Two on Tuesday

Gosh, it's been forever again since I've been able to sit down and write something to share!

I wanted to do [another] recap post before I jumped into all the plans I have for my blog in 2016, but time doesn't seem to allow for such "luxuries" so I'm jumping in!

Any of you who are friends with me on Facebook and/or Instagram know why life has been so busy the for me the past couple of months!

Lilia Louise Weston was born at 2:12 p.m. on Friday, October 9, 2015

So much more to share in future posts about the crocheting and crafting that I've done for her over the past 3 months - not to mention all the future crocheting and crafting that I'll be doing for her.  But that's for another day, when I have time to write more!

I wanted to stop in quickly today to share my first Two on Tuesday of 2016!  I used to love reading these from Debi Y in years past, along with coming up with 2 things once a week that were making me happy so I'm bringing in back!

1. my baby girl, obviously!  She's 110% the love of my life these days.  Hard to believe that she's already almost 15 weeks old.  I'm pretty biased but I think she's the absolute BEST
2. The work I do with the Lucille Ball Little Theatre of Jamestown.  You can click HERE to visit our Facebook page and read a recent article that was published about our history as Jamestown's Community Theatre.  Over the past 30 years my involvement has ranged from going to see shows as a child with my Grannie to joining the Jr. Guilders (a childrens theatre group where I was trained for over 10 years, and am still a choreographer for the group) to being cast in main productions (15 to date including: "Cats", "Boeing Boeing", "Oklahoma", "Annie" and more) to choreographing productions, to becoming a Board Member 18 months ago, to joining the Play Selection Committee to doing all marketing for the theatre for the past 18 months.  To say this is a passion of mine would be an understatement.  Please to do read about our history, it's truly an amazing place!

I hope you are all doing well!  I'm slowly trying to catch up on your blogs after spending my maternity leave with Lilia and not my computer.

Holy Moly

I know, I know, it’s been forever since I last posted….again, but it’s been a VERY busy year!

January through March, not only was I working full time Monday-Friday, but I also spent my time after work (5:15-7 p.m.) split between two different local high schools where I was choreographing their high school musicals (“Damn Yankees” and “Anything Goes”).  Then from 7:30 until 10:30-11 each night I had my own rehearsal for the French Farce “Boeing Boeing” at the Lucille Ball Little Theatre here in Jamestown.  The link above takes you to the full Facebook photo album for the show, which was an absolutely BLAST to be apart of!  I hadn’t done a straight play since middle school, with the exception of scene work in my college Acting classes.  This was the first "challenge" that peeked my interest in auditioning for the show (after the fact that the show is a RIOT).  Next came the fact that I was cast as Gretchen, the German stewardess.  I spent 6 weeks working tirelessly to master the best German accent possible.  I still love throwing it around every now and then ;-)  And the final “challenge” that I overcame during the rehearsal and performance process during Boeing was announced to our friends as follows:

A few thought we were getting another dog, but we did not!  This October, we are expecting our first baby!!  I realized I was pregnant about 3 weeks into rehearsals and was 10 weeks pregnant by the time the show closed.  Other than our parents, no one knew until the end of March about the baby’s arrival.  I had to tell my director, and good friend, a few days before Tech Sunday because my flight attendant dress could not be worn w/o the jacket without my belly starting to show (more of a carb baby that actual baby pump at that point LOL)! My counterpart in the show also figured it out one night and was great about keeping my secret until I told the reminder of the cast closing weekend.

I enjoyed every second of all the theatre work I did this spring.  I was EXHAUSTED 90% of the time and had to drag my nauseous self to every step of rehearsals that I had on a particular night, but once I was there I felt just fine 99% of the time.  I think if I’d just gone home every night after work I would have done nothing but sit on the couch like a blob feeling horribly sorry for myself!

Plus, we found out the end of May that

Our summer has been very busy.  In addition to slowly trying to get ourselves ready for the baby’s arrival, Jonathan and I are both busy running our family business, Panama Rocks Scenic Park for our 2^nd year and the 130^th year since it was founded in 1885.  We have been having a great summer so far and have seen a wonderful increase in the business over last year.  I am, of course, still working Monday-Friday outside of the Park so that we have a steady income and health insurance, and have still kept very active with marketing and choreography at the theatre.  There’s no slowing me down just yet – in fact I’m getting ready to start rehearsals next week as Choreographer for “The Addams Family”, our annual fall musical.

In June, Jonathan and I were fortunate enough to be able to get coverage for the Park’s office, and took a week off and went down to the beach.

My in-laws currently own a condo on Estero Island, Ft. Myers Beach, FL and we hadn’t been down since June of 2012.  They have decided to sell the condo for multiple reasons so this was a combination last trip before the condo sells, and Babymoon.  It was a wonderful, relaxing week on the beach filled with lovely memories of our first vacation together, honeymoon and now babymoon (plus a few other vacations in between).  We will certainly still vacation in Ft. Myers Beach in the future, but it’ll never be quite the same.

There was crocheting from my favorite spot in the world (the condo's lanai), virgin Mojitos at Doc Ford's, amazing sunsets, a growing belly, sunset selfies, LOTS of ice cream, the most incredible rental car in all the land (2015 Mustang Convertible) and a tan & growing baby bump!

Oh August 6th, Jonathan and I celebrated our 4th Wedding Anniversary.  Still hard for me to believe that we've been married for 4 years already, and yet only 4 years.  Here's a very detailed collage of pictures from us from the past 11 years that I posted to Facebook back on the 6th - you should be able to click on it to see more detail if you're interested in seeing how we've both aged over the past decade ;-)

And here are me, and the "girlfriend", as I've been calling her, at our Anniversary dinner last Saturday night:

As far as crocheting, I didn’t really do any during my first trimester.  I was too busy, too tired and too nauseous to  really have any desire to do so.  My nausea went away around week 14 and I’ve continued to putter and play with multiple different projects since then.

From July until December I have 7 babies, including my own coming into our lives (6 girls by the way and only 1 boy – GIRL POWER!!) so I have some little projects that I’ve been working on since June on that front, but nothing is actually finished.

Then, a co-worker of mine returned to work last week so I whipped this up real quick over the weekend for her baby-girl (another girl!!) to wear this fall:

This caused me to be bitten by bit of a "fall crocheting" bug that still hasn’t let up this week!

Over the weekend, Jonathan and I were fortunate enough to get a day off from the Park (first one since June 28th when we returned from the beach) and went to Chautauqua Institution for the day.  We set ourselves up for a picnic in the shade by the lake and I started crocheting this scarf:

I'm not exactly sure what this stitch is called, but after you chain your width you do a sc ch1 then skip the next stitch.  Starting on Row 2 you continue the same sc ch1 pattern with each sc going into the ch1 space of the previous row.  I half thought this was called the Moss Stitch, but the quick Google search that I just did proved me wrong.  Anyone wanna help me out so I know for future reference??

The past couple of nights I’ve been pulling out half finished Owl Hats from last fall, and some additional colors to stock pile on these for gifts & orders, and spent the past two lunch hours this week crocheting the whites for the eyes on as many hats as I can get made.

Two days progress - if you’re curious it does take me about 5 minutes per eye J

I also have the most AMAZING blanket for myself that I’ve been working on since early June.  I’m obsessed with it but don’t actually have any photographs of it to share right now – will have to be sure and take a few soon.

Last, but certainly not least, I did finally pick a pattern and yarn selection for my baby girl’s baby blanket.  I was ridiculously picky in this process but have an inspiration photo that I love, that Jonathan instantly loved, and all of the yarn just arrived earlier this week.  It’s a new to me pattern that has been making it’s rounds on some of my favorite crochet Facebook pages for some time now – hopefully I pick it up quickly!  I also have purchased multiple photo prop patterns for our newborn photoshoot with the little one in October.  I haven’t started on these yet either as I’m waiting on some clothing that was also purchased to arrived to make sure that my yarn matches accordingly.

So, as you can see, we have been VERY busy up here in our little corner of Western New York!  Sorry it’s taken me so long to post anything.  I’ll try and be better as I finish up some projects and have exciting news to share!  I still read all of your blogs, almost daily, and Pin and print loads of patterns and recipes to try!

Owl you need is LOVE

Over the summer I received a request from a good friend, and former colleague to make an owl hat for her very adorable baby girl!  She had seen pictures of the hat I'd previously made in purple (posted here), and thought it would be adorable on Elsie.  

 

Thankfully she's a patient and understanding friend, cause it took me about 4 months to get Elsie's hat in the mail!!  

 

 I just LOVE this pattern from Sarah over at Repeat Crafter Me!!  It's easy to follow, provides sizing for newborn through adults and looks totally different (at least to me) with each new color it's made in

I can't wait to find some "free" time to make a few in adult sizes.

 

I am happy to say that the finished product made it's way to Virgina before Christmas and the DC metro region is getting all this cold weather (along with basically everyone in North America!) so there are still loads of opportunities for Elsie to get lots of use out of her new hat.

Her mom sent me this picture yesterday and I just can't get over how CUTE she looks!!

Hop on over to my Facebook page today, and help me caption this photo!!

And a big thanks to her mom for letting me share these pictures with you.

Olympian Crocheting

As Olympians challenge themselves every 4 years; whether making the Olympic team, a new personal best, World Record, Olympic Record or most medals won by a single Olympian, I found myself on a crochet journey over 16 days of being glued to my TV screen.  A journey that I am sad to say is not yet complete.

I started crocheting THIS blanket about a week prior to the opening ceremonies.  The night of the Opening Ceremonies, I sat crocheting with excitement for the upcoming two weeks of sporting events that are rarely televised other than once every 4 years.  I really loved how the stitch looked, and true to my overachieving, day-dreamer tendencies I found myself thinking of ALLLLLLLLLLL the amazing things I was going to crochet, finish and blog about during the Olympics.  I mean, I was going to be sitting here there every night for 16 days – the possibilities seemed endless.  Just 12 hours later - the morning of July 28^th, after a good 3 hours of crocheting during the Men’s Road Race in Cycling, reality set in.  In all honestly, reality banged on my front door and all but bitch-slapped me because I was OUT OF MY MIND to think that this “simple baby blanket” of single crochets and skips was going to be easy……

Here was my progress around July 25^th or 26^th.  “Isn’t this going to be the most amazing baby blanket ever”, I kept saying to Jonathan while I lovingly ran my hand over the unique, blush texture”

Here we are after the first weekend of the Olympics - somewhere around July 29^th, and a solid, additional 5-6 hours of crocheting.  That Monday morning I felt horribly defeated.  I’m a fast crocheter.  With the number of hours I’d already put in by now – I’ve had other blankets DONE, or at least close to done (not looking like I just started).

The following week I started to lose steam.  We also spent the weekend of August 4^th celebrating our 1 year Wedding Anniversary, so I had slightly less time to crochet that a usual weekend

I still plugged along though whenever possible - here’s where I was on August 4^th. 

For those who are wondering, the blanket is being crocheted with a Caron One Pound in Cream and my favorite K hook.  I did make my base chain 34” vs. the finished product of 30” listed on the pattern – this meant I was aiming to crocheting “up” 34-inches…..somewhere around a completed 20-25” things really started to feel like I was crocheting backwards.  I’d crochet and crochet and crochet, chain-1, turn, and crochet and crochet and crochet for HOURS, daily and I STILL hadn’t made it to 34”.  By the second full week of the Olympics it became obvious that not only was this blanket going to be the only thing I crocheted during the 30^th Olympiad, but it finishing it by the Closing Ceremonies was worthy of a Gold Medal!

Funny side note:  One night after work while we were watching the Olympics that I announced to Jonathan that I would NEVER make this baby blanket again!  Jonathan immediately sounded  offended and hurt that I wouldn’t want our child to have the nicest, warmest, snuggliest blanket that I could make him/her.  I promptly reminded him that there are other patterns out there – our future children will not be without.  Since then I have given some thought to the possibility of being a more patient woman when I’m pregnant (probably not likely), or having 9 months to work on it vs. 1 month, or as my Mom reassured me, my baby blanket that she crocheted me is hopefully still safe in her craft room and I could use that ;-)

Here was my progress by 8/12 – I took this photo the morning of the 13^th to show “ALL” that I did during the London Olympics.  I also had to purchase a 2^nd pound of yarn the morning of the 12^th – I believe that all but about 2” of what you’re looking at above is a full pound of yarn!

I’m still working on it.  I finished the 34” – I’ve fully crocheted the first two rounds of the border – I’m less than ¼ of the way through the final scalloped round of the border – I’m exhausted.  I’d planned to finished crocheting on Saturday so that I could block it on Sunday.  Then I just wanted to finish before it was dark on Sunday to block.  By Sunday evening I was going to be happy with blocking it by Tuesday evening.  I’m leaving tomorrow night around 10 p.m. to go to Syracuse for the weekend, (I’ll be leaving straight from downtown after work to have dinner with Jonathan and then be dropped off at the airport) I’m not touching this cream monster until I return next week. 

Yes, it’s beautiful – I still love how it looks but I’M.SO.OVER.IT

Oh, and it has to be ready to be gifted on Wednesday the 29^th.  I know.  I’m a bit of an idiot for refusing to touch this blanket until I return next week – I will no doubt be up until after midnight on the 28^th finishing the border, weaving in ends and blocking, and then up long before I should be to weave in my ribbon, photograph and wrap….but you know what?  I just don’t care anymore.  I’m sick of staring at Cream

I currently have a couple of scarves that I’m working on – as something easy and mindless.  I’m about half way through the first one, thinking about making them both cowls – will post photos when they are finished – they are my travel projects for the plane tomorrow night and the hotel over the weekend!

On a happier, silly note – note only did Jonathan and I celebrate our 1 year wedding Anniversary back on the 6^th, but today is our “8 year datin' bananaversary"!  

Here is the “oldest” photo of us that I can quickly find – New Year’s Eve 2004 – just 4 months after we started dating

Our Wedding Day – August 6, 2011

I believe this is the most recent photo of us to date – May 20, 2012 – spending this much time with the same person really is the fastest way to look back and say “wow!  We were babies!!” 

That’s okay though – here’s to more years and Disney trips together than one could possibly count!

2009

2010

2011

And that concludes today's photo tour

Happy Saturday!

Did anyone watch the Opening Ceremonies last night? If so, what did you think? I could barely stay awake till the end and definitely took a bit of a "nap" during the parade of ceremonies. Glad I saw the end cause the cauldron torch being lit and the fireworks were my favorite part!

Here a quick shot of my Saturday morning as I watch the men's cycling. This blanket is officially the slowest thing I've ever worked on!

Have a great weekend all!

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!