Granny Squares and Babies

I may not have kittens napping on my projects, but little people seem to find their way there!

Done!

Wrapped and waiting for her birthday :)

New Project

Laura's birthday is coming up in a couple weeks and since she loves baby dolls (and really doesn't need another one) I am making her doll a blanket from my scraps. I love the colors and almost wish it was full size for a lap blanket! I think Laura likes it too- she keeps trying to all it out of my project basket. Stinker...

OK, Here's the Update

So here's my current cross-stitch project. I think it's probably a lifetime project, given that it's taken me most of this year to get just this far... As you can see, I have the southern regions of Africa, and much of Australia already done. Also, on the top right corner there is Indonesia!!

Here's a close-up of the main islands. Sumatra is the pink on the left. Java is to the lower right of it - in brown. Borneo/Kalimantan is above it in green. And it's hard to tell what all that brown stuff on the right is.

Here's a very crumpled up paper of what it's all supposed to look like when it's finished.

And here is just one of 40-some pages of pattern! I've done three so far, plus a little bit.

A close up of the pattern page. It uses 130 colors!

I had the fabric and all the floss sent from America. The fabric is HUGE. It's like 30 inches by 24 inches or something, and it's 20 count.In the evenings when I'm at home (not such a common occurrence), I'll put a movie on, and add a few stitches. It's slow going, but it'll give me something to do with my hands for a good long while!

Plenty of Excuses

...but since March?? I have no idea what happened in March that derailed my blogging. I find moments here and there to do little projects, but I haven't remembered to take pictures. The summer was spent painting most of the house (which I put up pics on my other blog) and then I spent October in Michigan while Brian was sent to Texas to babysit a plane being painted (a ginormous 787 Dreamliner being bought by AirIndia) and then November was small groups from church meeting at our house every Monday (which means I spent the month picking up toys and cleaning constantly) and hosting Thanksgiving since we were unable to go back to Michigan.

I am working on a granny square lap blanket for a family friend. She loves buying baby clothes and has practically clothed my children! It's a small thank you for all she's done... however, this is all I've been able to do since May!! Ah!

And your excuses... pbthhhhhhht. Isn't cross stitch the epitome of spinsterhood? I'd love to see a progress shot. I miss you too :/ - this was a blast to keep up with you on here. Do you need another yarn shipment? Probably wouldn't be until after the new year, but I can certainly pencil it into my to do list. I wish there wasn't a whole ocean between us, it would be awesome to have you over for coffee and needlework for an afternoon. Once a week. or more. Until you're sick of me and convinced you never want kids of your own... haha.

I hope you have a great Christmas break (break? what's a break? I have a vague memory of what that is...) and come back refreshed, sunburned and full of blog posts of adventure!!

Banana, what has happened to our blog? I know for me, I have not been doing so many things with yarn lately. I undertook a huge cross-stitch project this summer. It's a world map circa some year a long time ago. Also, I am super busy period, so I never make anything with my hands anymore.

I don't know what your excuse is. I mean, you only have two kids under the age of three, and both our moms had more than that and managed to live to tell the tale.

At any rate, I miss our little forays and project sharing. And I miss you. So I just thought I'd tell you. : )

Hats

I had a couple evenings where I HAD to put my feet up after painting (who knew it could be so darn exhausting at 8/9 months pregnant?) and decided Laura needed a hat to wear home from the hospital. So I made two. I have no idea which one she'll wear....

Hopefully Not a Disappearing Act

 

With a new home comes much work! I think every surface of this new house needs paint... thankfully a lot of my 'spinster' projects were finished before we closed. Now onto the world of home improvement! I am excited, but holding back temptations to pull out the sewing machine just yet.... probably should paint the girl's rooms before sewing curtains!

Granny Square Baby Blanket

I have a love/hate relationship with this blanket.... I love the colors and how it looks, but it truly is a learning piece that I'm going to have to go back and try to fix. When I made it, I had never been taught to weave the ends in, just to knot where I finished or joined other yarns. Yikes! There are a lot of knots coming undone and I may have to replace those squares... I also learned the hard way about joining the squares together. I would finish a square and single crochet it to another to form strips, and then crocheted the strips together. I made a second granny square blanket for my niece and found that if you crocheted the rows together, then crocheting back across the whole blanket ( I should draw a diagram) it holds up better over the long run, and looks better. I didn't crochet through both loops when joining the squares, just the back one, so it almost makes the squares look like 'tile' with 'grout' lines!

I love the blue and white.

You can see I'm still not perfect at getting the blanket perfectly square. I did a simple single crochet border around the edge, I think three rows?

You can see in this picture how crocheting just the back loop instead of going through both gives each square a nice definition...

This is the back of the blanket, definitely not as pretty as the front, but it works. 

Cat Tested

Cat approved.

I just had it sitting on the desk there, waiting for a time when I could add a few rows, and black cat took advantage of the situation and made herself right at home, it appears.

So I’ve had this other side project going on basically ever since I taught myself how to crochet. I’m making a ton of hexagons, and I want to tessellate them into another throw or blanket or something. I’m not sure what yet, but I don’t have enough yarn. This yarn does need to all be the same weight, because each hexagon has to fit perfectly with the next one. I laid some of them out and took a picture. It’ll end up looking something like this:

But I think the red is kind of photobombing everything. I have two shades of green, two shades of blue, cream, and then the few red hexagons. I like the pizzazz (for lack of a better word) that they add, because about 95% of the stuff I own is blue, green and/or white. But I’m just not sure about that red... I definitely don’t have enough of the right yarn to take this project very far now – I’m mostly just working with scraps of Wal-Mart yarn. But mom will probably be sending a birthday box in a few months and I can make requests. Any suggestions for colors that would balance this out??

Also, I’m not really sure how to attach all these hexagons to each other nicely. Have you ever done anything like that? Thoughts??

New Year, New Beginnings

Happy New Year, Anna!

So I decided to start the blanket over, being more aware of the length of each row. It’s still not perfect, but so far each row has been 103 cm, give or take 1 cm. Not too bad. And since I unraveled the last one, I have lots of little balls of yarn already cut to the correct length! Since I sit and crochet a lot at school while I’m monitoring study halls and things, this means I don’t have to carry tons of yarn with me everywhere!

The only trouble I’m having with this one is that the first row I made pulls down on one side. Not entirely sure why, but I’m leaving it for now and hoping everything will balance out in the end?  And if not, I can always rip it out and try again! This one project could keep me busy for years!

BTW, I love having floors that come in perfect 30cm x 30cm squares. It really helps me keep things lined up properly!

What have you been up to so far this year??

Christmas

Well, Anna, Christmas is upon us in every hemisphere. And I'm going to Bali. The thought of bringing my yarn with me did briefly cross my mind, I'm not gonna lie. But who wants a sandy, sweaty scarf or blanket?

I did rip out all of the blanket I started and I'm starting over, trying to control the tenseness (or whatever it's called - I'm having one of those forgetting English vocab moments) of the string as I go. I'm gonna see if tightening my hold on the larger yarns and relaxing it a little bit for the smaller weighted yarns helps. We'll see. My first big experiment!

I gave my helper a scarf I crocheted a couple months ago. It was the first real thing I made (besides a hot pad when I was like 8). She loved it and listed off all the places she's going to wear it to this holiday season. : )

So anyways, my fingers won't be crafting up anything for the next couple weeks. Hopefully you're getting to spend time with lots of family and to be pregnant and barefoot in the kitchen where you belong (wink) so you won't miss me too much. And I'll be busy reading books on the beach, so I'll also try to not miss you and our little blog too much.

See you next year!!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

(Another fun language fact: Selamat = Happy/Merry. Tahun = Year. Baru = New. Selamat Tahun Baru = Happy New Year. But.... Tuhan = Lord. The first New Year I was here for, I kept wishing people "selamat Tuhan baru!" Happy new Lord? All I can say is it's a good thing I'm cute...)

OWLS!

I have two American friends here who are kind of obsessed with decorating for Christmas, crafting things, and owls. So I ended up over at their house basically all day yesterday making owl ornaments for their sad little version of an Indonesian Christmas tree, which is actually a potted plant from their back yard. But if you are at all into owls, these are fun and supercute to make. The pattern is on my Pinterest under the board “sudahlah”.

I did end up putting eyes on the one on the left. It was 11 o’clock at night at that time, and I thought I didn’t feel like it, so I just stuck some pushpins in. But then I realized that it looked like stoner owl, so I gave it some black beady eyes too, after the picture. The blue one is positively my favoritest of all!

PS - As a random sidenote, the Indonesian word for owl is "burung hantu" - ghost bird. Fitting, no?

So Far

Anna. Nanna. Banana-wana-fo-fanna. Help me. My blanket currently looks like this:

I got it to where I really like all the colors, and that left edge looks impressive for a first try if I do say so myself – BUT WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE RIGHT SIDE?!? My blanket is a TRAPEZOID! After the first 3 rows, it starts pulling in. But only on that one side? I don’t understand it.

Is it because of the different weights?? I’m afraid that if I just keep going, it’ll be like 6 inches wide by the time I finish. But I don’t know how to back up and correct it. It’s not like I’m missing stitches anywhere or putting less in each row. Is there a magic secret that can help me?? Teach me, oh guru.  The life of my first blanket hangs in the balance…

Budding Crochet-er

Someone else in my house loves yarn too....