Beach crafts

I don't know about you, but I don't travel without some sort of sewing or craft project. I took some crochet for the car and my sewing machine for the house. I barely touched the machine because the weather looked like this EVERY day. I parked myself on the beach with books pretty much all week.

But Anne and my SIL, Carol, got busy with the Cricut machine. Anne recently bought one and Carol offered to help her start it up. The first thing they did was make this iron on vinyl for me so that now I have dedicated crochet travel bag!

Anne also brought along a dozen water bottles to decorate. Carol designed this cool puzzle label because we worked 3 puzzles during the week. There are 4 puzzle pieces: a fish, a beach sign, lounge chair and lighthouse (for the Hatteras lighthouse). I did help "weed" then. I learned that term last week. Aren't these cool?

When I handed out the dyed tote bags, Anne chose an apron and added these designs to the pockets. Carol had the idea to put the apple stem inside the pocket. I can't wait to come up with some other ideas that Anne can make for me. 

I'm having a lot of problems with my hands so I haven't been crocheting at all. But I have to do something in the car to do. I've told you before that I'm a horrible passenger. I took along this car crochet project and I stitched really slowly and carefully. It has 2 skeins in it so far. I'll use all of this third skein and then add a fuchsia border.

Here's a closeup of the pattern. This is my "go to" car project because it's so easy. It's all double crochet and chains.

While on vacation I always feel it's my patriotic duty to support local shops and I was a good patriot this week at several shops. Mostly, I bought t-shirts and hats. But surprisingly in the little village of Hatteras there's a very nice yarn/gift shop that has the added bonus of a sweet welcome dog. They have beautiful yarns. Most are wool that I can't use but I found this beautiful chain spun yarn that's a cotton blend. Carol found me a really simple duster/cardigan pattern for it. I really need for my hand to get better so I can crochet again!

Back at home I've got all the green quilt blocks sorted and paired together. These will be sewn together in pairs to make 12.5" blocks. I've started sewing these together. I expect this top can go together pretty quickly.

I'm also working on more doll clothes and I should be able to share those tomorrow. I've totally lost my mind over the doll clothes!