The Paperless Crafter Strikes Again!

My daughter received a dress in the mail the other day from her Uncle Robert. It is this cute little pink and white number that goes with a hat he made and sent her earlier in the year. My plan was to have her wear it to church this morning, and so she did. But first I had to crochet a collar (or "necklace" as Eliana keeps calling it!) to dress up the neckline a bit, with permission from my brother. So yesterday afternoon at Sweet Pea I left Eliana with Leif for a spell and trekked on downtown to my favorite yarn shop, Stix. There, with dress in hand, I found some yarn that matched nicely (as well as a few skeins of other beautiful yarn I just couldn't resist!) and I headed back to Sweet Pea to listen to music as my busy hands worked. I didn't have a pattern, or even a picture in my mind when I started, so I just crocheted. Every so often I'd pull Eliana aside and make sure the collar would be the right length for her neck, and then I kept on crocheting. It took me about an hour and I had a cute little scalloped collar! I was pretty happy with it, but felt it needed one more thing... So again I hopped up and trekked downtown to the bead shop, where I purchased 17 white beads (along with some other beauties I couldn't resist, LOL! See a theme??) to finish the project. And here is what I made:

I am very pleased with how it turned out, and it complimented the dress wonderfully! Here is my little girl in her cute ensemble from Robert, with the collar/necklace around her throat. (DISCLAIMER: This picture was taken AFTER church, not before, so the collar had loosened some in her playing. I didn't try to fix it before I took the pictures, because she was getting fairly cranky. So while it looks big here, rest assured that when we walked into church it was adjusted appropriately and did, indeed, follow the neckline of the dress.)

And I realized today, what with the crocheting (and knitting today since I had new yarn to play with!) and all, that I am getting ready for Fall. I love Fall. And all Summer I have not been ready for it, but today I am finally getting there. Bring on the spiced cider and scarves!! (But feel free to wait until September, because I know I will need the next month to soak up all the sunshine I can and squeeze every little bit of goodness out of the rest of summer!)