Christmas Starburst

My Christmas Round Ripple has a new name...ta da...

Christmas Starburst

I asked my readers for name suggestions and you didn't disappoint me.

Such lovely names were suggested...Winter Starflower, RickRack Glory and Confetti Star!

But in the end I choose Barbara F's suggestion...

"I am thinking that this would make a lovely tree skirt. It also reminds me of a 'starburst' - so perhaps "Christmas Starburst" for a name? xo"

I'm terrible with thinking up names so I really appreciate you all helping me out.  

I'm saving the names I didn't use here for the next projects.

Thanks everyone!

I wasn't sure about trying a round ripple at first.   

I modified the pattern - ok the truth - I couldn't figure out the pattern after the first couple rounds so I just did my own thing by adjusting the decreases in the valleys from two to four stitches as I went along to keep it flat. 

There is a slight ripple affect in the throw but I think it adds interest. 

If you are interested in more details I posted about this project (here), (here), (here) and (here) previously. 

I'll be adding details of the yarn and hook etc. used in Ravelry (go to left side bar and click on to go to site). 

I managed to use two of my novelty yarns in the edging...

...the dreaded Bernat Holidays eyelash yarn I posted about (here)...

...and a Bernat Puff Ball Holidays yarn in variegated dark green, white and red.

 I had never used the puff ball yarn before and tried crocheting it on using regular sitiches (single and/or double crochet) but didn't care for the results.  

I found if I turned the throw over to the wrong side and slip stitched the puff ball yarn on every other stitch (and every other puff) it formed a nice, neat ridge of puffs on top.

The last round is dark green:  *I started with a stitch in single crochet, next stitch do shell (double stitch, triple stitch, triple stitch, double stitch) then repeat* all around.

The edging with the puff ball yarn adds weigh and eliminates the tendancy of the edge to curl up.

The ripple measures about 58- 60 inches round with 41 rounds.    

What do you think?

Is it RED enough for Rednesday?

I showed it to Hubby and he said it was very festive.

It's one of my favorites now - of course it is - it's Christmasy and RED.

And there are more REDs to enjoy with our host, Sue, at 

It's A Very Cherry World

(here) 

for REDnesday!

Please don't forget to enter my number sign giveaway (here) so you can win an exquisite sign like this one here in R.E.D....

Red lovers - wouldn't a number sign of your lucky number in RED look nice in your home hanging on your wall!  

For non-RED lovers there are other colors to choose from.

Please enter (here) !!!!

It's a give away for Y.O.U.!!!

Tangled Yarn!

Today I'm MAD!

Seeing RED...

I just spent almost three ((3)) hours untangling this eyelash yarn from Bernat!

OK...I've never had any luck pulling yarn from the inside of a skein without having serious tangled yarn at some point.  So usually I pull from the outside end.  That's not full proof either but I've had better success with less tangles when unrolling the skein from the outside end.  

But I couldn't find the outside end on this eyelash yarn and it seemed to pull OK from the inside end so I went with the inside end.  

Bad mistake!

Everything worked well until I was almost half way around the ripple when the yarn refused to come out from the inside.

What a mess of tangled yarn!

Three hours...

...three ((((3))) hours of my time to untangle this very thin crappy yarn into a ball.  

Believe it or not, my sweetie pie offered to help me untangle it.  What a great guy!  I couldn't put him through it though.  He would have had to listen to me cursing the whole time.  

Calling all yarn manufacturers!!!!

Why is it that I can buy regular string rolled into a ball (i.e., not a skein) that is nicely packaged and even wrapped in cellophane to protect it and never, that is NEVER, have any problems with the balled string... but I can not say the same for yarn spun into skeins?

Why can't yarn manufacturers spin all of their yarn into balls instead of skeins?  

Every tangled skein I've had has never had any problems unrolling after I have had to manually untangle it and roll the yarn into a ball.  

I should have taken a photo of the tangled yarn before I rolled it into the nice ball you see here.

It was a nightmare!

I almost threw the darn yarn away. 

I was very tempted.

Are there any other crocheters out in blogland that are just as tired of tangled yarn skeins as I am?

Bare with me...it's my day to rant.  

I appreciate your listening to me.

I'll take a deep breath..calm down and admit that I do like the look of this eyelash yarn on my ripple.

And before I forget many thanks to all the nice ladies who offered such great name suggestions for my Christmas Round Ripple.  

I like them all and will make a decision soon.    

It's Growing in Red, White & Green!

I'm having fun adding different bands of color to my Christmas Round Ripple.

It's getting bigger too.  

Luckily I'm not. 

We had such good results losing weight last year by counting calories we are continuing the practice this year too.  How much did we lose?  I lost 35 pounds and Hubby lost almost 40!  

Just the other day I discovered a neat app, MyNetDiary, for our iPhones.  It's an app that tracks our daily calories by meal and automatically totals our daily meals for us.  It keeps track of our weight too.  No more manually writing down the foods we eat in a notebook and fussing with the calculations.  After trying out the free version we ended up buying the upgraded app version - it's under $5 and well worth it. 

I have just two New Year's resolutions - continue to lose weight and add more RED in my life!  

Back to crocheting...I'm running out of the lime green color but I'm pretty much done with it.  

Next I plan to add another white band maybe with some of these fancy yarns.

Are you the type that plans out your color design and stitches ahead of time?

Or do you sort of "wing it" like I do?

In this band I added another two rounds of variegated yarn in red, white and dark green.

I may have to get on a step ladder to take the next photos.

I think I want to name this one...something better than just Christmas Round Ripple.

Any suggestions?

And there are more REDs to enjoy with our host, Sue, at 

It's A Very Cherry World

(here) 

for REDnesday!

Crochet & Coffee

Crochet and Coffee!

I'm having a very relaxing Sunday morning doing a little crocheting on my Christmas Round Ripple, playing with my new iPhone and drinking some delicious coffee made with my new Keurig single coffee maker.

How do you like my red iPhone cover?

That's Jessie from "Toy Story" as my background screen.  

After posting this I'm off to our finished basement to finish putting all the Christmas boxes away in their storage area. 

 How about some more of my crocheted reds to look at.

I love color...lots of it!

My crocheted throws...

Let's add their names shall we....

I can't pick a favorite.

Can you?

Christmas Round Ripple

Remember this?  

I've added another two rounds of red to my Christmas Round Ripple.  

It's growing very slowly.

Next I'm going to crochet:  white, then dark green followed by another round of white.

Or I may change my mind cause I do that quite often!

This is my first try at a round ripple.  

I couldn't follow either pattern I tried so I'm doing my own thing now.  

The challenge is to keep it flat.  

And it is a challenge - believe me.

I guess I'll join sweetie pie Pammy Sue's (Scotty's Place) round ripple party she started over on Flickr.

Pammy Sue says you can use any round ripple pattern or try the free one she has posted (here).

OK so grab your hook and yarn and come on over and join Pammy Sue's party.

Christmas Round Ripple & Storage Solutions

I love all of these Christmas yarns!

I have a couple of crochet projects on hold (i.e., running out of yarn colors) and haven't touched my hooks in quite awhile.  Yesterday I was watching TV and thought about all the Christmas yarns I bought so I jumped up and gathered them all together...actually I threw them in a pile on the floor.  

What to make?  

I found two free round ripple patterns (here) and (here).  

Started one...couldn't follow the pattern so I tried the other one.  I couldn't follow that pattern either so I just did my own stitches after the third round making sure each round is not curling up.

This is what I've done so far.  

I don't know if it will be a large ripple throw or a huge doily when I'm done.

If it doesn't lie flat as I add more rounds I will probably frog it.

New Storage for our CDs

Today Hubby and I rearranged our DVD and CD storage. 

We moved our CD collection to a small dresser in our foyer.  Now that we have all of our music loaded on iTunes (and on our iPhones) we don't need to access the original CDs like we use to.

Believe it or not all of our CDs fit into the four drawers.  

I bought this little wooden dresser  ~ while single and in college ~ at a yard sale for $8.

I think I got my money's worth out of it since we still have it over 40 years later.    

CDs moved out and half our of DVD collection moved in.

We moved our animated, comedy, Christmas and chick flicks into the living room wall storage units.

Family Room DVD wall storage

We left the action, Sci-Fi, drama and westerns flicks in the family room wall storage.  

Sorry this photo is blurred (i.e., low light).

We bought these five wall units from Ikea several years ago.  

I like that they are notched out at the bottom for the baseboards so they lie flat against the wall.

We are going to have to get more serious about our storage for our collections in 2012.

But for now I have to thank my Hubby (he's a great packer!) for coming up with this temporary storage solution.  

He knew I was getting upset about the clutter.  

Love you Honey!