I'M BACK!

Yesterday was my first day back in the office, as Mrs. Weston!  Still sounds pretty funny to me to hear that (I still joke with the Mr. asking if his mom is in town ;-)  oldest cheesy joke in the book, but maybe every new wife goes through it!)

Our wedding was beautiful - even without power at the reception, we had dinner by candle light, did our first dance outdoors under the stars while our friends and family stood around us with sparklers and a smile on every face!  Our friends and family our truly amazing, and they made our wedding day just FANTASTIC!  I think each and every one of them every day since then for being so awesome and supportive that night!

from my future front yard

Mr. and Mrs. Weston

We had a blast on our honeymoon as well!  a 2 week trip to Ft. Myers Beach, Key West and Disney was just what the 2 of us needed!  Not only had we taken no time off from work since Christmas 2010, but it was the first time in 7 years that we got 2 week vacation.  And the first time where we spent the full 2 weeks just us!  I loved every minute of it - I never get tired of spending my days with my best friend <3

Now that we're back in MD, and I'm slowly digging myself back out in the office, I look forward to things getting back to normal again.  Our apartment looks like a war zone right now and I just don't have the energy yet to spend anytime cleaning after work.  Of course, traveling again this weekend just makes that harder because I'm spending these sleepy evenings on nail appointments, laundry and packing so I can make my flight on Thursday night.  Most definitely looking forward to pool time (aka nap time) on the 3 day weekend over Labor Day.

Once the pool closes and I'm able to get life in the apartment back in working order, I look forward to the time I'll have back to craft again.  I crave it frequently and I just can't always find the energy once home!  Even last night - I knew I wasn't going to clean when I got home from my nail appointment, and I spent 2 hours sitting there dreaming of coming home to crochet....well I got home and my awesome husband (!!) had dinner ready for me so I quickly changed into some comfy pants, ate and passed out on the couch!

I guess there's always tonight in between the loads of laundry for some "crafty fun!"

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

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.

Sneak Peak

I'm not ready to show any more of this project as it's so great that I really want to make an impact with the final product (if that's even possible!)

I am IN LOVE with these colors together!  I sort of wish this was something for me :o)
Need to get more blue yarn still (tomorrow night after work I'm going to AC Moore - I promise!)
My little baby hat is going to be quite fantastic as well, I just don't want to show until I have the show stopping final product!

Ok, I'm done patting myself on the back over how AMAZING I am - work is out of my control crazy today, and I really just want to publish this and have one less window open on my computer :-)

Happy Tuesday everyone, we're one day closer to the weekend!

oh MAN!

I forgot to take pictures this a.m.!  *sigh*
Ok, so to say that I was running late this a.m. would be the understatement of at least the week!  Good golly I could not get my shiz together today!  So many things I should have been doing during the commercial breaks of the Oscars....and one of them was taking pictures of what I made/was working on yesterday!

First of all.  I gave up on my "textured" afghan.  Saturday afternoon I wasn't in the best mood and had a funky feeling towards by bobbles so away they went!  I started back over with my favorite peephole chevron that I've used a lot (I just did the math to make it 8 stitches vs. 6 or 4 like I've done in the past).  I'm still using the same color combo and order as I was planning before, but haven't gotten as far yet as what I frogged.....so still no picture to share!

I'm totally not ready for babies yet, but I love baby yarn and making baby gifts!  1.  they're smaller :-) 2. the yarn is so darn soft, like ALWAYS and 3. it's all so cute!!  I've made this set before, about 3 years ago now and it was gender neutral.  I've also made a couple additional hats w/o the blanket, which was what my plan was yesterday.  As the hat was almost finished I was so in love with the "little boy blue" yarn that I was using (Vanna's Choice Baby) that I decided to make the little bar seat blanket as well!  Of course, I didn't originally buy enough "little boy blue" for this so I'm not almost out of blue, but the finished project is already looking SO GOOD!  By the way the pattern I'm using if from my fav crochet book that taught me FINALLY how to crochet almost 5 years ago now.  Sorry I can't get to an exact picture to show, and I'm not even sure what the pattern is called off the top of my head today....maybe I'll be more prepared tomorrow!

My plans had been to share my progress with you today, stop at AC Moore tonight for more blue yarn and then have a finished product to share and mail out by the end of the week.  Well, I forgot to take pictures and we're under all these crazy Tornado warnings for the evening commute which I'm not really in the mood to drive him.  Ideally I'd like to get home before the hail starts......but yea, not a very successful attempt at sharing or blogging today - sorry.

Blame the rain and my lack of sleep due to the only so-so Oscars last night.

whoops!

Sometimes the strangest things keep me up at night.  Last night I woke up around 3 a.m. laid there realizing that I hadn't linked my pattern for my new blanket here yesterday.....not exactly life and death important here, but it kept me up for a bit.

This is the pattern that I'm using for my blanket (that I'll be keeping for ME)  I did not make much progress last night.  If anyone has any tips/suggestions for making puff stitches as they are to be made on this pattern PLEASE let me know!!  I spent over an hour last night trying this, getting out my stitch pattern book and trying every kind of bobble, puff, and popcorn they talked about.  I got about halfway across the first row using a bobble (5 dc).  I like it, but of course I'm always going to have a right and wrong side to this afghan how, which I don't know how I feel about quite yet.

If someone can tell me between now and 6:30 tonight a better way to make a puff I will seriously be your new best friend!  My issue has been that by the time I get alllllllllllllllllll those loops on my hook, I find it IMPOSSIBLE to pull through 8 loops!  I've tried to do this "looser" but have not been successful.

Still no interesting picture to post....

Maybe this is why I rarely make things for myself, I over analyze to the point where I'm rarely happy with what I"m making for myself.  I'm not this critical when I make things for other people (which sounds really rude of me) but everything always turns out great and makes me wish I was keeping it for myself!

the start of something new (and big!)

I seem to be in a bit of a "funk" as far as getting going on a project since the holidays.  yes, that sounds ridiculous, it's almost March and I'm still not over all the craziness that was last minute crafting for Christmas.  Forget about getting up early to continue the crocheting to the Today show before work - most days I'm lucky if I wake up in time the shower...don't worry I've moved to showering at night and wearing my hair up  most days, I promise I don't smell funny.

I also keep realizing that I never posted pictures of Jon's finished blanket.  I finished it towards the end of January while Jon was in Belize but this is what happens when I decide to want better quality pictures on my camera vs. my phone (i.e. I never upload the pictures onto my computer so that I can share them).  In case you haven't noticed, I never blog on the weekends, I'm rarely on my laptop at night or on the weekends.  After spending 40+ hours a week starting at this box at work, I have zero desire when I get home at night.....has made some of the wedding planning a bit tricky, but I'm trying to be better and at least continue the planning at night when I get home!

So this is already getting a bit long winded.....sorry about that.  The point of my title today is that I think I didn't a bigger project to really be excited about!  I made some scarves for me in January and did finish up Jon's blanket.  Then February has been a bit of a mess.  I made the birthday presents I showed you all in my last post, but other than that all I've really done since re-organizing my yarn stash is keep wanting to make something with the yarn I've rediscovered, but never get started, finish something or have the energy for everything in between.  I just have so many great ideas while I sit here on my lunch each day.  I print patterns and go home in the intentions of making it a better night.  Then I get home, have dinner and I can't make the yarn colors work for the pattern I'm looking at.  You saw my stash, I have no good reason to buy ANY yarn right now.  So I give up, curl up on the couch with Jon and just try to relax from the craziness that is work in 2011 and wedding planning at the same time (seriously, planning a wedding that's happening 400 miles from where you work and live is more than a full time job, and I already had one of those before getting engaged) 164 days to go and every day it's always something new.  I'm trying to stay positive and enjoy it while it lasts, I'm only doing this once and don't want to look back and regret not enjoying the planning.

Ok, honestly, I'm not going to ramble on anymore about the afghan I started last night.  I have no pictures to show, it's only 2 1/2 rows and still the first color of the pattern.  It took about an hour of online searching to come up with this baby, and now I'm looking forward to working on it more and seeing how it looks in my colors of ILTY (which was purchases to be a blanket back in August....no pattern in mind other than a ripple back in August so I'm pretty happy with what I picked).

I really think working towards something bigger like this for me is going to be great.  Jon constantly expresses how much he likes the blanket I made him (honest I'll get pictures up one of these days) and I really enjoy using it.  I'm hoping to enjoy having something this special made by me for me and that this will help me pick it up each day and work on it just a bit more.

Happy Wednesday everyone!  I'm enjoying how fast the week is flying by when I didn't work on Monday....now, if I only had all the work I need to have done at this point done!