Last Sunday's WR

here is a blurry pic of my refashioned jean shorts I wore on sunday....I didn't get a good pic of the shirt I wore...it was very frilly.....lots of ruffles on the front...

Day 6

so far so good.......I was tempted yesterday and almost gave in .....but I stuck to my guns......Sunday I cut the legs of an old pair of jeans a couple inches below the knees..and rolled them up just above the knees....and wore them to a Church Picnic..with a black ruffled blouse and black ballet flats.....they looked cute....and they're versatile...I can wear them rolled up for long shorts or down for capris.....

No blue to show yet for Project Spectrum.....did take some pics I need to upload......

I made a few dishclothes last week and the week before....need to make one this week.....I'll probably make a 'blue" one.....to fit in with Project Spectrum...I think I'll even make it the knitted BallBand dishcloth from the Mason/Dixon book I just got, since I joined THAT KAL as well...LOL

Can't wait for the Summer of Socks to Officially start......I REALLY want to start a pair of socks, but I'm waiting for the "Offical Start" as I'm taking part in the "Most Socks" contest...and I can't count any socks started before the 21st...My first pair will probably be 'blue" for Project Spectrum..LOL

In other news..... a lady I know Online offered to send me a Drop spindle and some roving so I can learn to spin!!! I have sooo wanted to learn...I keep putting off just buying a spindle....chickening out.....but since she's offered to give me one I figure maybe this is the catalyst I need.....

Great progress on the lace dress I'm crocheting for the wedding...I'm almost done!!

Posted in BLUE for Project Spectrum!

Wardrobe Refashion Day 2

Well so far so good..LOL....no new clothes shopping for me so far..of course it's only been TWO days...LOL...of course if you knew me...I mean REALLY knew me...you'd know that it IS a BIG DEAL....

I started on a crocheted dress for a Wedding I'm attending in late June...the 24th actually..my niece is getting married the day before my 23rd Wedding anniversary...

I got a pretty good start on the dress and so far it's looking really nice....

Oops I Did it again........

I joined another group......Project Spectrum.....this seems like a nice easy going, no pressure one, though..I just have to make Blue themed things for the month of June.....then in July I'll have to make purple themed stuff....then neutral themed for August...I'm coming in a bit late on this one...I already missed March , April, and May...

The Pledge

The Wardrobe Refashion Pledge ............................................................


I Maggii,

Pledge that I shall abstain from the purchase of "new" manufactured items of clothing,for the period of 2 / 4 / 6 months.

I Pledge that I shall refashion, renovate, recylcle pre-loved itemsfor myself for the term of my contract.

I Pledge that I shall create and craft items of clothing for myselfwith my own hands infabric, yarn or other medium for the term of my contract.

I Pledge that I will share the love and post a photo of myrefashioned, renovoated, recylcled, crafted or created item of clothingon the Wardrobe Refashion blog,so that others may share the joy that thy thriftyness brings!

More Joinings: I've just decided to join :

http://wardroberefashionfineprint.blogspot.com/

This should be fun....I've been wanting to jump on the DIY refashioning and reconstructing clothing bandwagon for a while now...this is hopefully just the motivation I need...Rachel and Britt have been interested in this kind of stuff too ..so it should be a fun project for us for the summer..

More sockapalooosa.....

I was checking out my sockpals blog .............and ..............she got my socks AND she LIKES them!! Whew!! I was actually worried she'd be disappointed...I know....it's silly and I stress over the silliest things...You can see her modeling them over here: http://woolyheaded.blogspot.com/

I'm just glad she likes them.

Back in the Swing....

.....of things. Well I guess I'm back...Now that I finally have a new Camera I should be back to posting more regularly...also life seems to be slowing down a bit and I'm feeling more energetic about getting back to living...I just joined two new groups.....a Dishcloth CAL....and Zarzuela's Summer of Socks group...I'll add the buttons for each after I figure out how to post them again..LOL ..I still totally suck at all this HTML and bloglist stuff....LOL

Woo Hoo New Socks!!

I got these Earlier from my wonderful Sockapalooosa Sock pal.....didn't she do a wonderful job??!!! I love them and they fit sooo well...a perfect fit.

MY Brother Bruce.

As I alluded to in my last post...there was a reason I stayed a bit longer then I had expected. ..you see...my Brother Bruce was killed in a Trucking Accident the day I was arriving...as a matter of fact we passed by the accident scene as we were travelling and had no idea that it was him..I had ONE moment where I considered that it 'could" be him...my son and I argued because I got upset at the scene( I always do when I pass a BAD accident...feeling sad about whomever was injured or worse)my son thought it was silly to be upset about a stranger and I even told him for all we knew it 'could" be my brother...the cab of the truck looked like his ...but I figured NAH...what are the odds that the ONE day in two years that I travel to Mississippi would be the ONE day my brother would have an accident...about a half hour before I got to Mississippi( where my family now lives) I got a call from my mother in a panic asking if we were all ok...she said the Police were ather home and would not tell her why or who they were there about. They wanted her to call the Alabama State Highway Patrol. She knew I was travelling thru Alabama that day as was my brother Bruce who is a trucker and makes a run everyday from Biloxi to Montgomery and back. Also my other Brother Ed who is stationed in SC( in the USAF) was TDY in Montgomery..so all her children (except my sister ,whom she knew was in mississippi at the time) were in AL ...and she was trying to contact us all to rule us out as to why the police were there....as soon as she told me about the police...... I knew......I didn't tell her ...but I knew...that the accident I had seen was indeed my brother...one look at her face when I knew for sure

we don't know exactly what happened....they say he must have been unconcious when he went off the road because he went straight off the road and there are no signs of him braking or trying to correct himself..they also say he died instantly which is a great relief to all of us...he was soooooo happy that day.....he was excited that I was going to be arriving that evening..I know he couldn't wait to get home that night......and my Brother Ed was also going to be home for Easter....it was the first time in 7 years that all four of us ( me and my siblings) were going to be together...he was expecting his first Grandchild next month.and he was very happy about that...he planned to move up here this fall to be near me....he wanted to get out of Biloxi..he was tired of worrying about hurricanes, after Katrina....

It's just so hard ..I miss him soooo much..I never even realized how close we had become..he had always been the irritating little brother...but in the last few years we had really beome good friends and gotten very close..he called me two -three times a week..now i'll never get another another Call from him..I just can't believe he's really gone..................

Sockapalooza

Well.....I had joined Sockapalooza ages ago..and I even finished my pals socks ages ago..but it took me forever to be able to send them off..( sorry no pics.....I DID finally get a new camera though!)I went away for Easter and for reasons I'll go into in the next post I stayed for a bit longer then I had planned...but I finally have her socks in the mail and I really hope she likes them...

Where.......

.....does the time go!!?? Not much New . I have so much going on in my head these days that I just can't seem to get it all out....I want to DO so many things that I just feel paralized and do nothing....I have all these MAJOR changes that I want to make in my life and just don't know where to start and am too afraid to even try....My husband has been away for the last week and half and will be gone for another two weeks..I had so many plans for while he was away and have accomplished none of it.......well I do have two weeks left to accomplish something right? Still toying with the idea of starting a New blog...

OH My!!

Yikes ...I pretty much dropped off the face of the earth didn't I? Well I'm back....Actually I had planned to just drop this blog and start over fresh with a New one but then figured why not just stick with this one.
Well it's a New Year with of course lots of New Changes on my mind...I spend a lot of time reading other blogs and reading about the facinating lives and wonderful crafts that everyone out there does...I really want to expand my horizons and try some new and or just different things. I'm still crocheting. I did a ton of stuff for Christmas...as a matter of fact I don't think I even want to 'look" at another scarf for a while..LOL... I just finished my second pair of crocheted socks( I made a pair last winter) I LOVE them and am now working on another pair using a really pretty yarn that I had recieved from my secret pal during SecretPal4...yes....I'm FINALLY getting around to using it. I can't wait to finish this pair ...I can tell they are going to be gorgeous.....now I want those clear boots that were all the rage a few months ago...LOL
Like I said, though, I want to start getting into other crafty things again and even getting back into art like I usd to be...
and then of course there's all of the spiritual soul searching changes I'd like to make in my life.
I really want to concentrate on ME this year...doing what I've always 'wanted"rather then what I feel or everyone ELSE feels I 'should" be doing. I think I'm going to cut back on the idea of selling my stuff and concentrate more on just enjoying the process and making things for myself and people I care about. Last year I think I focused so much on trying to 'sell' and 'make money"(mostly to appease hubby who thinks crocheting is lazy and a waste of time) I figured if I could show him I could 'make money" doing it he'd change his views...but I ended up spending MORE money trying to 'sell' stuff and then not even selling half of it....so i'm not going to worry about that aspect of it all..I'm going to crochet because "I" enjoy it...and "I" think it's a worthwhile pursuit and screw what hubby thinksgreat...now I'm probably going to get tons of spam because I used the word SCREW in my post..LOL)How DO you get these spammers to stop??!!!

What's New....Not Much.....

Not a whole lot of Crocheting going on these days...it's been too hot.......ugh......I was making these really cute little creatures.......and plan to start selling them......but with my camera still not working......(need to buy a new one).....I can't post them online.....

a couple of my friends have seen them and think they are adorable and have siad they want to pay me to make one for them.....I had already planned to 'give" them each one....

also we have had a Russian girl staying with us the last few weeks( I'll write more about her later)......it's with a sortof 'exchange" program.....she leaves next week ..and I plan to give her one as well...

other then that not much happening here.....I have family in Biloxi ..but luckily they made it thru Katrina Ok....they didn't evacuate but they live in the ONE area that didn't get hit so hard....they were without power for a good week or two and the kids are still not back in school...they WERE going to move right up here as my mother does NOT want to go thru another Hurricane like that again.....they were going to bring the kids up right away so we could get them in school and then my mother and my SIL were going to go back to finalize things to move....so I was going to be taking care of 4 extra kids for a while...I was actually looking forward to it..LOL...mine are all older and I was missing having children around...LOL...but as quickly as they decided to do that they decided not to...LOL...they say they still plan to move by next summer..but I figure my mother will talk herself into staying by then...anyways I'm just glad they were all ok....I had about two days where I had no idea how they were or wether they'd survived....it was pretty rough...

Change is a 'good' thing

Well as some of you may have noticed I changed my blogname.....from CrochetDiva to MaggiiBleu.....not much else to report.....camera still not working.....so i can't post any new pics..

finished a few projects....made a felted handbag for my friend..it came out ok...it didn't 'felt" as well as i'd have liked....i plan to make a few more for other friends..so i'll jsut keep experimenting until i get them how i like.....

Been working on a website shop.....which i have named ShopMaggiiBleu( hence the blog name change) as soon as i finish tweeking it and am satified with how it looks and works i'll be posting it...

I've been Busy!

Well I finally finished the table runner it turned out really nice...I need to iron it out....I wish my camera was working so I could post a picture. I'll try to borrow my daughters and post a picture of it soon....I also just made a crocheted handbag out of some gorgeous wool that my secret pal had given me.....it turned out really nice...now I want to felt it but I'm not sure how to go about it ..I've never done it before....I bought more wool to make more of them ( to give to friends)....although I couldn't find anything at my LYS as pretty as the yarn my Pal gave me.

and last but not least I just finished my first pair of crocheted socks..and I LOVE them!!...Want to make TONS more....

Looks like I'm back "in the mood" for crochet!

GRand Kitties!!

OH my....Amby our black kitty just gave birth to 4 adorable little kittens earlier today......two are striped grey tabby looking and two look jsut like her, black with a smidgeon of white on the throat....

I know ...my bad....for haivng procrastinated in getting her fixed...she escaped( push thru a window screen) in May and was missing for 3 days....wasn't long before we saw the tell tale signs...DH is NOT happy ..needless to say....I'm hoping i can find good homes for at least 2 or 3 of them...hoping i can convince DH to keep at least one....maybe two??? will post pics soon

GRaduation Day

Here are my 4 kids.......Rachel with her Brothers and Sister.



MmmmmMmmm Good!

Lordy Lordy Look Who's 40!

My wonderful husband surprised me with an AWESOME party!

Lapdance ..only $10

Don't ask.......Don't tell................

Yes,.......he's mine<sigh>

EVeryone in ALL their Glory!

Blowing out the Candle...that's my 8th grade pic on the Table...

Puerto Rico Pics_-there are LOTS

Britt enjoying the shade ...

Starting out at El Yunque

Watch your Step!!!! Look at that View....almost to the top

Another View!

the CAstille in San Juan....we got there too late to go in...


Mangroves

the Beach house we all rented...Going to the Caves

Britt drinking from the Fountain of Youth...

Rachel Shopping.

More PR

Huge Mofungo bowl!!! our last night, at the craft fair

everyone is tired....

Brittney and Me

this was our room....the girls room was to the left...

Freezing our butts of in NY ....LOL

OH MY!

Oh My!!! It sure has been awhile hasn't it??? Well last I posted we were about to take our Puerto Rico Vacation( which we did...and it was FANTASTIC)...unfortunately on the day we were driving home( from NY where we flew out and in)we got a phone call letting us know my nephew had been killed in a car accident. It was quite tragic..he was only 19 ..same age as my son Nate. We got home Saturday and I flew out Monday to attend his funeral.....needless to say I wasn't in much of a crocheting or blogging mood for a while....then a few weeks later a dear neighbor of our lost her battle with Lukemia....I still can't believe she's gone.....

Now we did have some good times during all this...as I said our PR vaca was GREAT...in April I turned 40!! and DH and my best Friend planned a SUPER Surprise Party for me...it was MORE than I could have hoped for and I was totally shocked...I knew they'd be cooking something up for me but never expected anything of this magnatude( will post pics)...In May my youngest did her Confirmation in the Catholic Church..and in June my other Daughter graduated from HS...she is going to VA Tech...she'll be a HOKIE..LOL.we had Orientation this week.....she is VERY excited!

Like I said earlier though I pretty much lost interest in Crocheting for a while...then this summer I picked up my hook and started on a really pretty table runner.....I am getting close to the finish...unfortunately my camera's not working these days so I can't take a pic of it yet....I do have pics of stuff that's been going on.. though and I'll post those in a minute.

Let The Sun Shine In

Here is our partially painted new Family room or whatever it's going to be....family room ,game room??We're going for a light bright look as this is the ONLY window in the room..Rachel has decided to go for Dark Red in her room...Still have a LOT of painting to do....

Jam Session!

For the last 5 years Brad and/or the girls and I have particpated in the St Paddy's Day Parade in Norfolk. We are in the parade again this year. Much practicing has been going on. Last night we ahd practice at our church with the Chaplain( for the proestant congregation)to the left on guitar  and his son on drums( in the back). Chaplain joined us last year and we all had a GREAT time. It was MY first year too.

Here's Britt looking bored while Dad and Chaps jam wtih some 'oldies"

Rae looking equally Bored

Ruby Ring!!

Here are the lastest addition pics.This is going to be Rachel's New Bedroom! She wanted a nice Dark Red. The red is darker then the pics show. She's going for an Asian Theme. The Bright Green peeking out is from her walk-in closet.

Here's another pic of our kitty Amby. She's such a cutie...but SUCH a troublemaker. If there's trouble to be had.... she'll find it!!Brandon came over yesterday to practice guitar and to download and print out some new songs..( he's tired of playing the same 2 songs all the time..LOL..I guess it turns out he doesn't have a printer of his own)...anyway.. it's nice to see him again.....as you can see this is pic #6 ( i think) of the yellow billibong..I think I've seen him MORE in the last 2 months then I have in the LAST year all combined..LOL.it's really nice to ahve him around more...I've missed him!.

Pink Heart

Here's little thingie I made right before Valentines....I sortof made it for the 'think Pink" knit along. even thuogh it's not "knitted"...it's just something fun and goofy I felt like making.

Where I've Been

I found this "where you've been" United States map on another blog and figured I'd give it a try...OMG! I had no idea i've been to every state accept TWO!!



create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.

Added New Links

I 've added a couple of new links to my Links field.I finally added Sara from -Crochet All Day-Like I said I would. I'm slowly getting the hang of things...but it's still all confusing and I can't remember from one moment to the next exactly HOW i'm doing things.LOL...I just 'try " things, then check it out in "preview", and if it looks good there...then I figure I'm good to go..LOL

I also added a link to My Paper Crane. This girl does some REALLY cute stuff...she spins some of the kewlest yarn. And does all kinds of REALLY kewl crafts. She's VERY Talented...and...

I joined another Blog ring. A Southern Crochet Ring. The South STARTS in VA!!

Puerto Rico or Bust!

I can't believe it's only 3 count them 3 days till we leave for Puerto Rico!! Our friends are leaving the day before us and will be ther a day before us. We are driving to NY to catch the flight. It was cheaper to drvie up to NYC and fly out from JFK then to fly out from here in VA. We are meeting my friend Ns family and will be dropping our car off at their house. Then they want to 'feed' us and give us a chance to 'rest " before taking su to the Air Port! They are so sweet!