Thanks for the memories

Well, as you can see, the pattern is still a work in progress.

What isn't is I actually own a new gas range. This was the result from making plans over a week ago to bake for the Thanksgiving holiday, giving me and the two elementary school age girls I'll have in my house, plus the ever-so-much-of-a-help 2 year old something to do. Can we say cookies and pumpkin pie? Yum. Anyway, those plans can only work if the oven works and it suddenly wasn't and began sending up a gas stink in it's decision. I found this out when I was trying to bake supper and we both were a little cranky. That led to a Sunday trip to Sears (who I have moderately forgiven after the fridge fiasco 2 years ago) which led to the purchase along with a new range vent because our current range vent sounds like a B-52 with speed issues. That's only when it decides to even come on. No kidding. We have to yell over it.

The appliances weren't here for the holidays but thanks to Mom's oven (it does work even if it is across town!) the pumpkin pies and cookies were still made. I also have the ok to use Crochet Queen's oven if I ever need to and she lives only 5 minutes away. The things you find out when something breaks...

Now to eat all the pumpkin pies. I'm actually not hungry. Freezer, maybe?

Thanksgiving was lovely and I finally finished Phase 1 of the Christmas presents. It's a bummer I can't post the pictures because the people haven't received them yet; I really want to show them off. I promise to after Christmas! Right now I have a Ravenclaw scarf and hat to knit for Hubby's friend's sister-in-law. I had forgotten she had hired me to do that, oops! This close to Christmas too! I've done these before several times but I'm still reworking my pattern as I go. The first 1-3 stages of those scarves I knitted evolved a pattern I really like but it still wasn't totally working for regular use. Hopefully this one does and there will be a hat pattern to match. My goal is to finish them both by Wednesday and move to Phase 3 of Christmas, plus finish the quilts when they come back from the lady who is machine quilting them for me. I CAN post those when I finish them!

Try, try again

Still working on the Helmet Hat pattern. Attempted to upload it through my documents here on Google and it's not working as a link. Hmm... let's see what else I can do.

Rounds all around

... and it is done! I finished it Tuesday and lovingly sent it home to the Crochet Queen via her husband who is the best handyman in the WORLD!!! Thanks to him I have a hall light that turns on and off from BOTH ends of the hall, a closet ceiling no longer threatening to cave in, and a link to another guy who does seamless gutters, thus eliminating the slight flooding of our front porch every time it rains hard. This is Louisiana. It rains. And it rains. And then it rains some more. We would like to utilize our front porch double rocker without the complimentary shower, thank you very much. Now to do something about the mosquitoes...

Anyway, back to the blanket. Crochet Queen said she went on ahead and gave it to her sister the next night and she loved it. She called it her "Old lady blanket" and Crochet Queen said "Watch it!" I laughed because it was crocheted by us two and we are a long way away from being old ladies. I love the Granny Square anyway because it looks like flowers.

As you can see there was still a ripple effect in trying to block the original diamond and get the dimensions of all sides to match. There also was a "wing" effect on the ends but putting a few rows of single crochet all around helped out. The scallop edge also was more forgiving and hid any bumps/ridges left from the attempt at blocking out the edges and done in that blue was darling. I really liked how the double rows of Granny Sqaures finished out the blanket. It really ties everything in and frames nicely, even though I didn't do it on all sides.

More Christmas projects are underway and being worked on/finished as I write. I'm really excited about some of them. Now to have them all finished before the holidays hit...

Present, Past, and Past Imperfect

Things had gotten desparate. The angles were ok (and I hestitate to say that; they might seem ok to someone who had never made anything in their life and didn't have an opinion on irregular borders, i.e. someone who doesn't pay attention that this thing looks like a lopsided mass first project of a kindergartener [not a comment on you, Crochet Queen, a comment on my wacky irregular stitch decreases when I should know better]) but I didn't like it. I didn't like working on it and it, again, was taking way longer than I thought it should take. So, I made a call to Crochet Queen after putting Sgt. Cribb on pause (it was at a part I felt I needed to pay attention to anyway) and asked her if she cared if the blanket turned out in an oval shape. She didn't really but wasn't going to be picky. I told her no, if she wanted a rectangle, by golly she was going to get a rectangle, not matter what. "The blanket has gotten to you, too, huh?" she said. I didn't want to confess to my impulses to light fire to the thing, even though Crochet Queen had already confessed her sordid ideas, but I did. We had a good laugh and I told her it still would be finished and not to worry.

I had the blanket laid out on the floor and was looking at it on the floor when I decided to try something I had thought of initially when the mitered corner idea took over. I could mark the tentative side point(s) (it's flatter there so I could fudge a little), start there by picking up a stitch and crocheting rows, picking up every other stitch along the sloping side as I came to it, keeping the border side straight, and increasing 1 stitch next to the slope side every few rows. I started, fully prepared to rip it out, and guess what. It has, for the most part, worked!

So, here is the blanket. The first picture is the current progress that is (thankfully!) working. The second and third are views of the mitered corner that I thought was going to work and didn't. I posted them because I wanted to show the whole blanket and my first attempt at the corner. I'm sure I could find a way for the mitered corner technique to work if I felt like doing the math and really thinking about it but I don't feel like it and it takes to long to miter once I actually start crocheting. The top picture method is working out better but still isn't as rectangular as what would be perfect. However, it is more of a rectangular shape and will have corners, plus I'm still going to crochet a border, add a row of Granny Squares already crocheted by Crochet Queen, and then see what the blanket wants for a grand finish. I asked CQ if her sister liked frilly (I like doing scalloped trim on Granny square blankets; I have one of my own that's king sized that was a huge stash buster and preggy project to use up all my acrylic yarn I still loved but would never use 2-2.5 years ago. It would be our current bedpsread (and I would have had made no attempt to make our lovely quilt) if Hubby tolerated that sort of thing. He drew the line at Granny Squares, thus the quilt idea was born) and she said not really but her sister wouldn't care because her blanket was finally going to be finished. The scallops don't really say frilly but I'm not going to decide yet. The blanket will tell me what it wants.

I've also had some more success on the quilting front: I've found the patterns I want for the Christmas fabric I had that was unearthed in Mom's fabric stash room (yep, those dresses I was going to whip up for Bailey that never happened... oh well, she would have outgrown them long before now) and the cute cotton prints I've been collecting for some reason. I had to take both groups out of my stash drawer (more like pry the drawer open and liberate them so the drawer didn't explode at some random, inopportune time) and put them in covered bins that are now hidden, um, STORED under the bed so that I had more clear space in the lived in part of the house. They now have their plan and I'm so excited! I've told myself not to start them till after I finish everything else I've started so we are looking at 8 months from now. Let's see if I actually wait till then.

The lastest addition

So far my plans are working. Doesn't look as nice and neat because the angle on one side is different from the other but hopefully by the next corner I've got it. I'm almost through with one corner (about to turn Sgt. Cribb back on and work away) and the verdict will be made at that time.

I now have a little friend living on my kitchen counter. It's a sourdough yeast starter. It's really a fairly large friend because it's in a big jar. I showed it to Hubby, said "It's alive" and he looked at me partially in wonderment (I hope) and partially in disbelief (probably more like it) that I would take on another living thing that requires attention, feeding, and care. Right now it's happy, bubbly, and I have to stir it once for 4-7 days. Then it will be old enough to use in my bread recipes. I'm watching it to make sure it doesn't turn purple. Apparently if it does that, it's gone rogue and must be done away with.

Speaking of bread, my fabulous family, I have made a REALLY GOOD bread using pumpkin and other yummy spices like nutmeg, honey, cinnamon, cloves, and allspice. It doesn't taste like pumpkin at all and the spices only add a hint of sweet loveliness so it's a slightly sweet, moist bread that still can be eaten with dinner, not necessarily as dessert. It reminds me of those really good rolls they made when I was really little in elementary school, pre-3rd grade. I hope all of you have as fond a memory of those rolls! Expect it at the holidays!

Foiled again

Remember how I said I had it all worked out in my mind for Crochet Queen's blanket and it seemed to be fitting into reality nicely? Hah. I got down to the last 5 rows of squaring off and checked everything to see how it was shaping the blanket. Um, it was shaping the blanket but in the wrong way. With every getting-slightly-larger row it was subtly pushing the points of the blanket out, thus making this corner REALLY wide, as in becoming 1/6th of the blanket rather than the approximate 1/8th it should be. (And don't anyone go saying that when dealing with approximations and depending on how large your whole is 1/6 could actually be an approx. 1/8!) There was some consideration of still doing the other corners the same but there was concern on how the end shape/result would be, especially since the parts I was crocheting on were at a slightly tighter gauge than the rest of the blanket, thus less resistant. So I frogged it all (sniff! good-bye 2 evenings of hard work!), went up 2 hook sizes (gauge now matches), and am simply putting lines that get slightly smaller and will eventually end in the corner point. No clever little mitered corners but at least maybe the blanket will shape up normal.

Guilty, guilty

Hee hee...

So, you know my ever-long list of things to knit/make for Christmas in order to be frugal? (Don't ask me where buying the Noro Silk Garden sock yarn came in to the frugal part... maybe because it was on sale? but I'm not using it for any gifts... yet...) Anyway, I have this list and I'm working my way through it marvelous-ly and I've decided to take on one of Crochet Queen's guilt projects that has been living and loving like a kracken in her house for a year and a half. She's expecting her #2 child in a few months, is having pre-term labor, and I decided this is one way I could help. It's a lap blanket for her younger sister that she started as Christmas present, I think, and it's prolonged itself to possible gift 2 Christmas's later. In the normal theme of Crochet Queen's projects, the pattern is totally of her own devices. She learned how to make Granny Squares from me and made a whole bunch of them only to take one and start crocheting around it (again, sort of with my help because she was tired of crocheting Granny Squares and had started something more blanket-with-less-holes like and wasn't sure where to go with it) which turned into a slightly irregular long diamond. It was starting to aggravate her and I am now taking that and squaring it off by adding triangles to the straight lines of the diamond (I'll post pictures; I'm quite proud of my crochet innovation and I hope it works on all the sides. So far it's working on the first one) and will use the Granny Squares as a border, throwing in a few single crochet lines to hold it all together.

We'll see how it goes... Little Guy is still sick so all this is being done to the theme of "Charlie and Lola" and "Sgt. Cribb", but not simultaneously.

Debbie Bliss' "Rabbit with Sweater"

Here is the adorable little bunny I was dying to find a reason to knit. I found one and in the process am going to have to knit each of my children one (Valentine's Day presents!) and one for my niece (when she's old enough to not chew on it; it is chenille!). I unofficially name it Floppy for the cute ears, not in any reference to Black Adder.

The pattern is from Debbie Bliss' knitting magazine Spring/Summer 2009 listed in the table of contents as "Once Upon a Time". I totally did not use her recommended fiber because I was using this as a stash buster for the chenille I used on my "Anyone For a Shrubbery" hat (which the pattern will be posted here sometime in the future; trying to figure out how to with Blogspot). It worked beautifully as one because there isn't much needed. I tried to get as close to gauge as possible but didn't worry too much since this isn't going to be worn by anyone, just loved! I DID have to make sure the sweater fit the bunny because that was an important gauge to follow, or at least to make sure it was to the right ratio.

I don't think I attached the head quite right; the bunny stares straight up. I left it because that means it can smile into the lucky child's face when the child is hugging it and will never be tumped flat on it's face when it falls over.

Only took 2 full evenings and a morning to knit. It was well worth it, especially when Little Guy loved it so much he was carrying it around, hugging it and tossing it with all his blocks only to pick it up and hug it some more. This is a boy who sleeps with a baseball in one hand and a marble in the other only when he can't find his plush football!

Thoughts while looking at a painting 300 years old

I have never been alone.
I realize that now.
All the while
the women of my past
have been looking over my shoulder
watching as life goes
just like it did
the generations before.
And I also think
one day
I'll be doing the same
with the daughters
of my granddaughters.