It's almost March!

Wow, can you believe it? Crazy times! On Friday I will be celebrating my fifth anniversary with my husband. Then on Sunday, we'll be piling into the car with the baby and my MIL and heading out to Tennessee to see her parents and then my dad and stepmom. First road trip with the baby. It's going to be a very, ahem, interesting, experience. Especially for a road warrior like me. But we are planning to break the trip up and expecting to have to stop at least every two hours or so, and also expecting that we will have minimal, if any, control over how long this thing ends up taking. I think that's as prepared as we can be, so hopefully it will go well.

Anyhoo, as promised, here are the photos of the February swap squares I sent my sister. Only one new square for this month. It is the Tricolor Square from, where else, 200 Crochet Blocks for Blankets by Jan Eaton.


I think it's fair to say this block is actually the centerpiece of the blanket, but I won't say more because I still want the final picture to be a surprise.

Here's the complete block:



This week I just focused on Yoshi. I got his head done and started on his body. Here's a gander:


I think overall what I love about this project the most is that he really actually looks like Yoshi. I wasn't too sure how it would turn out. I think it's safe to say there may be a few more Nintendo-themed blankets in my future.

I'll focus on Yoshi again this week, but I am not going to be taking him on my trip. There are just too many skeins of yarn involved with this one, and it's gotten to the point where it's big enough that I just don't think it will travel well.

So instead I'll have two small projects to take with me. The first is going to be my attempt at a Gir beanie for a friend of mine. A while back she posted a link to someone selling one on Etsy (here) and I thought to myself, well that doesn't look so difficult. So I am going to give it a try.

Here is a photo of the hat that I will use as my inspiration:


I do plan to make my version without using paint or felt though--crochet and stitching is the way I want to go.

I also want to make a blanket for that same friend's baby, who is a few weeks younger than my kiddo. I'm going to try my hand at the Bearghan posted on Chris Simon's page. Though I plan on using much more traditional bear colors--shades of brown with some black thrown in.

I'm not going to push myself to get these projects done while I am out of town, but I think that I can, so that is my starting goal at least.

I probably won't have a post for at least next week, and maybe not the week after, so I hope everyone's March get's off to a wonderful start.

Until next time,
C

Ah, that pesky thing called life...

It just keeps getting in the way of things, doesn't it? My daughter hit six months this week. She's at this awesome point where she's starting to get playful and really wants to interact. Just last night she figured out how to "kiss" back--her Daddy and I always blow kisses at each other and at her, and now she has figured out to smack her lips and make a little "pop" sound whenever we do that at her. It is spectacular.

The downside of this, of course, is that she is only so patient with me putting her on the floor to play so that I can crochet, which is one of the few things I haven't yet figured out how to do while still holding the baby. I'm really not complaining, because I wouldn't miss any of this for the world, but it does mean that I am not getting nearly as much crochet done as I would like.

That isn't to say I haven't gotten any done, however. I got my sister's swap squares done and mailed off this week. Once I have confirmation that she has received them I'll post photos for you.

I also did get three rows of Yoshi done. I actually only have one row left of his head/neck and then it's on to the body.

Here's a shot of what he's looking like these days:


And, just for a size perspective, here he is with a six month old baby (future owner of this blanket):


Right after I took this she started trying to pick up his spikes (the orange squares). Seriously, so awesome.

Anyhoo, I have a few other projects lined up, but I think I will save them for our road trip in a couple of weeks and I am going to focus on Yoshi until then. I am past the halfway point and am really feeling motivated to power through on this for the moment.

So that's where I am at. I hope you are all doing wonderfully.

TTFN,
C

Oh it's been a crazy week.

After I finished my hubby's Valentine's Day socks, I kind of hit a crochet roadblock. I did get my mother in law's thank you socks done:





The pattern is the In Your Shoes Ankle Socks by Pam. I used up another skein of my Sock Ease (Lion Brand) yarn in Taffy for these. I haven't gotten to gift them to the MIL yet though, for reasons I'll get to below.

I had to put the Yoshi blanket on hiatus while I was getting these socks done--I was having issues finding the time to work on them. So after I got these done, I managed to make one row of Yoshi.

I finished the socks on Wednesday and got half a row of the blanket done that evening. I had planned to finish that row and get at least another half a row done on Thursday. The Powers That Be had other plans though, as at noon on Thursday our power went out due to the snow--yeah, Wednesday night through Thursday night we had record snowfalls down here in the DFW area. Oh joy. I would like to add at this point that one of the reasons I moved to Texas was actually to get away from this kind of weather. I told my husband if this kind of thing keeps up, we're gonna have to head further south.

Since, with the power out and a baby to entertain, I didn't have a whole lot I could do, I did actually manage to finish the first row of the blanket while the kiddo was having tummy time. Yay! Then, the power came back on right around two in the afternoon. Double yay! By that point I was just a bit stressed out and had resolved to take the rest of the evening off crochet-wise. This was probably a good idea. At about 9:45 p.m. on Thursday, our power went off again--and this time it didn't come back on until about 1 a.m. Saturday morning. Sigh.

We stayed at home Thursday night because it was almost bedtime anyway--but we were so stressed about the baby the whole evening, and also, it was freaking cold, that we ended up staying at a friend's place for most of the day and during the evening Friday. As I was already carting a baby around, as well as all of the stuff I thought we would need for her (and packing it all in the dark), I didn't even think to pack any of my crochet stuff up.

We got home yesterday morning to find the power on and I really almost cried I was so relieved. I am such a creature of habit, and this thing just threw me completely out of my element. Less than pleased Cori, to say the least. I just haven't felt like tackling any more crochet since then, though.

This is not to say it was a totally horrible weekend--even though the MIL couldn't come out Friday night because a) we didn't have power and it would have been weird for her to watch our kid at someone else's house, and b) she lives 45 minutes away and we weren't going to let her drive out here in that mess anyway, we did still end up going out for our Valentine's Day dinner at P.F. Chang's on Friday night, we just took the kiddo. She was very well behaved and we had a really nice time. My hubby loved his Valentine socks, too--he wore them last night and gave them his stamp of approval.

Today we met up with my step-sister that I haven't seen in about 11 years (and her boyfriend) for lunch, and that was a lot of fun. She's doing officer training down in San Antonio and her bf lives up here in the metroplex, so we decided to get together while she was in town visiting him. It was good times, and we plan to do it again the next time she is in the area.

Also, the MIL is coming out tomorrow afternoon to play with the baby, and we'll take her to dinner since her birthday is Thursday, so I'll get to give her the socks I made then, along with her actual birthday present. So, yeah.

I am taking tomorrow "off"--no chores or crochet--to hang out with my husband and baby, but I will resume my regular routine as of Tuesday. My first project on deck is the February sister swap squares. Then back to Yoshi.

Anyhoo, that's all I've got. I hope you all have a super week!

Warm Feet = Love

At least, they do in my house. So part of my hubby's Valentine's Day present will be a new pair of house socks.

After many starts and frogs and starts and frogs I finally came up with a pair that I was pretty happy with. Here is the result:


Hopefully he will be happy with them as well! I used a fairly simple pattern, Ribbed Socks by Linda. This is actually a very quick project, I just had issues with yarn and with which pattern I wanted to do, and with finding time to work on them without my hubby seeing, which is why I had so many issues getting them made. Since they are more about being comfy than being pretty, I used just basic Red Heart yarn. I did modify the pattern a bit (of course). I only did the ribbing effect (achieved by sc in back loop only) for the cuff of the sock, rather than the whole thing. I had a pair of house socks made from this pattern for a while (wore them out), and I remember the ribbing feeling a little weird on the bottom of my feet.

The Yoshi blanket is rolling along nicely still. No picture this week though. I also started a second pair of socks last night. They are a thank you gift for my mother-in-law because she is going to watch the baby Friday night so the hubby and I can go out to dinner for our V-Day celebration. Mmm, P.F. Chang's here we come. We were trying to figure out if we could go see Miranda Lambert at Billy Bob's also, but she doesn't go on until 10:30 and I don't know if I am up for being up that late or gone from the baby that long. I may have some clinginess issues still...

And finally, in other news, I discovered a while back that Red Heart makes a sock yarn, Heart and Sole. I have made it a personal mission to find all washer/dryer friendly sock yarn that I can, so I thought I would give this a try. I got my first skeins of it yesterday, in Toasted Almond, which is a nice mixture of browns. So I am looking forward to getting to try that out.

That's all I've got for you guys for now. It dawns on me I need to get started on my February swap squares soon, but they will have to wait until after the MIL's socks are finished.

Hope you all have a wonderful week! Enjoy your Super Bowl Sunday!

2010 Swap

Hello! As promised, here are the details of the 2010 Square Swap my sis and I are doing. Yay!

As previously mentioned, we are each doing our own thing and suprising each other this year.

For the squares I am sending my sister, what I did was to actually design a blanket, made up of 48 small squares, that will be sent to her in 12 blocks of four. Then she can have fun assembling them!

Funnily enough, she is doing something similar, she designed a blanket as well and I will get to figure out how they go together.

The blocks I chose, all but one, come from the book 200 Crochet Blocks For Blankets, Throws, and Afghans by Jan Eaton.

The first block I made used three different kinds of blocks (out of five total in the blanket).

Here they are:

First up, Square #15, the Corner Square.


Second, this one I improvised, I will just call it Chunky Stripe Square.


And the third square is # 6, Textured Bluebells.


Here is the assembled first block of squares:


So there's the first chunk. I may not get to the next round this week, but I will aim to have it in finished and in the mail by the end of next week.

Also, I got the first square by my sister in the mail today, and it is gorgeous!



And that's all I've really got for you today, folks. I have a busy crocheting week ahead of me, so I am off to work on that. Have a great one!