here once and it was so dirty, I left really upset. But I did shop a lot online! Boxes upon boxes, each for a specific purpose, were delivered.

It was my daughter, a baker and creative person herself, who told me she’d visited the store by her home and the deals were unreal. Still, I decided not to as I had patterns waiting to be worked up and didn’t think I could house anymore.

I was wrong. She convinced me to go and “just buy the yarn. Buy all the yarn.” So I did. I filled two shopping carts and collectively came home with more than 10 bags full of yarn. No patterns. No Pinterest ideas. No Instagram ideas. Just me, my own creativity and my pocketbook (which did sputter on each trip).

All this yarn was so beautiful! So many ideas! But I needed a place to put them all. I already had laundry baskets, two bins under my bed and 4 bins in the storage room full of yarn. I also had all this.

Add the Joann hauls and you get something close to this….(and that wasn’t even all of it)

So, I spoke with others who live with me about this situation and came up with a solution. We have a loft. While it’s furnished, there was a whole wall that was empty. We filled that empty space first with shelves I bought from Walmart. They’re the Furinno Turn-N-Tube shelves. I love these shelves. They’re a quality product at a decent price and they were perfect for what we needed.

So first we filled the space with shelves. Then we filled the shelves with yarn. All my yarn and all in one space. I couldn’t be more happy with the end result! And having it all organized helps my creativity even more. I can see all my colors at the same time, choose what I want for what project and plan, plan, plan for the rest. I also loved how cozy it made our loft.

The moral to the story is when in doubt, just buy the yarn!

Posted in Moments and Musings

Move With Me: 7 Weeks to Go

Posted on by Vikki Lynn Sorensen

While my closing date is 3/22, my moving date will be slightly delayed. My two sisters will move into the house immediately after closing but we need extra bedrooms for Shelby and myself to be constructed in the lower level of the house. Plus, we need to live out our lease here in our current apartment.

Nevertheless, the packing has begun!

We’re seven weeks out from our tentative moving date of 4/27. This date is special because on 4/27/18, I lost my mother unexpectedly. This year will be the 6th anniversary. Typically, my sister, Kathleen, and I would go to her grave with some water and paper towels. We’d clean off her gravestone and then pull any weeds surrounding it. Just make it nice and pretty.

I wanted to remember this day with joy instead of only sadness and grief so we’re going to have a new beginning of a different kind – a joyful kind.

At this point, the purging is almost complete. That’s step one in this long process that will most likely go by much quicker that it will feel. I really do not want to pack stuff that I will then unpack only to donate.

If it doesn’t bring me joy now, out it goes!

I did most of the kitchen last week. I have no clue why we ever owned so many coffee mugs! Shelby doesn’t drink hot drinks at all and Emilie only drank tea on occasion. Yet, we gave away about 20 coffee mugs! I also gave away two stacks of small dessert dishes and a set of pudding bowls.

I also did a purge of my books. What I didn’t want went to Half Price Books. I made $39 dollars, which I used to treat Shelby and I to some dinner and Dairy Queen. But my books are packed along with my Build-A-Bears.

Yes, I collect them. They’re adorable and it’s the of the few things I can share with Shelby.

So once the purging is complete, the goal is go through each room and pack what I don’t need to see or use for the next 7 weeks. And that’s the challenge. There’s something inside of us that feels a little panic-y when we put something in a box and seal it all up. I have to remind myself that I WILL see it again.

Weird!

Purging is hard, however, even for someone as non-sentimental as me! After so many moves in my life, I’ve learned the value of letting go of stuff while holding onto the memory or the feeling it gave me.

My mother also helped. By the time she passed, we had a whole basement full of stuff she wanted to keep “just in case” up to and including information from houses sold long ago. Boxes of paperwork from a business she hadn’t had in years and years….so much stuff! In the midst of loss, it’s overwhelming to have to go through that much stuff. So I’ve learned to make memories. And crochet a blanket or two to wrap those memories up in.

I did pack 90% of my yarn!! We’ll see how that goes. The real test will be not buying more yarn these next 7 weeks.

Decisions, decisions!

Posted in Crochet

Shelby’s Blanket

Posted on by Vikki Lynn Sorensen

I no sooner finished Emilie’s blanket and got her married and all settled when Shelby asked me for a blanket for her bedroom. She wanted red/white/black colors. I went through a few Pinterest posts before settling on the one I chose which was a simple granny square blanket.

This was created using Red Heart Super Saver yarn in cherry red, black and white with a 5mm crochet hook. Each square is 18 rounds and I made 16 squares. I sewed them together and used a granny square stitch as a border. It’s huge! And she loves it! As always, I washed the blanket in Woolite in order to soften up the yarn a bit. Low heat, of course.

Posted in Crochet

Emilie’s Blanket

Posted on by Vikki Lynn Sorensen

As soon as my daughter told me she was engaged and had a date to move out, I know I’d make her a blanket. The C2C stitch was chosen by her and she asked for a gentle, neutral color to match any decor in her new home.

I chose Red Heart Jumbo Saver yarn in soft white. I used a 4.5 mm hook and created her very first homemade keepsake item to start her life as a Mrs. I washed it in Woolite to soften it up and gave it to her on her wedding day.