Taking Charge

This is the progress I’ve made on the baby blanket. I need to work more on it. I’m about 68% of the way done, further if I don’t do the full ruffly trim on it. I haven’t decided yet if I will or not, since I don’t want it to detract from how gorgeous the blanket itself is. Today was the first time I actually laid it out to see it from the viewing perspective since I started adding length to it. It’s definitely a different perspective and it’s just stunning to look at. My mother is working on a blanket with the same base pattern, only longer and in a beautiful veragated red color. I have a couple pictures of that on my flickr account if you want to go look.

So, I have a story that’s itching to be written, but when I sat down to write it, it wouldn’t come. I got the first 15 or so words and then it was gone. I haven’t been able to write anything more than a half-assed poem since November. It’s frustrating me so much right now. I don’t know what happened to my muse and my normal writing music isn’t even working, so I changed that up and went with something else. That’s not even helping me.

I also have this blanket I want to get finished, but I haven’t done anything on it in a few days. Usually, I crochet during the race on Sunday, but that was a crazy-ass mess this week and wasn’t held until Monday afternoon and I ended up reading my Carrie Vaughn novel instead. I’m about a little over halfway through it. It seems to be a bit slower progressing than her last three were, but it’s still good. I’m enjoying it.

I’ve been out and about quite a bit the last week, so that’s kept me from doing a whole lot on the computer and at home. It’s definitely been a good thing, though. I just can’t wait until it gets warmer and I can be out of the house more. I have plans to be detached from the computer more. I need to be. I need to work on my health more.

Anyway, I thought I had more to post about, but I don’t. So, hope ya’ll are having a fabulous week.

Your item was delivered at 2:07 PM on February 22, 2008 in *place removed for privacy reasons*.

Now I wait to hear whether she likes the blanket! *bounces some*

I have 20″ done on the pink baby blanket. 15″ to go. Then trim it off. Whee.

48 / 48 centers are completed. The rest of the afghan is going to be done in two shades of green. I have a paddy green and I want to do it with an emerald green as well.

I still haven’t decided on when yarn shopping will happen. It’s a bit of an annoyance, since it means going to the city. I should likely wait until after my birthday but I don’t want to. I do intend to go to Walmart first and see what they have and pick up more white to go with the princess blanket.

Anyway. Enough yarn babble for the day. I should work on the second part of the Lapghan squares. All 48 of them. Ugh.

I have finished 30/48 of the Lapghan centers. The rest will be finished today sometime if it kills me. This means that I need to figure out the other colors I want to use for it. I haven’t decided if I want to do multiple colors using yarn I have left over from other stuff or if I want to buy yarn specifically for it. I don’t really have enough shades to do it with what I have, since it’s lighter, then darker of the same color. I have 2 shades of green that I could use. A forest green and a paddy green. I was also considering lavender and purple as well, which means I have to yarn shop for those. I have 18 more centers before I really need to make the decision on that. *laugh*

I finally decided on the pattern for the princess blanket. It’ll be done with two shades of pink and white. The center and trim will be white with the shades of pink in between. I did a sample square with the pink in the center and white for the trim and really didn’t care for the way it worked out. It was too much of the light pink. But it’s also the wrong shade and weight, so it might look different when I get the right ones. That’ll teach me to send Rob to pick up yarn for me without a specific color name! *grumble*

I’ll likely go yarn shopping Friday after Rob gets paid. I haven’t decided yet. I really don’t have any major bills to pay this week, auto-debits are deducted too, so.. Hmm.. maybe.

Today is going to be spent blogging, relaxing, watching football (yeah.. football) and maybe crocheting. So far, I’ve gotten dinner in the marinade and salad is made. I’m making honey dijon chicken and potato salad. It smells fantastic. It’s not really a true marinade, it’s just a bottle of Wegmans honey dijon salad dressing. I always use toss salad dressing for marinades, they seem to have a better flavor, especially the thicker dressings.

I’ve weeded through some of my lj icons and uploaded some new ones, deleted some old ones and redone the keywords on them. I need to get more new ones. I’ve not been making cuz I suck. I don’t like my own icons much. I also need to put up a couple offerings in blinkie_store & juicy_grapes, but I have no idea what blinkies to offer. I could offer my rose again or one of the new ones I made the other day. I’m kinda meh, though, because the boxes on the one look like something another maker has and I really do not feel like getting accused of stealing when I sat and hand animated them pixel by pixel. I’m bored with my old boxes and have no idea what to make that either hasn’t been done or doesn’t look like I’m stealing. In case you’re curious, the boxes on the blinkie at the bottom of the post are the ones I am talking about.

Right now, I’m watching the Colts game. I want to see them win today. I also want to see the Giants win (sorry trillsie) too. I was hoping the Patriots would lose last night, but that wasn’t meant to be, I guess. I couldn’t help but laugh at the game yesterday afternoon. They weren’t playing football, that was more like snowball. It was amusing to watch.

I still haven’t found the pattern I was looking for and I still haven’t decided on the pink princess afghan pattern either. I have some ideas that I like, and I’m leaning towards doing the one pictured to the left, with variations of pink instead of blue. I like the way it looks, the pattern makes you look at it to figure out just how it was made. It looks complicated and difficult, but the reality is that it’s simple. It’s just a matter of keeping track of your yarns on each square. The hardest part is going to be the color changing, but the directions give a few good tips for keeping it from being too much of a pain.

Yeah, I’m babbling about crocheting and yarn again. I seem to be doing that a lot lately. I’ve found that I spend more time away from the computer lately. This isn’t such a bad thing, really. It keeps me from wanting to strangle people. Crocheting keeps my hands busy and I can watch TV or listen to an audio book while I do it too. But anyway, this is enough babble out of me. I’m off to figure out what I want to do with the rest of the day. I should try to write some fiction of some sort, since I haven’t since NaNoWriMo.

I have a few more blog posts to write later today, but those are not livejournal posts, those are for the crafting blog I’m working on. Most of the stuff there is already here, but some of it will be new. Anyway, I’m going to go curl up on the couch, watch football and crochet square centers for the lapghan.

Have a happy Sunday, folks.

This, my friends, is the completed blanket. I finished it just after midnight last night. This is the first afghan that I’ve made and first large project that I’ve finished. I’m psyched about that. I usually get frustrated and bored, then toss stuff aside. So I’m really proud of myself for getting this done. I just need to get it packed up and mailed off to the mother-to-be. That means I need to get her address. *whistles*

This is the first hat that I made. I had a bunch of leftover burgundy yarn from an afghan my mother made for me, so I figured I would work up a hat for Rob with it. I made him model for me tonight so that I could post pictures. No, he didn’t want to. Oh well. He didn’t get much of a choice. I told him to put it on so I could take pictures, can you tell he wasn’t enthused?

My next project is going to be my first afghan for donation. I’ve started the centers of the squares the other night, but I put it aside in hopes of finishing the baby blanket first. Tonight, however, I’ve spent the night trying to find a pattern that we KNOW we have somewhere around here. It’s for the afghan that my mother made for me a couple years ago. We can’t find the book and the pattern is not online as far as I can tell. Hell, the one that I’m working on (pictured left) isn’t even available online. That picture was from an ebay auction of the pattern (linked on the image). Someone clipped the pattern from an old (1985) Annie’s Pattern Club book. I have the actual complete book. It’s been well loved. (aka beaten up and abused) My mother has made several of them and they look really cool when they’re all done and sewn together. She’s done so many color variations that it’s not even funny. I will be getting to work on the centers tomorrow or so, tho. I have 45 more to make. Then I can figure out what other colors I’m going to use.

I also have a pink afghan to work on too for a princess and one for a nephew too. Egad, I’m turning into a crochet whore! <<.<< I need a better crochet icon.

THE BABY BLANKET IS DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pictures forthcoming in the daylight.

I’m so fucking happy that it’s finished.

So, my sister had a bread machine she wasn’t using. I had mentioned that I wanted one, so she brought it down when they came for Christmas. I was excited, but it didn’t have a book, so it took me a bit to find a decent wheat bread recipe for it (thanks ). I finally put the ingredients together one day last week and set it up and such, lo and behold, it didn’t work.

Well, I got looking and found a really nice bread machine on amazon and Mom ordered it for me. We got the package today and I immediately decided to make bread. I’m so happy with it. I made whole wheat bread and it turned out really nice. Definitely easier than making bread by hand! Even if they do call me a cheater.
I sat and crocheted on the baby blanket for a while today, so I’m closer to done on that. I’m hoping one more round will be enough to do it so that I can trim it and get it shipped off. *bounce* Then I can move on to the pink and white blanket.