Oh the Drama

Yup.  Who knew that picking up something I'd gifted and taken back to finish 2 months ago was going to cause me such stress.  Crocheting is supposed to de-stress me for crying out loud!

You would have also thought that since I knew I was going to be giving this away and eventually getting it back to finish that I would have taken some notes about hook size, turning chains, etc.  Did I? Nope.  You know why?
1.  It was 2 days before my wedding that I was weaving in ends and the day before my wedding that I was wrapping the gift.  Even if I had made a note about hook size, I likely would have lost it between the wedding, honeymoon and unpacking.
2.  I told myself that I would not forget that it was my favorite green lighted crochet hook.  I mean I kept the 3 colors of yarn bagged together (mostly because this stayed at my parents until I was home Labor Day weekend vs. lugging with me on the honeymoon when I didn't have the project to work on!)

Should have been soooooooooo easy last night at 8:00 when DWTS started and I got my butt in gear to crochet.

Turns out that my lighted J hook and lighted K hook are "shades of green"

damn.it.

Worst design idea ever.  At least if you're going to have 2 shades of green make one like a F and the other a K - that I could tell the difference on when looking at a project I haven't touched in 3 months.  frick

So, I did a row of white with the K, started the first row of veregated with the K, decided it was wrong and switched to the J for that row, the 2nd row of veregated and started the next white row before thinking it was too tight.  I switched back to my K and did the rest of the white and 1+ row of yellow before my 2 hours were up.  You can't really tell the difference and I'm still not 100% sure which I was using!!  I even got really anal and tried to measure the height of my stitches (during the stretch with the J) but because this has been wrapped, gifted, used, returned to me and moved around my apt. for a month and a half the older stitches have sort of settled and it's impossible to tell.  Everything is measuring about the same so  I'm sticking with the K at this point unless I get further and start to see the blanket grow.  The 2 rows of J just feel a little tight.  Not enough to frog them cause you'll never be able to tell once it's finished, but they're not as "squishy" - seriously, that's the technical term for determining correct hook size.

You can tell what's new by the tails.  Doesn't look like much for 2 hours of work (minus the time I stopped to watch them dance, Maks' ridiculous meltdown and wine).  I obvi did all the way across each row....Hopefully now that I'm more settled I'll get more done tonight!

What ELSE have I been up to you ask?

Seems I'm in the business of making flowers

No clue what these are for really.  It started with one for a coaster at my office in fall colors and turned into many over the weekend while playing with different colors and trying to see how to make them bigger or smaller.  The biggest one was just made last night after DWTS for my work coaster and is here today.  The smaller one of the same color was sent via "snail-mail" to my Momma to use as a Fall coaster.  Jonathan's suggestions as I took pictures this morning were to put on hats or scarves which were the exact same ideas I'd already been having.  Need to master making them a bit smaller still to do a variety on a scarf and I'm thinking now that I've gone bigger I could probably do smaller with success!  I also thought the purple and pink one would be cute on a headband for a little girl.  Anyone interested?  I'd happily take orders for Christmas presents and my prices are reasonable - leave a comment (or send me an email).

My Sunday afternoon trip to AC Moore meant 3-Pound of Love colors for Christmas presents, some other yarn found while browsing (so I obviously needed for Christmas presents) AND a pretty awesome (at least I think so) bag of mill ends!  I loved the shade in this 1 lb bag so much that I started something for me on Sunday night:

I'm getting my own Time-out Cowl!  yeah!

You can't see the detail in the yarn with this horrific cell phone photo while hovering over my chaise on a cloudy morning while already late for work, but there is a thin shimmer through this chunky yarn AND pink sequins!  Seriously, it doesn't get much better than that!  I'll be sure to keep the quality of the above picture in mind when I take another one for an update and will get more detail to share!


On a slightly more random note.  I am in search of some good trivia questions!  I'm working with a co-worker on this team "stress-breaker" and we're doing trivia.  There will be pumpkin-y baked goods made by me and prices of the crafty variety to help the team "de-stress" during year end.  Please leave a comment with good trivia you have to share - we're learning so much just in pulling these questions together!!

Ripple Along

Who doesn't love a good ripple?!?  I've got a soft spot for them for sure!  Maybe it's just that they're sort of "mindless" to work on and depending on the colors and variations you select they almost always look different and are most definitely always beautiful and wonderful!

I read about this Ripple Along on another blog and thought "WHY NOT!"

I also have the perfect, already started project to complete.  Procrastination is something that I'm far too good at.  I spent about every waking second trying to finish this present prior to my wedding back in August, but it totally didn't happen!  I ended up finishing at a good spot, wove in all my ends and wrapped it up, telling the recipient that I needed to take it with me to finish.  She refused to allow me to bring it on my honeymoon and snuck off after the Rehearsal Dinner with it.  Luckily I saw her over Labor Day weekend and I got it back, but of course life and yarny temptations got in my way and I haven't touch it since my pre-married days!

This is my AMAZING Maid of Honor the night before my wedding!  She's also my best friend Kait and the blanket is a thank you gift for being the best MOH on the planet!  Seriously.  This girl is in her 3rd year of med school, travels from hospital to hospital all over the northern East Coast, was studying for and took one of her Boards exams like 2 months before the wedding, traveled home for 2 bridal showers and traveled to DC for my bachelorette party all while helping keep me calm usually from a 200-400 mile distance!  She's amazing :-)

Last year around this time I was working on Jonathan's ripple (yet to post about, I know it's almost been a year) while he was in class on Monday nights.  Since them, I have associated watching Dancing with the Stars on Monday evenings with crocheting, and blankets, and most importantly crocheting a ripple blanket!  I told him again over the weekend how I spent Monday nights crocheting just as fast as I possibly could.  I didn't finish it until January when he was in Belize but he never saw me crochet one stitch on this in person.  It was about half finish when he opened it on Christmas day and it was laying on the bed for him when he returned from Belize.  One of these days I'll post pictures - maybe when I post Kait's finished blanket :-)

Let It Snow

Ok, not really.  It's 63 degrees here and sunny BUT a girl can dream right?

This sinus thing that's been going on for almost a week now, has given me a much needed weekend on the couch, not doing a whole lot, except for crocheting and just about non-stop watching of "Brothers & Sisters".  I've been working on bits and pieces of different Christmas gifts.  I'm not ready to share yet, mostly because I want to show off the final product.  Soon....really, some day soon!

I did just finish this up:

It's going to be part of a birthday present for next month and it's my first time doing anything filet or reading a chart to crochet something!  It's way bigger than my usual dish cloths so I hope that recipient still enjoys using it!

I have many ideas in my head for using all of these FESTIVE PATTERNS - I look forward to getting into these in the coming months for both Christmas presents and Christmas decorations to keep!

For now, I think I'm going to make an AC Moore run for supplies needed on 2 new projects brewing for the holidays!

Pattern (and better picture) coming tomorrow!

Just finished my bigger pumpkin (with no full pattern)  and I love it too much to not share tonight!  I have notes on how I made it, and I'll try to type into a pattern to share tomorrow! 
I'm also hoping for a nice morning where I can take a few flash-free pics.
Nighty night :-)

Monday night traditions

I'm ready for 80s week on DWTS!  Here's the start of a bigger pumpkin... Hope you love my flannel from '97  seriously, I've had them since 7th grade!  LOL

Quick update

Hi everyone!  Seems like it's been forever doesn't?  I'm sorry about that - life has gotten in the way of me doing fun things like blogging!  I've still been crocheting, I just haven't had too many lunch breaks over the past 2 weeks (and when I have, I've been spending all my time reading YOUR blogs to catch up!)

Instead of continuing to hold onto some pictures I've taken in the past 3 weeks, I figured I'd just to a quick run through today before my lunch hour is up!

Here is the completed Eggplant Infinity (made scarf with THIS pattern) and Hat which was given to a co-worker on her last day

This black hat is identical to the Eggplant one above and was given to my friend Amanda for her birthday, I was only like 2 weeks late too :-)

This awesome tower of cotton (my apologies for the HORRIBLE cell phone picture.  This is proof of what can happen when you race to take pictures at like 7 a.m. on a cloudy week day morning!) was purchased at AC Moore back in September at prices that were close to them paying me to take it out of the store!  Okay, so there were $3-something a piece but considering how much I'll be able to crochet with them (and potentially sell finished projects like spa cloths for Christmas gifts) I'll definitely be making some $$$

Some time as been spent on a Christmas gift that I don't want to share until it's completed...

Yesterday morning I had the "crochet bug" and spent a couple of hours on the couch crocheting while enjoying my coffee* and catching up on some of my TV shows.

First I finished up this:

I'm officially ready to do dishes this holiday season!

I then took this stuff....

and made this!

is that "punkin'" not the cutest thing you've ever seen?  Seriously I can't get enough of it's cuteness!  I actually wanted bigger pumpkins for my Autumn decorations so this little guy came into work with me today and was donated to our dept holiday decorations.  It's a hit.

The "square" that the punkin' is sitting on is the start of another Timeout Cowl - this one is for my Mom's birthday next month.  It's now about double the size shown above, but no additional pictures have been taken.

*2 updates on the food-front:

1. If you're a fan of Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Lattes, try and find International Delights Pumpkin Pie Spice creamer.  With good coffee and Splenda I think it takes JUST like a Pumpkin Spice Latte!  This is going to save me loads this fall!!
2. I made Megan's Broccoli Cheese Soup for dinner last night and it was a hit!  It's so yummy and only calls for 1 cup of milk.  I love this vs. many other cream based soup recipes that want you to use cream etc.  I had leftovers for lunch today and I'm ready to make it again!  We will definitely be having more of this over the course of fall/winter as well!

Happy Monday everyone!  I hope that you all enjoyed the wonderful fall weather that many of us had over the weekend :-)

Could you do me a favor?

Voting has begun on Maybe Matilda's Crochet-a-long Cowls!  Click HERE to vote - you have until Monday to help determine the winner...

It would be AWESOME if you could vote for me :o)

Happy Friday everyone!  Have an amazing autumn weekend!

Finished cowl - completed CAL

I spent my evening crochet time working to finish my cowl for the CAL that Rachel has been hosting.  This was a fun crochet-a-long to participate in for a couple of reasons:
1.  nice lengthy, detailed schedule to help us all along (it was also great that Rachel took the time to teach those who had never crocheted before)
2.  easy pattern to pick up and put down throughout the CAL
3.  great pattern for everyone to really make this their own! It's great to see how the creative juices flowed while yarn was selected and length was determined, etc.  If you check out the link above there are photos to all the cowls made - they're waiting for voting to begin on Friday (i.e. on Friday, click on the link above and vote for my Berries cowl!!

I don't mean to brag but how CUTE is my cowl?!?!  It looks 100 times better around my neck then folded up on the table

Start voting for me on Friday k?  I'm going to put away this early made Christmas gift (thinking I'll make a matching hat of sorts in the coming months)

Also - GO YANKEES!

oops

I was just thinking back to my first and most recent Granny Square projects and wanted to link a picture to my comment here.  I realized that I don't think I ever posted about said blanket, so I looked in the photos on my phone and found not 1, but 3 (well 2 1/2) blankets that I didn't post pictures of!

This was my first Giant Granny Blanket which was made given to my Momma for Christmas.  Seems there is no completed picture of this one either (I'm becoming a bit of a failure at picture taking it seems!)

Below is what I started last spring for myself.  I wanted something for reading on the balcony on cool nights.  I picked "beachy" colors for thoughts of summer days...

This is all the further I got before I decided that I wanted to make my Grannie a blanket as a thank you for hosting my Bridal Shower in April.  Below is what I made her - I apologize in advance for the world's worst pictures for a finished project

The center is not white, that's the flash....it really is a square but for some reason thought that hanging this off the ironing board half crumpled in my parents kitchen was a good place to photograph my hard work.  It was likely the morning of my shower, I had probably just finished weaving in those damn ends and was racing to get it wrapped - typical.  I'm assuming I had just finished ironing my dress!

This one was to show off my scalloped border - first time I've done that on a blanket before! Love it!

I wish I had a picture handy of my Grannie with the blanket at the shower.  She loved it and still does!  I talk to her twice a day and she's always telling me how perfectly the colors match the flowers in her gardens (she LOVES to garden!)  I never get tired of hearing how much someone loves a gift that I made them.

Moving past Granny's (and my Grannie) - I don't think I ever gave you more than a preview for this little guy

 This car seat blanket went to my friend Paula's little boy Sam.  I LOVE this pattern!  It's the 2nd one I made and gave away.  The pattern is from one of my first crochet books and I just love the idea of a smaller blanket for the car seat that doesn't get all nasty and dirty from dragging on the ground!

Here's a close up of the detail as well - I love the braided cord detail that's added at the end.

I can think of 2 more blankets off the top of my head that I made in 2011 that I've never photographed or posted .  One is 100% completed and lives at my house (Jonathan's surprise Christmas gift last year) so it'll be easy to photograph.  The other was a gift to my MOH that it's 100% done, so also at home with me, waiting to be finished.
I'll add these to the list of "need to post" photos that I'm still holding hostage.

Happy Hump Day everyone!

How needs to eat anyway?!?!

Who has time these days for a lunch hour?  Not me that's for sure.  Recruiting has slowed down just enough for the year end process to ramp up!  This means I take pictures of my crafty progress in the mornings, never take my lunch hour, go home, rinse and repeat.  This equals no posting of updates on current projects, finished projects or the frustration that comes when trying to get from start to finish.  Yes, theoretically I could post from home at night, but bite your tongue!  That's my crocheting time :o)

I have 5 completed projects to share.  I only have pictures from one being held hostage on my phone by my lack of free time these days (other photos include the blocking process for finishing this project which are now dated and useless).  One is finished and sitting on the coffee table waiting for it's close up.  The other 3 need their final ends woven in for the photo shoot.  Then the frustration came last night during DWTS - I started and frogged something around 5 times before getting frustrating and pouting about it for the rest of the night.  This is what happens when I try to make something for myself.  I either can't decide on the yarn, pattern, etc or I HATE my attempts at knowing how to produce something great.

Hope to have a fun filled posted filled with the photos of my recent finished projects!

Happy Anniversary!

Yesterday marked the 40th Anniversary of the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World, Florida.  Disney is a favorite destination for Jonathan and I - we love the Magic Kingdom, and I just can't get enough of Cinderella's castle!  I'm sure getting engaged there and wearing the Cinderella wedding dress have a lot to do with that! :o)  Wanted to share a few memories from our Disney trips - 3 trips in 2 years has meant a LOT of memories:

5 Year Anniversary - August 2009

Engagement - October 2010

 the actual proposal

Mickey's Not so Scary Halloween Party

Honeymoon - August 2011

"reenactment" 10 months later <3

On a crafty note - the weather this weekend is my proof that it's time to start some fall (and Christmas!!) projects!  For now, it's time to  - Happy Sunday!!