Saturday December 21, 2019

My father passed away Saturday. He had a PhD in psychology, worked with kids in Australia, taught in Korea, Japan and other countries, and worked at the Department of health for many years.

But I will remember him as a father that dressed as "Mr. Surprise Man" every night for many years to give us comics if we were in bed on time, that got us McD cones as a treat, played the stock market game with us whenever we wanted, and took us to Tilt every week and gave us a couple bucks to play video games.

He was generous and happy and people loved talking to him wherever he was. I was lucky enough that he let me take care of him during his battle with ALS. He is now traveling the universe with Mom.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Yesterday was Mom's Birthday!  It was a Sunday so I wasn't able to take my hats in.  I plan on going tomorrow with my sister.  It's been a tough year and I was down the wire on the last few hats, but luckily I was able to finish all of them in time!  It was a hot hot summer, so a lot of the hats this year are a bit holey because I tend to crochet airy hats when it's hot. I have so much yarn that I really didn't buy much for my hats, just tried to use up some of the yarn I have, so a lot of the hats have yarn that I have no clue what it is or where I got!  I also bought a bunch of cute buttons this year so I threw them on a lot of the hats for fun!   Happy Birthday Mom, I miss you

Happy Birthday Mom!

Today is my Mama's birthday! Yesterday I went and dropped my hats off at the Chemo ward, along with some doughnuts for the nurses!  Today is always a hard day for me, but making the hats makes it just a tiny bit easier.  I miss you mom!  

Mom's Birthday!

I went and dropped off my hats on Mom's birthday and took in some sushi for the nurses to enjoy for lunch.  It's always nice when I see the same nurses that helped my mom out and get big hugs from them.  It also looked like they had a bunch of hats that had been donated to them, so that's pretty awesome! Now it's time to finish all my Christmas crochet and then start on a new year of hats! This year I might try and work a bit more during the year so I don't have to rush the last couple months to make my number! :)

Happy Birthday Mom!

Today I went and dropped off Mom's hats to the Kaiser Chemo ward.  I also made the nurses some Butter Mochi to snack on!  There were new nurses there so they were a bit surprised to see me, but seemed happy for the hats.  Now back to work on more hats!

Happy Birthday Mom!

Today I'm heading to the hospital to drop off my 25 hats and some scones for the nurses!  Happily I was able to finish my quota in time!  Happy Birthday Mom.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Well, not really.  Mom's birthday is on Sunday but since Chemo is closed on weekends I went to drop off hats 100-125 today.  Also brought the Nurses some Manapua since we got there a little before lunch.  I've already gotten started on the next batch so hopefully I won't feel so rushed as I did this year.  Though I've always got some crochet project on the burner, I want to always make sure I have enough time to make my hats.

Another year of hats!

Just dropped off 25 hats to the chemo ward.  I also brought the nurses some lunch type pastries and some dessert pastries because they work so hard.  Another year down and time to start working on next years hats.  I probably won't start will January since this will be a pretty busy month, but who knows, maybe I'll get a couple out this month if I'm good.  I've got no big projects that are coming up (that I know of) so I should be fine with making a bunch of hats.  This past year was a bit hard making my 25 quota, but got it finished with a push at the end.  This year I also made a shrug for my mother in law, hat and scarves for my 2 aunts, a couple rugs to try and either sell or use, plus a couple hats for random people so it's been a busy crochet year.

Hat 100!!

Hat 100!  For this hat I used the Marigold Hat pattern over at Mr. Micawber's Recipe for Happiness Blog I actually left out the Marigold since it's already a busy hat and I didn't want to over do it.  I will probably be making this hat a few more times and using the Extended SC since it makes the hat a little lighter without adding big holes. All done using Caron Simply Soft Yarn.   Yay for hat 100!

Yesterday was Mom's birthday and the day I usually try to drop off my hats, but being that it was Saturday they weren't open.  I also have family in town so I will probably try and drop off the hats on Tuesday of this week.  It's been a busy month and not much crocheting going on, but will be taking a trip which means airplane crochet time plus road trip crochet time maybe.

Hat 95

Hat 95 was made using one of the last few balls of my light blue Bamboo yarn and Caron Simply soft.  I used a edging from Crochet Edgings & Trims.  I had made this hat for a friend of my sisters but the edging I used had such big holes I decided to make another one with less spaces.  Time is moving quickly and Mom's birthday is coming up on the 8th.  I have 2 weeks to get everything ready to take down to the chemo ward.  Then time to begin another year of making hats.

Organized Yarn!

For a while now I've thought about getting a yarn winder.  I kept putting it off thinking I could just hand roll everything and it would just be fine.  A couple weeks ago while looking at my yarn stash I could only shake my head at how unorganized and messy it was.  I went and ordered a yarn winder off of Amazon that same day.  After about a week of non stop winding I have the prettiest stash ever! I'm so happy and keep looking around the house for more yarn that I might have missed.  Definitely worth the money and finding yarn is just so much easier.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Today is mom's birthday and I went and dropped off hats 51-75 at the Kaiser Chemo ward.    I'm hoping they  like my hats and they are comfy enough.  Now to begin work on my next round of hats for next year.    At the moment though I'm working on snowflakes to give out for Xmas.  They are both easy to do and frustrating at the same time.  Working with crochet thread takes some patience for me.

Afghan for Auntie!

I started working on this afghan over a year ago and got most of it done before I ran out of yarn. I bought the yarn, but never got back to working on it again until a year later. Finished it up and sent it to my Aunt Janice for her birthday in January. The pattern for this is "Wind Chime Afghan" and can be found over at Lion Brand Yarn. Though I did like the colors for it in the original pattern, blue is my Aunt's favorite color so used Vanna's Choice Yarn in White, Sapphire and Denim. I just realized now that I didn't do the edging around it, so I guess next time I visit her I can bring along some yarn and finish it up.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Today is my mom's birthday, so I went and dropped off my hats at the Kaiser Chemo Ward. Dropped off 21 hats in total plus some chocolate bread from Zippys for the nurses. When I got there I noticed that there were a bunch of hats by the door. The nurse told me that since last year when I dropped off hats, people have been making and dropping off hats also! That is very awesome. I think now I'm taking a small break from hat making and gonna make a afghan or something big. Haven't totally decided yet.

Happy Mother's Day!

My mom was a avid gardener. Growing up we just had our little lanai, but she filled it with all types of plants. Since she's been gone, I've tried my best to keep her plants going, which is hard considering I did not inherit her green thumb. I've lost a few plants, but in general, the lanai is still pretty full. Every time a new flower comes up, I think of her and how happy she was in her little Lanai garden. Here's some of her flowers that are in bloom today on Mother's Day.


Amaryllis , one of her favorites.



















Desert Rose

















Orchid

Procrastination

I still have to take pics of new hats I've made. I've got a little over a month left to make my hats and I also want to hand wash them so they are nice and clean when I give them away, just in case they've got dog hair or something on them. So I figure when I start doing that I'll grab my camera and snap those pics.

Matching yarns

Even though I have tons of different yarns, it's been actually kinda hard matching them up. Either the colors don't go or the texture doesn't. I spend a lot of time sitting on the floor surrounded by yarn trying to pair two together. So I went and bought some yarn HA! http://www.elann.com had a sale on some 70% Bamboo/ 30% Cotton yarn. I looove bamboo, it's the softest stuff ever. So I bought 2 bags of 10 balls. One in black and one in grey. I wanted to get it in a ivory or tan, but they said it goes on sale at 9:30 and I didn't go to buy it till around noon. I didn't think it would all sell out. Oh well. I'm still happy with the two colors I have. I keep going back to check what colors are left (orange, yellow and pink) and stopping myself from buying them just to have. Maybe they'll get some more in of the regular colors and this time, I won't dilly dally!

Yarn

Just a little backstory on the yarn I have. A few months ago I saw an ad on Craigslist from a girl selling yarn for a couple bucks a ball. I called her up and went to some back alley store to look through them. I think maybe a couple balls were the same, but essentially there were 80 rolls of completely different types and colors. So I gave her a price for everything because it would have taken me a while to go through it and I thought it would be fun to have the different types.

Though I got a FANTASTIC deal, I still have a bunch of yarn that can't be worked together. Perfect for making hats. It's hard picking out 2 that will work together and that match, so I think I will be buying some basic white or off white yarn and then using that to go with all the random yarns.

And it's very annoying when I start making a hat and realize that I don't have enough to finish it and have to find another yarn to go with it. grr. But all in all, pretty awesome.

Lookie at all my yarn! Crappy phone pic :P

Hats

In May of 2007 my mom was diagnosed with a brain tumor. After a year of ups and downs with radiation and chemo, she passed away on June 15, 2008.

When she was diagnosed my husband and I sold our house and moved in with my parents so I could be her caretaker. Mom took care of everyone all her life and I'm lucky that I was able to take care of her that whole year.

Recently I began crocheting and remembered looking for hats when her hair started falling out. We only really found one hat that we both liked and was comfy. I wish I had started crocheting earlier so I could have made her hats to wear. So since I can't go back in time, I've decided to make some some hats in my spare time and donate them to the chemo ward. This blog is just to keep track of the hats I make for my mama.