"D's" Kids (and cat)...My first set of commissioned puppets

Winter Head/Ear Warmers

Made as various gifts and to save for next year if I do any fairs.

Robin's Finger Puppets - Christmas 2008

First set Left to Right: Red Sox boy, girl with braids, boy with sweater, Calliou

Second set Left to Right: Bumblebee, Harry Potter (in progress), itsy bitsy spider, Curious George

Last set of fish (octupus, stingray, jellyfish) was made early in October. After I made Maggie and Arthur's gift I realized that Robin's took me much less time and was much less detailed. So I added the puppets knowing that all the kids would play with them and he could open something of equal skill.

Arthur's NASA Rocket, Christmas 2008

Maggie's Christmas Rag Doll - 2008

Joanne's Hat

Variety of Sweaters I made before Arthur was Born 2004-2005

Pink Poncho - 2004 or 2005

This was my own "wing it" design. Made for Joanne's colleague's daughter who was 4 at the time.

Arthur's Stocking - 2005

My Favorite Layette Set - 2005

I have made this set twice. First in a regular yarn in pink and white that I gave to my cousin Emma when she was born (September 1995). And this set was made for a colleague of mine after I discovered a beautiful pearly baby yarn.

A Very Odd Set - 2001

Potpourri bag on the left from a portion of a pattern from a book called "one skein wonders". The Q-Tip can cover (gross!) was a creation of my very own to hide a can of used q-tips in the bathroom because I was tired of picking them up off the floor when we missed the basket. I have no idea where these beauties have landed. I probably tossed them with the move. This was back when we were in Cranston.

Jumper and Edged blanket for Baby Emile - around 2000

(Note, this is "fleck" yarn which means there are meant to be bits of different colors scattered throughout. It's not dust or lint or anything like that)

Given to my cousin's first son, Emile. I had been making these jumpers for children in the family for several years and what I learned after my own son was born was that there was no way this jumper could have fit any of my cousin's 9 or 10 lb babies. My son barely fit in the pattern! Now I make them a lot larger!

Here is Arthur below, weighing in this photo about 6.5 lbs in the version of the jumper I made for him. I couldn't even button the top button. My cousins were all very kind to not let me know that their babies never fit...I've always felt badly about it too!

(Note: Joanne made the afghan he is laying on. This set was done in late 2004 or early 2005)

Shamrock Doily - around 2000

Given to my mother-in-law before she was my mother-in-law.

Outfits for 18" Dolls. Created between 2000-2001

Created in 2000-2002 and given as gifts to my cousins Emma and Julianne (along with the dolls).

A Crafty New Start

Due to some really nice mama requests that I post my crochet work online, I've decided to create a seperate outlet just for this. Mainly because although I love sharing my work on my family blog, I don't want to detract from all of the great photos of my kids!

A little bio about how I started this whole adventure in crochet:

I was 7 years old when my mother first handed me a crochet hook and started to show me how to make granny squares. I would mimic her motions and eventually would have cascading flows of checks rolling off of the couch. Mainly I started with giant squares and called them afghans. Then I realized I could make smaller squares of multiple colors and some piecework stuff emerged.

When I moved around age 10, I lost the skill for a while having too much to do trying to get acclimated in a new town where things weren't so good and I didn't really have a lot of friends. I really just found little outdoor adventures and snacked away my frustrations.

My mother got married when I was 12 and we moved again. It wasn't too much longer after that I picked up the hook again and started making more squares, circles, and anything else that can be made by the granny square technique.

One day in high school I discovered patterns! I also discovered that I had been crocheting kind of "backwards" in that I was inserting the hook from the backside of my work. Having watched my left handed mother, I didn't translate this minor change when I adapted it to myself. When I fixed the problem, I discovered that my work was much less bulky. I taught myself how to read patterns around age 14 and by college I was working on creating my own things.

I still prefer using other published patterns and testing ones that other novice crocheters post on the internet. There are spurts when I do it more than others but it's something that I know will stick with me for a long time and hopefully some things will last for a bit longer than me!

Thanks to everyone who has taken such interest. I'll do my best to keep up posting things as I go and to try to put up some earlier work too.

Jen