Jo's Crochet Flower Garland How-To

"What are you doing? Your things are packed, the cheese cake for your parents is ready and you ought to sleep by now! Did you forget, you are going on vacation tomorrow?" Mo asked and shook her little head. 

"I'm trying to write down the pattern for my flower garland. I want to get this done before I'm leaving, but it's difficult."

"The pattern?"

"No, the pattern is very simple to crochet, but I'm not good in explaining, I guess." I said and stated: "The garland was in the picture of the old table and all the other things Mr. Bargain encouraged me to buy. One dear reader called Moogie, asked me for the pattern, when she commented at the "Mr. Bargain" post last week. I promised to write it down and I thought, this might me a brilliant way, to give a little something back to all those wonderful people, who read our stories and take time to leave a comment."

"I see! Well-intentioned, at least!", laughed Mo, looking at all my muddled notes with crochet abbreviations on them.

Jump to our tutorial page to see what I wrote...

We will be back soon, two weeks from now at the latest!

Yours

Mo and Jo

When in doubt add a flower

"Hey, Jo! What are you doing?"  Mo shouted and made me cringe. "You are staring at that computer screen for hours!"
Over and over again, I had been reading through these lovely comments on Lucy, the lady-chair and hadn't even noticed her arrival.
"I feel a little bit lost" I said, "because I want to say 'thank you' to all those people and don't know, how to do it properly. I always fear to sound pathetic when trying to express my feelings in English."
"Then try it in your mother tongue instead!" was Mo's conclusion, which made perfect sense to me.
I wrote down:

Liebe Leser aus aller Welt,

wir waren sehr überrascht über die vielen freundlichen Kommentare zu Lucy, dem Damensessel, und freuen uns wie wahnsinnig darüber! Ein dickes fettes Dankeschön an Euch alle, Ihr seid absolute Spitze!

I sighed with relief and Mo gave me a gentle slap on my back. "Can we get productive again, then?" she said, pointing at an old lamp, that I had painted recently but which was still lacking a lampshade make-over. 

Moments later, I was examining  our pool of vintage fabrics and everything went quite well until Mo decided, like in so many cases, that there was still something missing. 

"You  are right! It's got a lampshade now, but it isn't finished yet" I admitted carelessly.

"Fortunately we can make use of Mo's up-cycling rule No. 1" Mo replied with confidence.

"Which is?" I asked.

"When in doubt, add a flower!" she smiled and one second later, the so-called muse was gone.

I started crocheting and added some flowers to the lower ribbon of the lamp shade, which seemed to me fairly sensible at that time.

 

Then, as a logical consequence, I begun to add some flowers to the lampshade itself.

 

I didn't notice, the crochet flower virus was having a good grip on me, again. So things were getting out of control soon.

I had pinned half a flower shop to the lampshade before I got aware of what I was doing here. I surveyed my deed with a vague feeling. Was it good? Bad? Fine? Ugly? I didn't know. I was stuck. Fortunately I hadn't sewn most of the flowers to the lampshade, yet. I could still take them off again. I needed an advice, but where was Mo? All I could do, was to put some of her little furniture below the lamp, in hopes of luring her out.

As I'm writing this, I am still waiting for her, to take a seat and give me a hint.

What do you think, she will say?

Have a great time!
Yours Jo (and Mo)

Finished that project

Three days ago, I was weaving in ends for hours, when Mo jumped on my shoulder, out of nowhere and unexpected as usual. "Uh, tidying away ends, isn't that tedious?" she whispered and gave my earlobe a pinch. 

"Tedious, why? No! It's like meditation to me" I lied in my sweetest voice and went on sewing. 

"I see!" she answered briefly and was gone the next moment.

The next day, I was still busy with my large eyed yarn needle, Mo poked me in the back: "Hey Jo, still in deep contemplation?" she shouted. "Come one, let's take a break. Live is short, there is so much more we could do!" 

"Thank you, but I can't. I have to finish this first!" I answered and tried to look energetic whilst feeling quite worn out.

"So, you're not interested in me helping you with your little novel?"

I stopped amazed "You really want to help me with that?"

"Just kidding! You know, novels are not my business" she laughed.

"Then you better leave me alone" I mumbled and off the so-called muse went.

Yesterday night, the very moment I had tidied away the last yarn end, she reappeared.

"Yay, Mo! I did it!" I said pointing on the hexagon covered chair.

Mo wagged her head "If you asked me, something is missing. It is such a cute old chair, we should pay a little more attention. Maybe some flowers?"

"OK, then flowers" I sighed and reached for my crochet hooks.

Today I sewed on the flowers and was very pleased with myself, because I had finished that project.

"What do you think?" I asked Mo.

"Sweet!" she answered. "It reminds me of a wedding cake in disguise.

Fortunately Safran the cat isn't as critic as Mo. He said, it would be just perfect for him. A bed, a scratcher and, with all the tassels, a wonderful drill ground. What a cutie!

A happy, sunny weekend to all of you!

xxx
Mo and me

P.s.: The hexagon pattern is by the wonderful Attic24.

A teeny weeny project

"Jo? What's wrong with you? You're looking like a seeped cropping a cotton coaster" Mo said to me today.
"That's because of the blog!" I answered feeling uncomfortable. "I would like to show just one finished project but everything is only work in progress"
Mo shook her little head in disbelief and laughed: "What are you worrying about? You just need a teeny weeny new project and one thing will lead to another!"
"Oh please, not another venture, right now!" I cried out but Mo wasn't listening.
"Positively, buttons are the answer to your problem" she grinned. "You always wanted to cover some buttons with fabric, don't you? And recently we do have a lot of vintage fabric scraps!"
"That's far too fiddly for me, I guess!" I opposed but Mo commanded: "Let's find out!

Well, what shall I say. With the help of this great tutorial by CraftPudding a new addiction was born. I covered button after button. To my surprise it was incredible fun, fast and not fiddly at all! I was very happy, for now I was able to show a finished teeny-weeny project to the whole wide web world.

But my relief shouldn't last long, certainly. After I  had covered a bunch of buttons Mo smiled at me: "Jo, can you remember the project, we could not finish, because we were lacking nice buttons?"
I took a deep breath and felt my good mood fading: "Oh, that project!"
"Now, we can get it done!" giggled Mo and I just nodded, because, it's always the same: One project leads to another. I reached for a sewing needle and began sewing some buttons to that project.

Here is a preview of that project:

I promise, I'll show you the rest, after I've managed to hide thousands of loose ends, one fine day!

Have a nice time, what ever big or small project you might be engaged with!

Sun Bathing

Mo wanted me to add some more paint to these chairs today...

 
... but it's really hot and everyone is lazy...

... so I was sun bathing instead!

Have a wonderful & sunny week-end!