Its been a long week

Sorry for the lack of updates this week. I've been really busy at work and feeling slightly under the weather to boot, so there hasn't been alot of hooking going on.

Since the little monster was staying over her dad's house on Friday night, I thought I would get alot of crocheting done this weekend. I've got some baby blankets I want to make, and make some progress on Christmas gifts too.

My body said "haha, think again!" After a nice 8 hours of sleep, I woke up on Saturday for a whole 2 hours and then crashed again for a 3 1/2 hour nap. Even with such a long sleep, I was still tucked into bed by midnight that night too. I'm feeling really fresh and rested now.

I did get a teensy bit of hooking in. Here's the Clutch bag fron SnB. I still need to line it, but I'm really happy with the way it turned out. I used a simple black acrylic yarn (TLC Essentials) and some left over blue gingham ribbon I had lying around from a previous project.



I'm also about halfway done with the poncho that I had originally frogged. With luck, I should be finished with it by this coming weekend. I'll post a pic of my progress sometime this week.

I'm off to go see High School Musical on ice...wish me luck. The little monster is obsessed with High School Musical. I think some aspirin and earplugs should get me through. :)

Full Moon

This isn't craft related, but...

I woke up in the middle of the night because I felt a light shining on my face. It took me a minute to realize where the light was coming from...the moon! It was a nearly full moon (the full moon is tonight) and it was shining right through my window. I could see it perfectly without getting out of bed.

I was amazed at the brightness and near perfection of it...it really was a beautiful sight. I went back to bed with a feeling of peace and calm. Its little things like this that really hit home and remind me of the beauty of God's creation.


Edited to add: Sharkmeat mentioned the Mid-Autumn festival in the comment section. You can learn more about this here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Autumn_Festival

Ribbit Ribbit

I was working on a poncho for one of my co-workers for the last few days. As of yesterday, I was 3 skeins into it and had quite a bit done. I decided to try it on and see how it looked. Hated it! The stitches just didn't look right (even though it was a simple DC pattern) because they looked really stretched at the end.

Also (and this is the worst part), the points of the poncho were starting to point in different directions rather than down. The front point was headed to the left while the back point was headed to the right.

This is where the debate in my head started...do I frog it? Or do I convince my co-worker that this weirdly pointed poncho was the newest style. I could convince her...sure...ummm...maybe not. My powers of persuasion are good, but not that good.

My sweet hubby confirmed that I should probably frog it and start over again. I'm very lucky he's willing to listen to my crochet babble and actually give helpful commentary. He's very supportive of my hobby (addiction) and even supports the ridicilous amounts of yarn purchases I make. I digress...

So, I frogged the entire thing. *sigh*

This does have a happy ending though. I found another poncho pattern that I like *much* better! Its made with shells and I love shells!


On another note, this past Friday, my hubby and I went to the PTA meeting at the little monster's school. First, its sad how many parents did not show up. I'd say there were 10-15 parents tops!

Anywhoo...the principal was trying to come up with fundraising ideas for the school year and I thought, why not a crochet class? So I offered to teach a beginner's crochet class for a few weeks at a small fee that the principal can decide on to raise money for the school. My daughter's teacher offered some left over yarn stash for the class to practice with too! Me thinks this is a good idea...I'm helping the school while doing something I love!

What do you think should be the project I work on with this class? A simple pot holder? A scarf? Anyone? Bueller?

Hope you all had a great weekend!

Look who's learning to crochet!

Heehee! I can't begin to tell you how the concentration on her face makes me giggle.

Nice Matters Award

Lesalicious nominated me for the Nice Matters Award! I was really surprised, since my blog is only a few days old. Thanks Lesa! Lesa has some great sewing skills and the cutest little girls ever!

I'm supposed to go ahead and nominate 5 other bloggers. Not all of these are crochet-related (and I only know 4 other bloggers that haven't already been nominated, so I'm a bit short).

The first is Chelle of Luv2Crochet Her designs for little girls are amazing!
The second is LadyLinoleum of Monster Crochet I've been reading her blog for some time and love her really original and crazy designs.
The third is Sharkmeat She's not a crafter, but a good friend.
The fourth is ArtemisJade Also a really good friend. She's the most empathetic person I know!


:)

To cancel or not to cancel...

That is the question...

I have physical therapy tonight and I don't want to go.

For those who don't know me personally, the back story is that I sprained my right ankle in early May, but it wasn't severe and I was back on my feet pretty quicky. Then in early June, I fell down some steps and re-sprained the right one, sprained the left one, and sprained my back. Go me! If you're going to do something, might as well go all out, right?

Since the right one hadn't been fully healed from the first sprain (it normally takes 8 weeks), it is totally jacked up. Since my back was sprained too, I had alot of sciatic nerve pain and was in bed doped up on vicodin and anti-inflammatories for 2 weeks. Its been more than 3 months, but I'm still wearing an ankle brace and have alot of swelling. I'm walking pretty normally, but going down steps still hurts.

When I first saw my therapist, he asked me why I was there. I told him I didn't want cankles, LOL. Therapy is ok but I don't know how much its really helping.

I think I'll skip tonight and just go during the weekend. Bad me!

Onto crochet stuff...

I made another one skein scarf in that wool blend I mentioned a few days ago, only it took two skeins. The skeins were only an ounce and a half each. I love the feel and texture of this yarn! And look at the awesome color bursts!

Catching up...

Today’s post is going to have a lot of images. I’m trying to play catch up and post pics of the projects I’ve done over the last few months that I actually have pictures of. I tend to forget to take pictures of the things I make and give away.

The first is the Short and Sweet from SnB. I’ve changed it quite a bit though. I wanted it to fit my litter monster, so I changed the hook size and used Caron Simply Soft. I also wanted it to hit her waist, so I lengthened the bottom of it.

Once it was all done, she decided that she didn’t like that it didn’t close. I tried explaining to her that it’s a bolero and not supposed to close. No good. I offered to add ties so she can just make a bow and be done with it. Again, no good. So I added a button and a strap that loops through one side of the bolero, loops back around, and closes on the button. I’m not thrilled with the way this looks, but she’s happy with it.

The pattern itself is gorgeous and I think it looks like roses, especially since it was done in this pink color. It was challenging but fun to make.

This next picture is of the little monster again. I made her this tank top over the summer. I made up the pattern myself and can’t remember what yarn I used. I worked from the top down and added the straps last. Can you tell she likes pink?

Look at the goofball face! Gotta love her!

This next pic is of a pillow I made for one of my co-workers. She and her hubby chose an uncommon name for their baby, so I thought it would be nice to make her a personalized pillow. Its big enough to be a body pillow since the baby’s name is long, but I really like the way it came out.

For the lettering, I used a graph from this site http://www.crochetkim.com/patterns/perbaby.html. It was made in Lion Brand CottonEase. Sooo soft and nice to work with. The rest of the pillow was made with fleece and whipstitched together.

Now onto Edgerydoo madness. First, let me say I love this tool. Its very simple, but cuts my time in half for making fleece items with crochet edging.

This blanket was made for Project Athena, which donates blankets to preemies. That is a charity run by Pi’s girl scout leader. Her own granddaughter, Athena, was a preemie, so she started this group to help other preemie families.

This blanket is also an edgerydoo blanket. This one measures 36x42 approximately and was made for another co-worker who just had a baby this past July (there must be something in the water here…everyone is pregnant!).

Last, but certainly not least is this blanket I made for my dad as a Christmas gift. He asked me for a blanket in 1998 or 1999 with a Puerto Rican flag on it. I couldn’t find a pattern, so I just gave up on it for a LONG time. Finally, last year, I whipped out the graph paper and created a design.
The afghan turned out way too small (more like a lapghan). Give me some credit…it was my first graph design ever! So I just added a border around until it was a good size. He loved it, even with the chunky border. One day I’ll go back and correct the size, so the flag part makes up the entire afghan.

Whew! That was exhausting! Hope you had fun looking!


Oh yeah, if you have a minute, go rate me at Crafty Crafters. The purple link is on the right side of my page.

I've been tagged for the first time!

Riohnna at http://mytangledthreads.blogspot.com/ tagged me!

OK, here are the rules:

Once tagged, you must link to the person who tagged you. Then post the rules before your list, and list 8 random things about yourself. At the end of the post, you must tag and link to 8 other people, visit their sites, and leave a comment letting them know they've been tagged.So,,,, here we go!!

8 Things About me...

1. Though I can be loud and outgoing, I love having quiet moments to myself.

2. I'm a bookworm and will read just about anything put under my nose.

3. I have a good job and have had a great education, but lately I have a strong desire to have babies and stay at home with them.

4. I'd love to have as many children as God blesses me with, even its that 12!

5. Though I grew up being called Catholic and went to Catholic school, my family never practiced. I came back to the Church after some struggles and realized that God is always present in my life.

6. I love to bake but can't cook. Baking so much around the holidays promptly added 6 pounds to me.

7. I love NYC, though I want a nice house in the burbs one day.

8. I'm scared to drive on the highway and will only do it if my husband is with me.

My 8 choices...

Well, I don't know 8 other bloggers yet, so whoever reads this and wants to play, consider yourself tagged.

Look at my fat bottom!!

Fat bottom bag that is!

This project is also from SnB (you’re going to be seeing a lot of that). This one was made for one of my co-workers and it is huge! Instead of using one strand of Lion Brand Cotton like suggested, I used two strands and increased my hook to a K. I love the size and was tempted to keep it for myself, haha. I’m really proud of the lining. I’m not much of a sewer, so this has been really good practice at hand sewing and I think its not too bad. I did make a FBB for myself but it is much smaller and in a violet color. Very cute for going out.

Please excuse the ugly office chair.

On a non-craft related note, I wanted to talk about this plant.

My little monster gave it to me for mother’s day. Anyone who knows me knows I have a black thumb. I usually kill any plant within a matter of days…even a cactus that I over-watered once. I’m talented that way.

When she gave me this plant, it was very small, with one pink bloom and came in a small plastic pot. I stuck it on the windowsill and watered it when I remembered. About 2 weeks later, the bloom died and I thought the inevitable was coming.

Boy was I wrong. Even though the bloom died, the plant kept growing! I switched it to a bigger pot that Pi and I painted on mother’s day. It kept growing and in June sprouted another bloom. You must be wondering why I’m babbling about this, but really, this was amazing to me. Not only did I not kill a plant, but it was thriving!

When we moved in September I was pleasantly surprised to find that our back porch has plant hangers. I threw the plant in there and forgot about it for the most part (we had rain, so it didn’t need watering). This plant must love the sun because in less than two weeks, it now has 3 full blooms and has sprouted a bunch of buds. It leans toward the sun and has grown even bigger.

This really makes me happy! I’m keeping a close eye on it now because the weather is cooling down and I want to make sure I bring it inside before we get a frost. The days have been in the 70s and the nights in the high 50s/low 60s and so far it is doing fine.

There must be something wrong with me because I have a bigger sense of accomplishment with this plant, than when I earned my master’s degree.

My winter mission is to keep this plant alive.

One Skein Scarf

I picked up the SnB: Happy Hooker book from my library a few weeks back and I love it! Sometimes I stare at it lovingly. Ok, not really, but it is a pretty darn awesome book.

Here is the first project I tried from the book: the one skein scarf. It actually took less than a skein for me! I've got enough left over to make a matching hat or headband. This one is made with Lion Brand Homespun yarn. The yarn is chunky and a bit difficult to work with, but I was so happy with the end result. It was super quick too. I finished it in 2 days worth of subway rides (yes, I measure time this way).




Forgive the quality of the picture...I took this pic with my cell phone. My digital camera is...somewhere. If you've seen it, let me know. Its gray, square, small-ish. Very distinguished looking, eh?



I'm currently working on another one skein scarf in a yummy wool/nylon blend yarn from Joann's. Its chunky and soft and full of these great girly colors. In love. :)


Oh, and I wanted to mention that I've got 3 girls at work crocheting now. One had learned as a kid but hadn't crocheted in ages and the other 2 had never learned. I'm proud to say that they're all doing really well. Spread the madness!

A blog? For me?

Hi! I'm Christina and this is my blog.

I've always been late to jump on the technology bandwagon. My friend Nikki can attest to this. It took her a long time to convince me that online bill pay is not dangerous, evil, stupid, pointless, or just generally wrong. Something seemed so ...off about not having to write a check. I digress (already!)

Blogging is no exception to my technology lateness. After some thought, I decided starting a blog would be a good idea so I can (a) keep in touch with friends who have moved far away and (b) show off some of my crafty goodness. Its also nice to have a place where my grammar can be horrific and you can't say a thing about it!

So you want to know a little about me. Really, why? Stalker! Just kidding. Have I mentioned my humor leaves something to be desired? No? Well, there, its been mentioned.

Well, I'm a wife, mom, and Catholic.

My world revolves around this little monster, who isn't really little anymore. Her name is Piper and she's 7 years old. She's part angel, part evil-genius. I love that kid. My husband is pretty fab too. :)

I'm mainly a crocheter but I dabble in other crafts from time to time. I've been crocheting since I was 14 and its been a great hobby (obsession) for me. Its relaxing, fun, and I end up with cool things when I'm done. Sure, people look at me funny when I'm on the subway with my hook and needle, but that's half the fun. Its no good riding the subway if someone doesn't think you're nuts.

So welcome to my little world.