Marvie's Crochet Corner

Mornin'

Well, I'm up. I am by no means awake yet, but I'm out of bed and I have coffee. It's freakin cold here now. We'd been warm enough here in the house to not need the heat yet for the most part. I did turn it on in the bathroom a few weeks ago, but it's a small room with no circulation and hubby shut it off right quick. The rest of the house has been decently comfortable though. Yesterday though, the heat came on. I just checked weather.com and it claims it's only 39 degrees here, though the lows for the week are supposed to be in the low 30's to high 20's at night. I know I'm a big wimp when it comes to the cold, you don't have to tell me that *grin* I could never survive in a very cold place. I'm barely going to make it here! Did you know I am only about 2-3 hours north of the Swiss Alps?? Yup. Seems there's been snow on the mountains going down that way for a couple of weeks now. I hear it will be coming our way soon. Thank goodness I have another place to smoke when the weather is nasty. I generally go outside our building. I have a chair and a table set out there, I can read while I smoke, or think about my crochet, etc. But pretty soon I'm going to be heading upstairs. We live in very old housing, that was originally German. In the attic we have little rooms, called maid's rooms. Most people use em for storage, and we do too, but we set it up neatly so it can also function as an office for me (I was doing some writing over the summer till it got to damn hot up there) and the room has HEAT, There's a comfy chair, a window I can crack, light so I can read or crochet or journal or whatever. The only problem is it's on the 4th floor and I live on the ground floor and I hate stairs. But I am quite sure I'd rather trudge up all those stairs than sit/stand outside and freeze my ass off.

Well, I'm sure that bored you to tears! Sorry about my rant lol. Wanna hear about what all I got accomplished since last I wrote? I got a lot done, really. My Yule list os complete!! Woohooooo! I made a scarf for one of my friends who is not a hat person, made the hats for the husbands, a lap blanket for the boy, and towel toppers for some cute towels I got to throw in each box. I also completed a couple of small things for my Secret Pal but of course I can't discuss that here *g* but I do think she's going to like the things I have put together for her so far.

So the blanket I made for the kiddo I made out of Caron Country Basket ombre and used my brand new Q hook that hubby so kindly picked up for me Friday. I used a plain SC throughout and two strands of yarn. It's been a while since I have seen this boy, so I am not sure how much he's grown, but he's taller than my son I know for sure. So I used my own legs as a guide, it's not unreasonable to assume the kid is as tall as me now. I managed to make the blanket in two evenings! A record for me, even a lap blanket generally takes me a week. I really love this Q hook! I added a short fringe to the edges of the blanket, just to give it a finished look. I started adding an edging but hubby poo-pooed that idea right quick, said it looked to feminine that way, leave it plain he said. Well... NO. So It got fringe. It's also not the colors the boy wanted, he wanted blue (dark) with a touch of red. Well, I have a ton of red and a touch of blue, but I just wasn't prepared to make a red blanket, not sure I could stand to look at it for that long lol. Plus, he's a very active kid, blue would be more calming than riotous red. So he got the yarn hubby had picked out for HIS blanket *g* It's still blues. And I know he'll be happy anyway. Though I now am going to have to make his little sister one. I just don't have any soft enough colors for her, even with all the yarn I have. She's very feminine, has light blond hair and blue eyes and is 6 years old. She needs something girly. When I have something suitable, I'll make her one though.

Let's see, what else? Oh, the scarf I made I used RH Fiesta Jewel and my N hook. DC all the way. Finished it in a night, fringe and all. I gave that one nice long fringe =) I love the colors in it. There are so many colors! She can wear this scarf with anything she owns pretty much.

The hubby hats are just plain old black skullies. Nothing fancy.

The twoel toppers gave me no end of fits. I have a couple that were made by one of my "foster" moms (long story there, no I wasn't a foster kid, just seemed to aquire mom type figures in my life after my birth mom died) and the pattern was very simple. Problem was, even though she showed me how to make them, I forgot the process. I knew it involved towels, yarn, a hook and a yarn needle, the whole thing made with DC, but the process was lost to me. So I grabbed one of her towels and managed to count stitched and re-create it. I went online and found patterns. Some called for attaching the yarn to the towels then crocheting, others called for sewing on after the topper was made. I tried both ways. I'm terrible with math, and the patterns mostly said to sc 44 stitches, evenly spaced across the top of the towel. Well the damn towels are 15 inches wide. I grabbed my calculator and did some math, could NOT figure out how to fit the required 44 stitches in. I tried, it came out funky. Eventually I gave up and suffered through just sewing the damn things on. They looked much better that way anyway. I just REALLY hate sewing. Really. It seems I have magnetic skin, therefor, all needles and pins are strongly attracted to sticking their pointy ends into my tender fingertips. I think I got all the blood out of the towels. If not, my friends will just know how much I love them ;-)

So what am I planning next? Damned if I know! There are so many things I have patterns for that I want to make. Hats, ponchos, shawls, slippers, mittens, cat toys, a couple of afghans.... the list is endless. I actually had to get a bigger three ring binder this weekend for all my printed patterns! So I think today I will dig through them and pull out a few. I want to make something for me. I also want to get started making a few things for the thrift shop. I know small things will be more likely to sell than big things like afghans, so I'm thinking hats and scarves and things like that. Minimal time involved, which is a plus. It's definately the right time of year for them! Plus, there are few choices here on base, so all the kids and parents are going to end up with the same hats/scarves etc. which leaves little room for individuality. Not to mention, it's easier to tell which is your heathen on the playground if they aren't all wearing the same three or four hats the PX sells.

Well, I think I am semi-awake now. I think I'll shower and start my day. Gotta figure out what to take out for dinner, vacuum the fur bunnies up, do the critter chores and all that mess.

Have a wonderful week!!

posted by Marvie at 2:05 AM