Cushy Bobble Bath Mat {crochet pattern}

Cushy Bobble Bath Mat

MATERIALS:

9mm/M hookAran cotton yarn, doubled

Stitch guide:

sl st: slip stitch

bobble: pick up next stitch, yo, pull through, yo, insert hook into same stitch, yo, pull through, yo, insert hook into same stitch, yo, pull through (6 stitches on hook), yo, pull through all six stitches

sc: single crochet

ch: chain stitch

DIRECTIONS:

Chain 50, ch 1 turning stitch

(increase in multiples of 2 stitches)

*bobble 1, sl st 1*; rep from *to* to end, ch 1 turning stitch

Repeat row 1 39 more times (until mat measures approximately 24" x 15")

Last night's project...

Recently, my loving fiance got me a new cellphone that I am wholeheartedly in love with.  For serious, you guys.  It's my first "smart phone", which very well could be the reason I love it so much, but this thing seriously rocks.  I can now keep track of my Myfitnesspal.com account (and I *do* -regularly, even!), my kids reward charts (I LOVE the iRewardChart app...  it's a star-based chart system with different tasks and rewards you can set yourself.  It's pretty sweet)!  I can even blog from my backyard now!  ...which I'm not doing at the moment, given that it's only 8:30 in the morning and I'm pretty focused on getting coffee in my bloodstream.  ....Oh, how my life has changed in about a week,  I question how I lived without it!  Kidding.  Sort of.

I love my phone so much that, of course, I had to make a pretty little case for it.  After much searching on Ravelry, I finally decided on this one.  It's so pretty...  unfortunately, I only had a little bit of yarn so I ended up running out before it was big enough to make the envelope-style case that I wanted.  Luckily, it *was* big enough to make a "sock" or sleeve...

I love it!

Here it is all buttoned up.

Needless to say, I still want to make the lined, envelope style case but I have plenty of other unfinished projects to finish before I move onto that one.  And, for now at least, I'm pretty happy with how this one turned out.

And here I thought the stress would end after the holidays...

....and the house should be cleaned too, right?  I dunno, I guess life has been a few steps ahead of me lately.  I suppose it's normal to be in a bit of a slump this time of year...  The snow just won't go away- as soon as you think it's over, there it is the next morning.  It's getting a little frustrating.  I JUST WANT TO GO OUTSIDE.

Spring will be here soon enough...  according to accuweather.com, at least.

In the meantime, I've had even more crafty A.D.D. than usual.  I'm still trying to finish the embroidery that should have only taken a couple of days, but the idea of this craft sale I'm doing with my "wife" (best friend of many years) has me a little flighty with my crafting.  I'm doing my market bags and produce bags...  and maybe a few other things.

There are three sizes...  this picture shows (from left to right) 

a small bag and two medium ones.

...my produce bags!

I cannot stress enough just how much I love these things.

They're so tiny, but they stretch and hold SO much!

(I apologize for the slightly blurry picture, this was the best out of ten or so)

I'm debating whether or not to sell the pattern for the bags...  they're crocheted.  If you're interested, please let me know.

February's inspiration...

...from my inspiration jar is "Exercise/get moving 3x a week."  Not a bad one.  I'm not sure if I put this on the list of things I was going to put in the jar, but it's one that I need to make a point of following through with.  I'm going to start today by lengthening the walk home from Rye's bus stop this afternoon- instead of the two blocks home, we'll walk a few extra blocks.  I'll make it at least twenty minutes and get the kids involved, too.

I'm also working on changing my eating habits, adding LOTS more veggies and upping my proteins with lots of good, organic, cage-free eggs (they're TWO DOZEN for $5.99 at Costco!  Cheap!) and Greek yogurt.

Another change I'm making this month is omitting the use of grocery bags...  this one is going to take teamwork with my fiance, but it was kind of his idea so it shouldn't take too much prodding, right?  We already have a whole bunch of reusable shopping bags, and I'm making some that are smaller and lighter weight produce bags (with these patterns).  Now to remember to bring them IN the store!  I remembered to bring them with me the other day, but then forgot them in the car...  if I had been alone, or even had another adult with me, I would have gone out and gotten them, but I wasn't going to with the kids with me.  Next time.

Some of this month's inspiration...

(yeah, I know I misspelled "exercise")

February is going to be a good month.  Garden planning, seed starting and hopefully starting to compost (depending on the weather), lots more changes!

Nine days to Christmas and counting....

I'm still making progress, but I'm beginning to wonder if I'm going to end up pulling another all-nighter on Christmas eve like I have for the past two Christmases....

We went to my cousin's 4th birthday party last night, where she got her pair of slippers from me.  When I talked to her mom this morning, I was told that she had been wearing them all morning with her other dress-up stuff she got for her birthday.  Apparently she loves them and she has a little room to grow in them.  ::win::

Here are the ones I made for my girls using this pattern (Moo's are purple and Rye's are peach):

And here's a shot of the sparkly fabric paint dots to make them non-skid:

I also finally got some shots of O's slippers (here's the pattern), though the red was so bright that I had to fiddle with the saturation and stuff (maybe I can get the fiance to take some better pics of them in the future).

....the rug for the girls' room is well on it's way, and you can expect a crochet pattern for that sometime in the future!  I guess I'm a little more motivated than I thought...