Runaway October

So, is a crochet-a-long really a crochet-a-long (CAL) if no one else is cro­chet­ing with you?

When I saw news of the Lion Brand CAL pop up in the blog-o-sphere I knew I wanted to par­tic­i­pate, espe­cially since most “A-Longs” are for knit­ters. The pat­tern selected was for a sam­pler afghan, which is cool because it might have kept my atten­tion. Of course I don’t have much of a yarn stash so I had to wait to get yarn until the spouse was in an agree­able mood. I decided on using a Bernat Berella “4” in a nice heathered gray. Typ­i­cally I steer very clear of acrylic yarns, but it was on clear­ance. By the time I had every­thing together I real­ized that I was already weeks behind on the CAL. 

The orig­i­nal pat­tern turned out to be 10 blocks each of three dif­fer­ent pat­terns. Meh. I decided to ven­ture on my own, so I picked up Basic Cro­chet Stitches — 250 Stitches to Cro­chet by Erica Knight.

The book is well writ­ten and dis­played. It gives a brief intro­duc­tion to sev­eral basic stitches and how to read cro­chet­ing dia­grams. It doesn’t cover every stitch used in the book, so I have had to go look­ing for some of the more obscure ones. But so far so good. As I near the end of a cur­rent square, I become anx­ious to start and learn a new one. With 30+ squares in this afghan it’s essen­tial that I keep interested.

This color is more true to the actual color.

I def­i­nitely want to get my hands on more of the Har­mony Guides, such as The Har­mony Guides: Edg­ings and Fin­ish­ing Stitches: 250 to Cro­chet,

and The Har­mony Guides: 101 Stitches to Crochet.

They even have some inter­est­ing look­ing knit­ting books — The Har­mony Guides: Cable & Aran Stitches: 250 Stitches to Knit. I do love a nice cable.

I fig­ure that if it comes out nicely I can give it away as a Christ­mas present, and if it doesn’t… well, the boys wont mind a few wonky squares as long as it’s warm and snuggly.

Oh! And what post is com­plete with­out pic­tures of my helper?

Thanks for read­ing.

What projects are you cur­rently work­ing on?

Okay, so, things have been quite busy here. Some good things, some bad things. Lots of pictures.

Where to start.…

Rowan now has two teeth and judg­ing by his level of irritibil­ity it seems he may be pop­ping out a few more. The first one was super easy and I didn’t even know it was hap­pen­ing. What a trooper huh? He’s been wear­ing his Amber Teething Neck­lace and just looks so cute in it! We call this his pirate face.

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We recently spent a morn­ing at Agri­topia with Grandma Ann and were blessed with an over­cast sky. Sadly it was humid enough to induce a full body sweat film, but we still had a good time. The food was won­der­ful as well. Rowan just adored the grass.  We don’t have a sin­gle blade at our house, because it’s a crappy rental. Declan loved being able to run wild while we sat and ate — Oh, to be a two year old again. Notice the shorts D is wear­ing? Made ‘em. Yep. I actu­ally made some­thing for a boy. Not as easy as you think.

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I com­pleted my Chromium Star Afghan for a very preggo friend, though it didn’t come out as expected. I don’t have the time, or the heart, to frog it and start over. It ruf­fles in cer­tain sec­tions, as you can kinda tell here. Before it ruf­fled so bad it wouldn’t lay flat. This is after wash­ing and block­ing. The points also curve but I kinda like it that way. I asked the pat­tern cre­ator for help a cou­ple times, but have got­ten no reply. If you break the star into sec­tions — you should see ten here — the sec­tion that goes from the val­ley to the peak ruf­fles up, like there’s way too many stitches. I’ve gone over the pat­tern time and time again and can’t fig­ure out what I did wrong. Any ideas?

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I opened an apple for the kids the other day and the seeds had started to sprout. How cool is that? We popped them in a lit­tle pot and look what we have now. One is a marigold and the leafier one is the apple. Funny how they start out the same size. The apple was organic and local grown so I’m hop­ing that it’ll will actu­ally grow since it’s most likely not some funky kind of com­mer­cial hybrid.

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My biggest news is that Matt has fully given me his bless­ing to really move on an Etsy bou­tique. I’d like to make some income from it, but Matt will be happy if I just cover the cost of all my fab­ric. I cre­ated a pat­tern for a sim­ple lit­tle jumper and match­ing dia­per cover and used one of my favorite girly fab­rics. It came out awe­some. I even made some labels that will make do for now. But then dis­as­ter struck! The reverse but­ton on my machine just kinda popped out in my hand while try­ing to do the last two but­ton­holes. I would have been fin­ished. But no! Matt’s mom had given me her old machine, so I can use that for straight sewing, but I can’t get the but­ton holer to work.

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Stu­pid me, I marked the but­ton place­ment on the out­side of the dress with an indeli­ble marker not think­ing I’d have an issue. Grr. Now I have a cute lit­tle jumper set that I can’t sell until I fig­ure out the but­ton­hole idea. I was so so so happy to be get­ting some­thing rolling. It’s cute though, no? Would you buy it? Well, if it was finished?

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I think I’m going to have my labels made by Spoon­flower. The ones I made myself were on muslin with fab­ric paint and I really like the soft­ness. No one wants those itchy pokey tags. Now I just need to come up with a logo and make all the ban­ners and avatars for my bou­tique. Any one want to help? I’ll make you cook­ies and water­mel­on­ade!

I’m think­ing of pay­ing some­one to do it for me. Maybe I should look into busi­ness grants? Any­one want to help fund my ende­vour? Or buy a new sewing machine!?!

Com­ments guys! I live for com­ments!! Seriously.