Category: Crochet

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Creature Comforts – Day 31, the Eye-Blinding Poncho of DOOOOOOM!!!

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Eye-blinding poncho of DOOOOOOM!!!

Wow is this thing bright!

 
I had hoped to finish this incredibly cushy poncho today, but I spent all day doing Girl Scouts volunteering, including running a recruiting table at the school open house and coordinating and attending Scout Sunday. So, I didn’t get quite as far as I wanted to.

However, I did get a lot of crochet done, and I only have 5 rows left to do. I may do them tomorrow morning, just to finish off this piece before diving headlong into the next theme.

I’ve decided that February theme will be “CATS,” which may not seem all that this month’s theme, since we all know cats are creatures of comfort, but I have a few specific cat-themed projects I want to get done, and since one of them is for Princess’ birthday, this will be the best time to do them.

I’ll talk more about it tomorrow. Right now, I’m beat. Good night.

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Creature Comforts – Day 30, Easy Patterns and Chunky Yarn

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Ripple poncho!

Hurray for quick and easy projects!

I realize the colors on this crochet project look a bit jarring, but trust me, they work together beautifully. I know this because I once dyed my hair these two colors, and I looked FAB!

Anyway, I think I'm over whatever bug I had earlier in the week, but now I am in the midst of a very busy weekend. This morning was 2 hours of black belt class at the dojo, followed by an intensive house cleaning. That was followed by an evening working with Princess and a group of her school friends. The girls were working on a painting for the school auction coming up in a few weeks. Things went well, but there's nothing like a gang of hyper pre-teens eating pizza and slinging around acrylic paint in my freshly cleaned living room to set my teeth on edge.

To soothe my frazzled nerves, I picked up my biggest crochet hook and set to work on a simple project. This poncho I'm working on only has 15 rows, and it's made with very chunky yarn. I'm already through the first third of it, and I expect if I get up early tomorrow, I can get through the rest of it before I have to pack up and head out for the rest of my busy weekend at the kids' school and church. The school is holding an open house and wants Girl Scouts represented there, and then we are celebrating Scout Sunday at the evening Mass, followed by a reception with CAKE and LEMONADE. (And I just now realized I forgot to buy the lemonade mix. Yay, one more thing to deal with tomorrow.)

So I'm thinking maybe I can get this poncho done by Mass tomorrow evening, or at least keep it with me to calm me down between stints of being a responsible Girl Scout volunteer. I plan to spend Monday avoiding anything that looks like responsible activity, but for tomorrow, I must be good. Blech.

Good night for now. I'll let you know how this all goes tomorrow.

 

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Creature Comforts – Day 29, Kitten Cuddles

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Kitten Cuddles!

She is my constant couch companion.

 
I took another sick day today. I did feel better today, but deliberately kept my activity level low key. Even so, I had to get some volunteer work done today, both for Girl Scouts and the school. That kept me off the couch most of the day, but while I was on the couch, a certain fuzzy orange someone kept me company.

I’m not sure when Marmalade decided the couch and its occupying laps were her domain, but anytime anyone sits on the couch, she’s there, right in the lap. I can type on top of her, draw webcomics on top of her, and crochet entire blankets on top of her. She will not move. She is one with the lap and the couch, and she’s probably happiest that way.

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Creature Comforts – Day 27 & 28, Sick Days

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Yesterday afternoon (Day 27 of Creature Comforts), I started to feel a little less than stellar. By evening I had a pounding headache, aches and pains, and an upset stomach. I managed to do the bare minimum of work – crocheting together another strip of granny squares for the monstrous blanket of doom. 

Kittens and blanket

The kittens did their best to make me feel better.

 

I decided to sleep late – very late – this morning, and spend the rest of the day doing as little as possible. So I curled up on my beloved couch and did a little more work on the blanket. Then I decided that was too hard so I switched to drawing instead.

 

Sick Day Drawing

She looks better than I feel.

 
Really, this is more tracing and coloring than drawing at this point, and since I find those to be comforting activities, I’m including this drawing in Creature Comforts. I did the pencil work on this earlier in the week then transfered it over to Concepts on my iPad. I think I’m going to spend more time mindlessing coloring in tomorrow, since that’s about all I feel like doing. I’m still not 100% today, and I have a ton of volunteer work to do this weekend, so I’m taking another sick day to recover and I will get done whatever I get done. I’ll try to show the results tomorrow, if I’m feeling well enough. Good night for now.

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Creature Comforts – Day 26, Survival Mode

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Glorious Granny Squares!

Granny squares ready to be added to the blanket.

 
Ladies and gentlemen, I have officialy entered “survival mode.”

I know I’ve already mentioned that this is the time of the year that is hardest on me. I have 3 volunteer jobs in Girl Scouts – troop leader, troop cookie coordinator, and school representative. This is the time of year when all 3 of those jobs collide. This weekend we’ll be celebrating Scout Sunday at the church associated with our sponsoring school. As school representative for Girl Scouts, I’m one of the volunteers responsible for coordinating this event and the reception afterwards (as well as being one of the volunteers who helps set up the training sessions for girls who want to earn their religioius badges and emblems). I’ve already had 2 meetings this week for Girl Scout volunteers, for a total of 5 hours spent in meetings in the last two nights. Initial orders for Girl Scout cookies have to be submitted this week, so I’m working on that. Cookie booth site selection was this evening, so I’ve now got 6 cookie booths coming up between end of February and mid-March. And the school is having an open house the same day we’re doing Scout Sunday, so I have to man a table for Girl Scouts at that event, then get the school cafeteria ready for the Scout Sunday reception, then sit through Mass (yes, it’s “Drag Your Buddhist to Church” day again!), then help run the reception all on the same day.

And so naturally, today I broke out in hives and had a flare up of joint pain.

This is the time I hunker down and look at all the things I have to do, and I start to pick and choose my battles. I felt great yesterday, and I did ALL THE THINGS that I had on my to-do list. I felt lousy today and did only those things I absolutely had to do, to-do list be damned. The only crafting I got done today was to weave in the ends on some granny squares for the blanket. And that was it. There was no time or energy for anything else.

I hate days like this. But they are a fact of my life, especially at this time of year. Fortunately, I decided to be conservative in my booth selections, so we’re only doing one booth on any given day. But I still have two weekends in a row where we’re going to have Friday, Saturday, and Sunday all tied up with Girl Scout stuff. Somehow, I will survive.

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Creature Comforts – Day 24, A Woman and her Couch

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Pillows and Blanket!

I am creating the coziest place on Earth!

 
This is my couch. I have had this couch since grad school, which was almost 25 years ago. We replaced the couch cushions on it last summer, but little else has changed until now. The pillows I had originally made for the couch all fell apart. The various afghans my mother made for me have all been stolen by my children. But the couch abides. It is my couch, and I love it.

Three years ago, I tore my right ACL and meniscus cartilidge, and as a result, I spent almost 6 months straight on my couch, first recovering from the injury, then the surgery, and then the physical therapy. I realized then that I never wanted to be parted from my couch, and that my couch deserved the best of everything I could ever give it. I’m just sorry it’s taken me so long to make my couch such nice pillows and a blanket. The blanket should be done by the end of the week. The Jake pillow was just finished today. Next month, I may add another pillow, a cat bolster, perhaps. I spend a lot of time on my couch, and so it deserves every luxury I can give it.

Yes, I love my couch. Of course, I also love my bed, and it’s late, so I think I’m going to go there now. Good night, couch!

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Creature Comforts – Day 18, More Granny Squares!

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Ugh. I know what you’re thinking. “Isn’t she done with this stupid blanket yet?!” Uh, no. And I apologize for yet another post about the granny square blanket of DOOOOOOM. But I am almost halfway done with this monstrosity. Take a look! 

Granny squares!

Three rows assembled and another in the works!

 

I did not get to work on the Jake pillow today because the Hubster decided to fumigate the house all day. Everything had to be moved and cleaned and sprayed and let dry and then put back and so the whole house was in an uproar all day. Fun times, I gotta say.

Anyhoo, good night for now! Hopefully I can get the Jake pillow done tomorrow. If not, then MORE GRANNY SQUARES!!!!!1!!!

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Creature Comforts – Day 16 & 17, Blanket and Jake

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Once again, I have to stuff two days into one post. January and February are brutally busy times for me, thanks to Girl Scout Cookie sales and Scout Sunday activities. I can get the daily challenge work done, but sometimes I get it done so late at night that I’m too tired to write up even a short blog post. So here are the efforts from today and yesterday!

First, an update on the giant, monstrous granny square blanket…

Granny squares!

Granny is looking good!

 
That’s two rows of granny squares stitched together. The hardest part of this project is weaving in all the ends. Each square has ends to be woven in, and then when I stitch individual squares together to make a strip, I have to weave in those ends as well. That’s a lot of work. However, I spent most of yesterday at a science fiction convention with the kids, and that actually gave me plenty of time to get these two rows all stitched up.

Now here’s today’s work…

Jake the Dog in progress!

I love Jake the Dog!

 
This is the second pillow I’m making for my couch. I love Adventure Time, and I especially love Jake, so I had to make a pillow of him, because you just KNOW he could be a pillow if he wanted to.

I’m going back to work on the granny square blanket. Hopefully I’ll have more of that and of the Jake pillow to show you tomorrow.

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Creature Comforts – Day 14, Granny Squares!

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I took a day off from sewing to do some more work on the granny square blanket. 

 

Granny Squares!

I’m slowly piecing this together!

 
In my mind, this blanket not only qualifies as a “comfort” item; it’s also a “creature.” Or rather, a “monster.”I started this blanket last year, when I 64 granny squares. That’s a lot of granny squares – 8 different colors, 8 blocks each. It took me forever to make them, and once they were all made, it was summer so I just put them aside for later.

Now I’m finally stitching them all together, and I’m discovering that no two squares are the same size. They all have the same number of stitches, but the size varies (sometimes a lot) between the squares.

What was I doing when I made these granny squares? Was I drinking heavily? Possibly. It was Girl Scout cookie season when I started this project. Maybe I accidentally used two different sized hooks to make this, or maybe my gauge wasn’t quite as consistent as I thought it was. Whatever the reason, I don’t care. I’m stitching this blanket together anyway. I know it will be lumpy and misshapen when I’m done, but it will also be comfy and cozy and that’s all I care about. I will do a better job on the next blanket. But for now, I just want to get this monstrosity finished.