Monday, June 27, 2011

Patriotic Crochet-a-Long

I came across a GREAT blog last week and I couldn't resist trying out this Star Coaster pattern!  Now I must admit, I see loads of great patterns online, but most of the time, I print them, get home and I find them impossible to follow for one reason or another.  That or the pattern is so close to something I already [at least think I] know how to do well, that I just use the pattern that I've already committed to memory.  This past Friday night that changed for once (or maybe for good!)  These stars are so easy to make!  With just one color they only take me about 10-15 min to make (I'd say 15 if we wanted to include the time it takes me to complain about weaving in ends and then actually doing it).  Megan talks in her post about having until July 4th to make the 4 coasters....well over the weekend, I not only made a set in R-W-B but I made a 2nd set in my favorite shades of pink!
These have been wrapped and sent home to my Grannie has an early 4th of July gift.  She decorates her house in red white and blue for the summer and I just know she'll love these!
Those who are Guilder Alumni reading this - am I the only one that really thinks the ones with the blue on the outside looks like it belongs on a Guilder costume?  LOL not sure why I think that on one but not the other but I see what I see :o)
I didn't have all 3 colors in cotton for these, so the Red and Blue are RHSS and the white is the speckled ILTY with the silver thread.  Really adds something extra to them!


Set #2 are not quite finished yet (as you can see, I've left my "favorite" part yet to do!).  I actually made these ones first because the cotton was close by.  One of the veregated ones I tried to use a magic circle on thinking I could get the center hole smaller.  The whole is just as big regardless and it actually made the coaster a bit "flimsy".  Now I know.  The plan is to have these finished up and wrapped to give my Mom while I'm home over the weekend.  She was here this past weekend and has already seen them, but it'll be a surprise for her none the less!

I got to work this a.m. and ordered some veregrated R-W-B IKTY from Hobby Lobby and then loads of cotton in new shades (well new to me) from JoAnns so I can continue to produce these!  I don't think I've ever made 8 of anything without hating that I was stilling making them so I I think I'll keep going and stock up on gifts for use throughout the year!


As for my other crochet-a-long that I mentioned last week, here's my progress on my ripple:
This little Swedish girl is LOVING the color combo and while I didn't put any work into it until this a.m. before work, I plan to make some progress this week while I'm waiting for my new stash for the Stars to come in the mail!  This one started with Pammy Sue's ripple pattern.  This is also a perfect example of starting with a pattern on find in a blog, and frogging it to use a pattern I'm more comfortable with!  Pammy Sue yours that you posted looks great, and the pattern makes sense to me, but I was crocheting too slow trying to remember what I was doing, which was just about enough to drive me crazy! :-P

Friday, June 24, 2011

Where does the time go?

It's been forever once again - I know!  It's shameful really.  I'll try to be better, but until I get by August 6th there's no hope for time each day to blog, do my job AND finish up the wedding plans!  Speaking of, it's all coming together as nicely as can be expected from 400 miles from home with about 40 days to go, a full time job, and just one more trip home before the big day!  Ok, I'm overly stressed and it's not really running all the smoothly, but when I get really upset I try to remind myself that I don't want to look back and regret not enjoying this more.  So I have a glass of "something" when I get home each night, take a deep breath and try to get one more thing done before going to bed.  Mom's here this weekend which is help.  Jonathan has also been really great about helping out <3

As far as crafting, there hasn't been a whole lot of it going on lately.  I have started not 1, but 2 crochet-a-longs though.....you know for all that spare time I have.  Hopefully will get some work done on 1 or both of them this weekend and will then hopefully find a spare minute on Monday to post some pictures.