Colorful Fun

Just before our summer vacation, I popped into my local Michael's store in hopes of finding and buying a few new colors of Sugar N Cream yarn.  I found a soft, pretty blue, called "Robins Egg", and a happy, buttery yellow.  I packed them with some colors I already had and took them on vacation.  I thought it would be fun to make some chunky doilies for my daughter's new apartment.  I used some patterns I had in a little Leisure Arts booklet with a little improvising and came up with two beauties.  Here's the blue one.  I love how it turned out.  So pretty!  It reminds me of a snowflake...

Here's the buttery yellow one.  I used this pattern last Christmas to make a red one for a gift.  

I think I like it even more in yellow...

Before vacation, I had already started making things for my daughter and her apartment.  We had bought dishes and dishtowels for her one day and were so excited about it all that she decided to crochet some place mats to go with it.  She bought a great big skein of Handicrafter Cotton in a beautiful pinky/watermelon color.  She's made two, so far.  They're adorable!  I wanted to join in on the fun!  So, I made a dishcloth for her.

I used an H hook and made a simple, single crochet square.

I edged it with reverse single crochet.  It made a cute, twisted edge.

That was so much fun that I whipped up another one with a variegated blue skein that I had.

I'll either save this for a gift or use it myself.  

I made this orange one on vacation...

I made up a different edging for it.  I think it's pretty cute!  It's not this bright in person.

It's a softer, prettier, orange.

Sugar N Cream makes great dish cloths and it seemed like two put together would make a nice, thick hot pad.  So, I made one of those too!  I used two different colors, Mango and Tangerine,

to make it reversible and more fun.

I bound the two sides together with little white, triangle scallops.

Now, she has a few more useful and colorful things for her new apartment.   

They're all in softer, prettier colors than what they appear in pictures.  They go great with her white dish towels that have watermelon, pink and orange stripes in them.  And, it all looks great with the cute, watermelon place mats that she's making.  It also ties in with some of the colors in the quilt we're making...especially, the yellow, the blue, and the pinkish hues.  It's all so bright and cheery!  :-)

While I was having so much fun with Sugar N Cream, I decided to make a little case for my "peepers".  I call them that because I feel like I'm not old enough to need "readers" and "peepers" is more fun to say.  Although, I'm finding myself needing to use them more and more.  Sheesh!

I made a chain, single crocheted one row, and crocheted in the round so I wouldn't

have a seam to sew on the bottom or the sides.  I made a little button hole and stitched a

button on the inside so I could close it up and keep the "peepers" from falling out.

I topped it off with a row of reverse single crochet for a cute, twisty edge.

My "Peeper Pouch" is soft and thick enough to protect my glasses.  

The pouch makes it easier to find them too!  I love this turquoise color!

I still have a few skeins of Sugar N Cream, Handicrafter Cotton, and some other cotton worsted yarns in my stash.  But, these projects sure helped in de-stashing.  They also eliminated a lot of bright, cheery colors from my stash.  I'm kind of feeling some withdrawals.  I might "need" to buy some more!  Wink!