She's here, she's here!

Sorry for the late post, but I've been kind of distracted this week. One of the best distractions ever to be sure. Last Monday at 12:42 p.m. my baby girl was born. So I've been spending the past week loving her and trying to figure out what to do with her and visiting with all of the family who has been in town to see her. Everyone has gone home now, sadly, but that just means that now the real adventure begins.

Meet Sylvia.

I am pretty sure she is going to end up with brown eyes like her mommy--they are a real dark slatey blue at the moment. But if she ends up with blue eyes like her daddy that's certainly okay too. She already takes after him quite a bit.

See, one sock off--that's Daddy's trademark:

Anyhoo, so, yeah, that's me at the moment. As far as crochet goes, I have a project in the works. It is the Flower Box Blanket from the March/April 2009 issue of Crochet Today. Here's a shot of the pattern for the square used in the blanket.

I've got seven and a half of the 56 required squares done. I am thinking it might take me a while to finish this one since I've got some other stuff on my plate at the moment (insert big grin here), but that's okay. This blanket will feature all of my scrap yarn from other projects and should hopefully make for a nice bright colorful afghan when done.

Anyhoo, hope you are all doing well! I will update as I can. Now it is nap time!

Update.

Well, no baby yet. I have been in the early stages of labor since yesterday morning (oh yay for 22 hours of steady contractions) but the hospital has sent me home twice already. At least the second time they gave me some Ambien so I had a chance of sleeping at least a little last night. Sigh.

Fingers are crossed that my water breaks sometime in the very near future so we can get this party officially started.

Anyway, no pictures for you today but I did start a new afghan this week. It is the Flower Box Blanket by Candi Jensen and appeared in the March/April 2009 issue of Crochet Today. I really like this pattern because it is basically just a granny square with a little flare.

My mom and I also found a really nifty little yarn store in my area this week as well. It's called Jenning Street Yarns and you can check it out here. Mom got a few skeins for socks that are really cool. I abstained from buying anything because I want to get this flower box blanket out of the way first--my primary goal with that is to put a serious dent in my leftover yarn from other projects. But it was definitely a nice little store and we had a lovely chat with the owner for a bit. I will for sure be going back in the future for my "fancy" (read: non-acrylic) yarn needs.

Well, that's what's going on with me this week. Now I am gonna go get back to the whole trying to have a baby thing. She is very clearly on her way and just as clearly taking her time, so keep your fingers crossed for me!

Thanks! Until next time,
C

Countdown...

One week to go folks--in theory anyway. The doctor seems to think the kiddo will get here pretty darn close to the due date, so my fingers are crossed.

I am pleased to report that my mom (and her kitties) made it in safely last night. We have been entertaining ourselves watching the various cats collide.

It should be a pretty busy week, regardless of when the kid shows up. We've got plenty planned to keep us busy until that happens. Hopefully we'll get to do a tour of some of the yarn stores in the area, so that will be fun. We are definitely going to try to go to the zoo, because I love zoos and I haven't gotten to show my mom the zoo here yet.

Anyhoo, on to crochet goodness. I did manage to finish the burp cloths this week. I only made two because I think I was getting tired of this yarn or something. But here you go:



Here's a closer look at each one:


And:


I was just going to single crochet back and forth all scarf-like but got bored with that fairly quickly. So the first one I did half that way then turned and did another chunk of single crochet at a right angle to the first part, attaching at the end of each row. Then with the second one, I started out in the round, then just added to one side, turned added to the next side, turned, added to the third, and so on. Then I did a contrast stripe and border. I actually think it looks pretty cool.

Now, these were made with basic baby acrylic yarn, so I have no idea how effective they will be in preventing baby goop, but we shall see I suppose. I do have plenty of regular burp cloths as well, just in case.

Next up I want to make a pair of socks or so and maybe some dish scrubbies before moving on to my next blanket project. Should be fun times. I have no idea when/if I will accomplish these things though. Will be interesting to find out, eh?

In the meantime, keep on trucking. Have a great week!

Seriously, where does the time go?

Good golly, Miss Molly, it's already August. What's up with that? I've only got one week until my mom comes and only two weeks until my baby's supposed to come. Wow.

Well, I did manage to get my yarn and notions all nice and organized this week, thankfully. I have a feeling future me will be very grateful to this week me for doing this. I did have an epic battle with a skein of the Lion Brand Homespun though. I really do not like that yarn. I don't know what the heck I am going to do with the almost three skeins I have of it. Maybe I will figure out something to do with my giant speed hook that I've never used... We'll see I guess, that's a thought for later anyway.

I did manage to get started on a burp cloth from the leftover yarn from my recently finished baby blanket. Didn't make too much progress because my hands keep getting tingly. Ah, the joys of pregnancy. But it is progressing. Might be done before the baby comes. I am not using any set pattern, just a size F hook and single crochet. I've made it 40 wide and will just keep going until it's long enough then do a border with the variegated yarn.

That's really all I've got going on. I don't know how much crocheting I'll get done today, because I am definitely going to be finishing the last Harry Potter book, which I started last night. I forgot how hard that book is to put down. The last time I read it was the day it came out, and I do mean that I read the entire thing the day it came out. Could not put it down. But, I did get a decent stockpile of DVDs in this week, so hopefully I'll be able to make a few hours a day to pop those in and work on crochet projects, and therefore progress will happen. I also need to do my August swap square this week.

Speaking of swap squares, and the fact that it is now August, here are the July squares my sister and I made. The pattern was the Pinwheel 12" Square which you can find here.

This is the one I made:


And this is the one my sister made:


Ooh, I am getting excited to see how the finished blankets come out. I almost got ambitious and started piecing my existing squares together this week, but I want to wait until I have them all so I can put them in the niftiest arrangement possible.

Well, until next week, take care everyone!