Hygge Blanket

Alec recently got a new kitten and he is the cutest thing ever. His name is Hygge and before you judge the silly name let me explain why Alec chose it. A while back Alec was studying in Denmark and stayed with a host family. The family has a cat and during his time there Alec really enjoyed playing with her. You can imagine how excited he was to hear that she had had kittens when he went to visit the next year. When he met them he loved them so much that he decided to keep one of them! Since the kitten came from Denmark he wanted to give it a Danish name. The word hygge is a big part of Danish culture. It's hard to translate but I suppose the best English word to describe it is cozy. Naturally he thought this would be the perfect name for the cat! He is super cute.

 Since Hygge makes us feel so cozy I thought I would crochet him his very own blanket so that he could feel cozy too! I used my favorite yarn of all time Vanna's Choice. It's really soft but still very affordable. The colors I chose reflect the colors of the cat so that when he curls up in it, it will look like a giant cuddly ball of adorableness! I used a pattern from Red Heart Yarn that I have used in the past for larger blankets. It is called Country Home Crochet Throw. Here is a link to the pattern. http://www.redheart.com/free-patterns/country-home-crochet-throw

I altered the pattern a little bit to make it an appropriate size for a cat. Instead of 85 rows for each strip I made 31. Other than that I followed the pattern. Its pretty simple and went fairly quickly. I made the whole thing in a day. In fact I had yarn left over and decided to make another one for my cat Jelly! She really likes it!

(by the way this is my new favorite photo of my girl)

Croton Dam

Today was a beautiful fall day so Alec and I decided to make a trip to the Croton Dam. We had been talking about going for a while and thought today would be a prefect day to go exploring around the area. On the way there we passed through the lovely towns of Sleepy Hollow and Ossining. They have very beautiful old buildings there that I think we will have to eventually spend a day looking around there.

The dam itself was incredible. Alec had been there before and showed me pictures of it but I didn't expect it to be so big! When you pull into the park you have to drive over this adorable little bridge and through the trees you can just make out the water cascading down the left side of the dam. After you get though the trees the dam seems to appear out of nowhere. We spent a good amount of time just staring at it and taking pictures. Eventually we sat down at one of the picnic tables and had a nice little snack.

It was a little cold so we decided to get up and walk around. We made it all the way up a huge hill to the walkway on the top of the dam. The view was incredible. To one side there was the park and to the other was a giant lake. After walking around a bit we found a trail that led back down to the park. On the way we collected leaves for a collage that Alec wants to make. I'll post pictures of that when he's finished because it is going to be awesome! 

It turned out to be a great afternoon. I took some pictures on my phone so I apologize for the terrible quality.

Tiered necklace

After making my black banded agate necklace from my previous post, I decided to make a necklace based on the chain used in that design. I used gold wire instead of silver to create the dragon scale weave. I decided to start in what would be the center of the necklace because that would be the widest part of the chain. After establishing a good length for the center, I gradually narrowed the width until I I had three tiers. I broke up the third tier with a rectangular stone. To finish it off I made a nice little clasp. I hope you like it!