Weekend WIP

Hi everyone!  Just a quick update tonight.  Our internet is crazy slow for some reason, and I just don't have the patience to play around on here all night!

I finished up my RR over the weekend, but it's still sitting here with all those ends waiting to be woven in....looking at me wondering why I've moved on to other new projects instead.  Okay, seriously, I know the blanket isn't "thinking" anything.  Don't worry I haven't completely lost my mind ;-)

On Saturday I pulled out my Seaside Reading Blanket from last spring, thinking it would be my next finished blanket!

Very quickly this........:

Became this:

I'd been using a K hook and it was too loose and lopsided, etc. etc. etc.  So I took the time to neatly frog it and start over with a hook 2 sizes smaller.

As of last night, I'm now at this:

Yes.  I know, it still looks lopsided to me too......but I'm HOPING that it's just the angle of this morning's 7:30 a.m. cell phone photo!!!  

I really love this pattern.  The blankets that I've made with it in the past I loved when they were finished!  Only one problem with it:

Look at those ends to deal with!!!

There's more than just the different rounds too since I have all those balls from my frogging over the weekend.  And they're all squiggly from me frogging a year old project.  I keep telling myself that before I crochet anymore, I'm weaving in the ends of what I've done.....

I'm on day 5 of a migraine though so tonight is all about my jammies and catching up on some TV.  There's always tomorrow (or the day after) for weaving in ends!

BUSY weekend!

Aren’t 3 day weekends just the best?  Well, they’re the best when you’re not traveling and don’t have any big plans – that’s my opinion!

I spent LOTS of time crocheting over the weekend.  The time I did spend doing “housework” was primarily craft closet organization as yarn is officially taking over our apartment!  It’s not perfect and it definitely no longer all fits in my “craft closet” but it’s better than it was.  I’m going to work hard this year to use what I have first to eliminate some of my stock! 

I did have a small set back on Sunday morning when I lost a filling.  Everyone keeps asking me what I was eating when it happened.  “Nothing,” I say, “I was flossing my teeth and it just fell out.”  Once the initial shock wore off I’ve been fine.  No real pain, thankfully (other than the fact that my gum is a little sore after 48 hours).  It’s just annoying to have to spend so much energy thinking of soft foods to eat, taking smaller bites than I’m used to and working to keep all food on the left side of my mouth.  No joke I’ve spent most meals with my head tilted to the side in hopes that gravity will help me out:o)  I’m headed to the dentist today at 2 so while soft foods will still be in my diet for the next week, at least, by dinner tonight I’ll no longer have to worry about getting food stuck where it doesn’t belong!  Thinking happy thoughts for me that I don’t need another root canal!!!!  PLEASE J

Here’s a belated Christmas/Birthday gift that I started on Sunday afternoon and finished yesterday.  I LOVE the line of Red Heart Shimmer, and 2 strands together is just perfect for this project.  I’ll likely be making more for my site in different colors.

As for my Seaside RR….we all know I had some challenges on Saturday morning.  I am happy to report that I trip to Michaels on Sunday night provided me with a perfect match!  Turns out Loops & Threads in Heather is extremely close (if not completely identical) to the Bernat Berella “4” in Soft Heather!!  I bought 3 skeins to be safe (and will return that which I don’t need in the coming week)

 I’ve only made it around once since starting with the new yarn.  I only picked this up again last night and for a bit this a.m.  The teal stitch marker is where I changed from Bernat to Loops & Threads.  I really can’t tell the different.  Can you?  Maybe I’m slightly color blind and missing it….  PLEASE let me know, I have a pattern adjustment in my head that I could do if need be!

I also started and completed 2 small projects for my shop (well, one still needs the ends woven in and to be blocked, but who’s counting!)  I supposed you’ll all see those pictures once my site is up and running!

Sunday night we went to our friends apartment (conveniently 2 doors down from us!) to watch the Golden Globes.  I wasn’t 100% into watching…they were a bit boring I thought.  Did anyone else notice how bored some of the people looked when they turned the cameras on the audience?  It was a good time to work on my 4” squares for a project that I haven’t shared just yet.  I haven’t shared it because it’s too disorganized at this point to share.

I did make Cake Batter ice cream (gluten free, of course!) for the 2nd time for Sunday and it actually turned out this time!!!  Thanks again for the recipe Megan - turns out the kind of milk used definitely made a difference, at least in my ice cream maker!

Oh!  Debi – your square is in the mail today.  I’ll wait to post a picture until you have it.

That really felt like a LOT of work this weekend!  Sunday into Monday was when most of this was done.  I also watched almost the entire first season West Wing.  I love re-watching my favorite series when spending the day crocheting.  I only have to listen like 50% of the time to know what’s going on – much easier when crocheting!

In case, that wasn’t enough for 3 days, I just have to say how beneficial cleaning can be!  I never did find this pattern that I was looking for in the fall when I needed it.  It randomly showed up when I was organizing yesterday afternoon!  I was THRILLED J  This is probably the #1 reason I need to get my patterns in better order.  They’re just in a million places, a million different ways and I find myself unable to find what I want, or reprinting, again when I am able to find online.  Have no fear.  I’ve had the binders, etc to do this for over a year now….I just need to STOP crocheting long enough to get them in order.  The key is probably to just organize the ones I’m currently using and add to that as I go along.  One step at a time I suppose….

I’ve caught up reading all your blogs, and it sounds like I wasn’t the only one who had a great weekend!  I hope it’s a short work week for all of you as well.  I know I’m ready for the weekend to be here again J

BLERG!

Very frustrating morning of crafting (that was just compounded by my iPad deleting the post I'd already written)

Just 5 1/2 rounds to go on my RR and I ran out of yarn!!!  Once I got over the annoyance of knowing I'd started a project with yarn from my stash and would now have to buy yarn to finish it, I got online to order - just to find out that it had been DISCONTINUED!!!!  so frustrating!

If anyone knows where I can buy more Bernat Berella 4 in Soft Heather PLEASE let me know!  I've checked every website Google suggested, included Ebay with no luck.  My only last attempt to finish the pattern as written is to take a piece of yarn with me to AC Moore and Michaels later this weekend in hopes of at least finding something close in color.  Either way I may have to adjust how I finish the blanket.  No, not a huge deal, but I was looking forward to finishing it has written.

waaaaaaaaaaaah

Ok, I'm done pouting.  Well, probably not, but I'm going to go and get some housework done now.

Pre 3-day Weekend Update

Happy Friday everyone!  I don't know about you, but I couldn't be happier that this week is almost over!  Of course, knowing you have a three day weekend coming up just makes the days go by slower and slower as the week trudges on!

I've posted a recent picture of my RR to the Flickr group as a "part 1 of 2".  As in a before and after the 3 day weekend!  I just have the round I'm doing right now and then 9 more until it's done so I'm hoping to finish it up before the weekend is finished (and maybe even be on to something else!)  I have big plans to clean tomorrow, hit up Wegmans on Sunday morning and then spend the reminder of my weekend relaxing and crocheting crocheting crocheting!  I do plan to take breaks for things like making ice cream and possibly doing some laundry was well (but there's no need to get ahead of myself, right?).

I'll leave you today with a question that I'm hoping for some feedback on.  Does anyone have a preference to Blogger vs. Word Press (or vice versa)?  I've always had Blogger because it was Google and just never strayed.  Since receiving my iPad for Christmas, I've read that the Blogsy app works better for WordPress than Blogger accounts.  Out of interest I set up a WordPress account thinking I may transfer everything over but I can not figure out their layout/setup/anything!  So basically any of you who use Blogsy for your Blogger accounts and love/hate it or have WordPress and LOVE it, I'd love any feedback you can give me!  Either a comment here or an email to hljweston@gmail.com would be great!

Cold and Rainy Night

The weather here is terrible tonight.  Cold, and rainy....should have been the perfect night to work on my RR but I haven't been too motivated the last couple of days. Maybe this whole working a 5 day work week is getting to me?  Haha I know, talk about spoiled!

Biggest issue is likely that as the blanket gets bigger it takes a lot more work (and time) to notice progress made.  Here's hoping I can wake up early tomorrow and get some stitches in before work. 

Lots of good change coming for the blog and my new shop, hoping to have something to actually show for my work after the 3 day weekend. 

On a non-crafty note, has anyone watched season 1 of Downton Abby?  We found it on Netflix last night and it's pretty great!  It's on PBS and I've heard that season 2 has now started. Anyone with access to stream instantly through Netflix should check it out!  Only 7 episodes to season 1 but it's very entertaining. 

Two on Tuesday

Things that make me happy this week:

1.  Spending time with friends, laughing at the most ridiculous things (like dinner's sponsored by the letter R) :-)

2.  Sitting here at work knowing that Jonathan doesn't have to go class tonight so I may get a few quality minutes (maybe even an hour!) with him this evening

Quick Update

"Happy" Monday everyone!  No, I wasn't too thrilled to get up and head into work this morning so Happy is me trying my best to put on a happy face

1.  We just had ourselves a freak little snowstorm here in DC!  It was so balmy and nice over the weekend (highs in at least the upper 60s), but when I went to grab some lunch today it was FREEEEEEEEEZING!!!!  Sure enough the "light rain" they were calling for this afternoon ended up being snow!  It was coming down pretty hard for about 30-45 min the ground (sidewalks) are much too warm for anything to have accumulated.

 2.  Have no fear Pammy Sue - I've been working on my round ripple!!  I put in many hours both on Saturday morning and evening and even took pictures Saturday night so that I could show you all the progress I made from one day to the next (I'm terrible about blogging on the weekends....thinking about moving everything over to wordpress once I get my shop set up as I will be able to blog and edit much m ore efficiently on my iPad with wordpress).  Sadly yesterday was a total wash due to a migraine on day 4 which turned into nausea when the Excedrin finally took away the pain....I did a little work yesterday morning, but for the most part I laid on the couch looking at my work wishing that I had the energy to sit up and work on it.  Never happened.  I posted my new pictures HERE for everyone to see!

3.  Thanks to those of you who voted on my name poll for my online shop.  I'm not quite ready to make my final decision, so I've reopened the poll through this Friday in hopes that I can get more feedback!  This means if you haven't voted yet, PLEASE DO!

Let me know what you think!

one of my big New Year's resolutions this year, is to start my online shop for crafty goodness!  I talked about this some last year, but with all the wedding...well everything, I just never got around to it!

I'm very excited for this next stage of crafting, but first I need your help!  I've added a poll on the right hand side of my blog showing the list of names that Jonathan and I have come up with thus far that don't currently pop up if I Google search for them.  I'll leave this up through Sunday around noon and take your opinion into serious consideration before picking my final name.  I really have NO front runner favorite at this point!  If you have any other ideas that aren't listed to your right, please leave me a comment here of other creative 'n crafty names!

Thanks!!

Take Two

As promised, I went home and frogged aaaaaaaaall but round 1 of my round ripple.  I spent most of last night reading, trying, cursing and frogging before I finally got the hang of the pattern!

This morning I started round 8 so I'm officially past the work I lost from yesterday and you can DEF see the difference now that I'm crocheting according to Julee's pattern!  I've also finally committed the pattern to memory (plus you can see what you're doing more now that it's a bit bigger)

I do have to actually do some chores (and make dinner tonight), since neither happened last night but I'm hoping to to get to the color change at round 15 before tomorrow's update!

Oh!  before I forget, stay tuned this evening and look for my new poll I'll be adding to the blog!  I'm currently taking suggestions for the name of my online shop and will be asking for votes on the best name - maybe you're favorite will be selected!

Ever Wonder Why?

Ever have a bad experience crocheting and think, "why the hell do I do this to myself?"

yea....I had one of those mornings.

After reading Pammy Sue's post about doing a Crochet Along, I jumped at the opportunity to 1.  join :-)  2.  challenge myself with a new pattern and 3.  actually finish a Crochet Along for a larger project (for once!)  When I got home from work last night, I got my chores done as quickly as possible so that I could ask my color consultant (aka Jonathan) about what yarn I should use, post a picture of my choices on Flickr and GET STARTED!  I only got about 3 rounds in last night (of course by now it was about 9:30 p.m.) before the pattern was no longer making sense.  I opted to stop while I was ahead and just get up early this morning and crochet before work, vs. finding out I had rounds and rounds of work to frog in the daylight hours.....

I got up at 5, got ready for work and had 1 full hour to crochet before I had to leave my warm apartment and drive to work.  About 5 minutes before I had to stop crocheting, right around when I started really feeling proud of myself for tackling a pattern that's more difficult to follow that anything I've ever started (and actually completed) in the past, I found my mistake.  At each point I was doing a fptr into the fptr from the previous post.  After re-reading (or maybe maybe just reading in it's entirety for the first time) I saw that the pattern states "fptr AROUND the previous fptr"  DAMN.IT  No wonder I was missing the ribbing.....

It's very pretty as is, but you can see right where my hook stopped I did one correctly and how it'll start to rib.  Sure I could just continue the pattern how I've done it for the past 3 rounds, but that would sort of be cheating wouldn't it?  sigh  I'll be frogging tonight once my chores are done and I will make it right this time!

If anyone is curious about what yarn exactly that I'm using:

Bernat Berella - Soft Heather
Loops & Threads Impeccable - Sea Green
Vanna's Choice Baby - White (Angel)
The pattern also calls for an "H" hook, but I'm using an "I" hook as I crochet a little tightly and don't want the finished product to be too stiff.

Marie Anne - not sure why but I can't get your link to properly load onto my site anymore!!  Last week the link showed up when I copied and pasted (vs. the picture) so this week I just copied the image...of course this means it doesn't link back to your site.  If anyone knows what I'm doing wrong PLEASE LET ME KNOW!!!

all mixed up!

I'm so confused with having Mondays off from work the past couple of weeks - I just realized that it's already Tuesday again :o)

This week I'm going to give two things I'm looking forward to in 2012

1.  challenging myself with new crafts

2.  spending more time with my husband (time that doesn't entail wedding planning!!)

What are you looking forward to in 2012?

New Years Snow!

We had a green Christmas up in Chautuauqua County, NY.  Christmas morning there wasn't a cloud in the sky actually, and it seemed a bit weird to me!  We came back to Maryland on the 26th for the work week and then went back home for New Years weekend.  We had nothing much planned for New Years (we're not really into going out) so it seemed like we should take advantage of the 4 day weekend and spend some more time with our families.  In years past, we've stayed home that entire week.  We usually end up with some big snow system that hits New Years Eve and/or Day and we have a heck of a time getting out of the area to return to work in the new year.  Turns out this year was no different.

Oh Sunday (New Years Day) they started talking about a big Lake Affect snowstorm coming.  Each and every time this year that they've talked about snow coming, it ends up being nothing, so when Jonathan asked if we should leave a day early, I looked over weather.com on my iPad closely and thought, no it just seemed silly to try and beat a storm that might end up not coming at all!

Here's my parents backyard on Sunday afternoon as the snow clouds started coming in

Around 7 pm the freezing rain/snow started a bit, but just enough for a dusting on the ground before it stopped.  My mom said she woke up around 2 a.m. and looked out and you could still see grass.  I woke up at 6 and while I laid under the blankets staying warm, I heard the snow plow go by not once, but twice.  I got up and found this

They finally got snow!  Here are the "after" shots of the backyard

and here's Dad cleaning out the driveway for Mom to get to work and me to get out at all!

From Panama, Jonathan and I headed out the long way home and made the snow drive to I-86

Once we got on 86 the roads were clear and we made good time back to Maryland (even though the "long route" is about 60 extra miles and 1 more hour on the road)

The only other time we ran into the lake effect snow was on I-79 S

By the time we got to Grove City, PA you could see the grass again!


Happy New Year's everyone!  I'm looking forward to all the great things 2012 has in store for us.  My resolutions are coming together nicely, and I'm hoping to announce a big project for 2012 by next week!