Tot Shoes

These are several pairs of toddler shoes someone gave me to put together for donation. Not crochet or yarn related but worth it to share. I love them.

Dragons!

My days have been recently filled with lovable, hugable dragons. This pattern is by Sharon Ojala and can be found for free on her blog at amigurumitogo.com.

Meet Lila and Sam

A Month in the hospital and TTP diagnosis

So I got home yesterday afternoon after a month in the hospital. I was diagnosed with a rare blood disease called TTP (Thrombocytopenia procura). It's a blood disease that simply put, causes your platlets to stick together and form clots. I was pretty close to death and to be honest it's actually had a positive effect on me. I learned a lot in the remission process about myself and my friends and family and I also learned how to rely on the kindness of strangers.
I am not totally in remission yet, I just got the word that the disease is considered inactive at the moment. My danger zone is the next four weeks of this re flaring. But for right now I am going to relax and enjoy being home until my first blood test tomorrow.
But I have to say thank you to a lot of people. First the nurses and PCA's at the OSU James center on the 16th floor. They treated me like family and I felt so loved and comfortable with these people. They helped bring me back from my illness but mostly they provided emotional support and kept my anxiety at bay with laughter, hugs and kisses.
The Apheresis team was amazing as well. They also treated me like family and made sure I was as comfortable as I could be during my plasma exchanges. They supported me and cheered me on constantly. I had the most laughter down there. It's amazing how quickly they had all of my habits and preferences pegged in such a short time.
And the doctors of course. I know I gave them all headaches with my anxiety attacks but they handled it with grace and one in particular kept me sane there at the end (I'm looking at you Mr. Specialist). Then there are the other staff members who I got attached too that came to see me even after they were switched around and a certain house keeper who visited me with giggles every day that I adore.
Also there is a blanket thank you to the churches that donated money to help keep our home afloat and the siblings, cousins, neice, best friend and Aunt who visited me and brought me goodies to keep my fingers moving. I don't think I would have handled it well without my crafts and goodies.
But I have to say I am most greatful to those who donate blood and blood products. I never realized how important this was until I needed it to save my life so anyone reading this with good blood, please donate. Please please.....

I still have months to go before I am out of the woods. This can put me back in at anytime and I have tons of blood work to go and treatments and lots of medication so I am still weak and sick. But what I need most right now is prayer, time, patience and love. Pray for me. I love you all.

Ariel

My prayer today: Thank you God for my seizure which saved my life first of all. And thank you for sending me to the right place to start to heal. Thank you for supporting me and guiding me and thank you for guiding me to my wonderful supportive husband and for my beautiful friends and family. 

p.s. Winnie the pooh characters to come soon!

Star Wars Part 1

I finally found my camera so here is a new post, finally. I have been making my husband a set of Star Wars dolls from a kit I got for Christmas. The kit is by Lucy Collins (blog: lucyravenscar.blogspot.com) and has 12 patterns from the original Star Wars series. It even came with enough material to make a Storm Trooper and a Yoda! I did modify a few things but I will explain as I go.

The first modification I did was to increase the hook size used from a E to an F (U.S.). I was having issues with making some of the parts so small and the slight increase did the trick. Luckily I crochet tight enough to do this. Anyways, here are some photo's.

First is Leia and a Storm Trooper. I thought Leia was surprisingly easy to make and I was impressed with Lucy's method of doing her hair. Super easy and cute.

Next is Han and Chewy. Chewy so far has been my favorite doll of them all. This doll is kind of special because it's my very first fuzzy doll. The effect was made with a wire dog brush and some patience.

sNext is Darth Vadar and Luke in his black outfit. I like them both but I want to mess with Vadar's mask a bit to see if it can be improved. I think the mask is a bit to circular and I would like to see it not stick out so far on the face. I learned through Luke that I need serious work on mouths.

Next is Jabba and C3PO. Both were so annoying to crochet. First I had issues with C3PO's eyes. I didn't have the eyes Lucy used so I improvised and crocheted them. Bright yellow didn't look right so the best I could do is to find the color of his eyes when they aren't lit... light gold/brown. Jabba was a whole other story, first I couldn't find the right color. I still hate this color for Jabba but I found a better green later. This is my first one. Then, I messed up his tail. I was watching Fast and the Furious 7 for the first time and I wasn't fully paying attention and messed up the pattern. I made his tail so big that his body could fit inside. So the tail you see is my frustrated version which was corrected on my second doll. 

Last is Yoda and Wicket. Both I loved doing. Wickets hood thing gave me trouble at first because I was again being lazy with my pattern reading. 

 All in all I really liked her patterns and have plans to buy the other five she has available in her etsy shop (https://www.etsy.com/shop/lucyravenscar). So much fun to make!