Angelversary, names in the sand, and making a chain.

Angelversary... unless you are an "angel mommy" you probably don't know what this means. An angelversary is the anniversary of the day you lost your baby - the day that had your baby lived, would have been their birthday.

I had an angelversary yesterday... 4 years ago yesterday, I lost my second pregnancy, and gained my third angel. I now have 3 angelversaries to "celebrate" if you can call it that. Yesterday was a good angelversary. I got to meet 3 other angel mom's - I can't even begin to describe how it feels to meet someone in person and give/receive a real hug from someone else who truly knows exactly how you feel.

I also got to visit the Pacific for the first time in my life, and I wrote my angel Landon's name in the sand.


Isn't it just gorgeous... could there be a sweeter picture of my baby at the beach...

My project for the day...


This is a "facial basket" that sits on your sink and holds several facial scrubbies. I saw them online and thought 'I can figure that out' and I made one for myself. I had to make several of them to get it to look "just right"... if you'll recall, I am a bit of a crochet snob, but after a few awful attempts - I finally had a product I approved of and I wrote out my pattern. I haven't made one in a while, and I didn't have my pattern with me, so when I decided to make one for my sis-in-law I struggled to recall exactly what I had done to get the perfect end product. I failed at remembering, but I do think this one turned out lovely just the same.

And now for the next lesson, making a chain... please remember - these lessons are intended for the absolute beginner.

So, for the lesson... making a chain. How do you go from this...


to this...


Well, let me show you!

First, make a knot - I've already taught you how to do this!

There are a couple of ways to hold your crochet hook - I am only going to show you my way, because this is my blog ;) and it's the most comfortable for me, and it allows me to work at a tremendous pace - I can whip out a dish cloth in about 15 minutes!


With your palm facing toward you lay the crochet hook across your hand like this...






Now close your bottom three fingers around and onto the hook like this...





Close your thumb onto the hook in this position, creating the tension needed so the hook doesn't slip from your hand... **your pointer finger will hold the knot, well, mine does anyway!**




Next you will need to hold the yarn with your left hand...




Face your palm toward you and wrap your yarn loosely around your pinky from bottom to top and front to back, like this...





**note** if you close your ring finger into your pinky like this... you can see how you will provide tension when you are actually crocheting - go ahead and play with it for a few seconds, pull your hook away, then pull it back from the bottom... ok, that's enough, let's move on...





With your ring finger providing the tension to your yarn, bring the yarn up in front of the bottom three fingers and behind your pointer finger...





You will hold the tail end of your work between your thumb and middle finger, your knot should be at the bottom of your hook like this...





Now, turn your hand into position... you will have your pointer finger closest to you and your pinky finger furthest from you, like this...




This is where my instructions may differ from others - just remember... I crochet evenly, beautifully, and quickly... I'm just saying!!!!



I use my right hand to tip my hook toward the middle finger of my left hand, like this...





Now, using my left hand, I wrap my yarn from back to front around my hook... **this is called many different things like 'making a loop' 'draw a loop' 'wrap it around' - if you are working on a pattern and have a question, just let me know.**





Tip your right hand back, so your hook is angled back and with the hook pointed down...






And pull that yarn right through your original loop...





Now, count yourself "1" and lift your hook straight back up to the sky!





Congratulations - you have made one link in your chain... do you feel proud? I do!!!!

Ok, simply start this process over... tilt your hook, wrap the yarn around, point your hook to the ground and slip that hook right through your new loop... count "2" and start over! You will have to move the hold with your left thumb and middle finger up as your work progresses, I like to move mine up every 5 stitches when I'm making the chain - this also helps me keep a pretty accurate count, and if my husband starts talking to me, I simply hold onto the stitch and say out loud the number I'm on, then when I'm ready to begin again, I always know that stitch was "30" and I don't have to worry about losing count!

If you are following a pattern, they will usually start with something along the lines of ch20... this simply means chain 20 - you simply do this until your count is 20! If you're quite the ambitious one and you're wanting to do a blanket - many many many of those patterns start out with ch102 or ch240 or ch309!!! Trust me - if you start counting now - it will be like second nature to you and you'll never miss a chain... there isn't much worse than following a pattern that starts out chain 309 and finding out you've messed up your count because you will not find that out until you are at the END of your NEXT row!!! and that sucks!!!!!

So go on, practice making a chain, practice, practice, practice... then take out your hook and pull it all out!!!! Then practice again, and look for the next lesson... the first row and the single stitch!