How ’bout I give you the moon, instead???

Both photos taken with my Canon dSLR, cropped in Photoshop and I used the plugin virtualPhotographer to tweak the colors. Piece o’ cake!

I see that it has been a week since I last posted… I figured I’d better get with it!

It has been a looooong week, despite being a short week. I had Monday off from work; but man, I don’t feel it at all! Our workload has been much larger than expected. TGIF!

On the homefront, we had a quiet New Years. I stayed up just long enough after midnight to text my only child on the West Coast an enthusiastic “HAPPY NEW YEAR!” and then I dragged myself to bed. The other two (one in Florida and one in Maine) I sent a text at 9:00. I’m sure glad none of them are in Hawaii or Alaska!

I’ve done no crafts in the last… However long it’s been… Feels like weeks… No crochet, no knitting, no tatting, no spinning, no dyeing… Nothing. Too tired. Maybe I’ll get around to doing something this weekend…

On New Year’s Day I managed to take a couple of photographs of sparkly snow. The camera didn’t quite capture what I saw, but they’re okay. Click on the pictures to make them bigger, so you can see the colors:

I just love it when the snow looks like thousands of tiny diamonds, glittering in the sun…

The snow had been melting off, all week. And then we got some today. Maybe I’ll be able to get some more pictures!

Hi, thanks for visiting!

I know it’s been quiet here, lately… My Beloved Laptop died… So, I’ve been in mourning… And in laptop withdrawal. The screen on my cell phone is just too small to be effective for the internet…

Thankfully, I was able to get another laptop yesterday. But, I spent about 11 hours last night dealing with this thing… It was loaded with Vista, but the updates wouldn’t install, because the version of Internet Explorer was newer than the Vista… I’ve used Vista, but I’m not terribly fluent. I couldn’t figure out how to remove the IE. I decided that I needed to get rid of the Vista…

I have a couple of options for Windows… I have my old Windows 98 and the XP upgrade; and I have the full version of XP.

First, I tried installing (twice) the full version. Evidently something happened to the disk, because it couldn’t install SEVERAL files.

Next, I installed 98 – errors there too, but it loaded enough of the program so that the upgrade would recognize it. As I was in the middle of installing the millions of updates, the blasted thing said I was out of memory! It’s a 120GB hard-drive… Out of memory!?! Yep, sure thing, it absolutely was… I did something wrong during the formatting and evidently didn’t remove a partition or something.

So, back to installing the corrupt 98 again… Reformatting PROPERLY this time! Then putting the upgrade on… Then getting the millions of Windows updates…

By 3am I had my computer connected to my network, installed Windows, my ancient version of Office, anti-virus and a firewall. Then I crashed… Just couldn’t keep my eyes open (or think!) anymore.

This morning I was able to finish loading everything up and setting everything the way I want it. Whew!!!

Now, I’m just getting used to a slightly different keyboard. It’s a decent little machine… A bit beat-up. Some scratches and dings, but nothing major.

So, new year, new (to me) computer!

Please excuse the crappy phone photo…

This is Desiree. We adopted/rescued her a week ago Sunday. We had no intention of getting a horse, but a neighbor found herself in a bad way financially, and asked if we could take her. Who can turn away an animal that needs a home? Yeah, we’re suckers… For sure…

You can’t see how skinny she is, because of her blanket. But, without the blanket, you can definitely see her ribs. She’s not as bad as she could be, though, thankfully. We have a knowledgeable friend that came and looked at her. According to our friend, she is about 75-pounds underweight, is very wormy and could possibly be pregnant. She said her teeth look good, as do her feet. The gal we got her from said that the horse was in her 20s; however, my friend tells me, not so. She said that she would put her at under 10-years old.

We haven’t decided if we’re keeping her, for sure, or not. Certainly, we will keep her until she is well and healthy, having gained back her weight and after giving birth (if she is indeed pregnant). Since neither James nor I are riders, if we do keep her (which we are leaning towards), she will end up being a pack animal and draft horse.

The goats have finally warmed up to her and no longer flee when she looks in their direction. Compared to her, they are so small; I’m surprised she doesn’t step on them! But, she’s very sweet, with a great temperament. She will allow a person to do pretty much anything to her. She’s very calm and mellow.

She has started coming to visit us, whenever we go through the gate. James says this is because she wants something more to eat. I think it’s because she wants to say hello…

P.S. I know I still owe you pictures of the afghan in progress. Photos have not been taken, but I haven’t forgotten about it.

I just realized that I haven’t posted anything in a couple of weeks! Sorry about that!

I’ve been crocheting an afghan. I’m using the African Flower Mandala Potholder design, minus the last two rounds . The yarn I’ve chosen is Hobby Lobby’s “I Love This Yarn!” in Pink and Brown. I bought six skeins of each color to use for another afghan project, but I decided to do this instead.

I really do like this yarn. It’s acrylic; and aside from the baby yarns, it is the softest acrylic yarn I’ve ever used! It glides over the hook smoothly and it doesn’t have the “squeak” of many acrylics.

It is being worked in clusters of three hexagons each; one set begun using the pink and the other begun using the brown (colors being alternated). It’s working up nicely and if I use all the yarn, it will be quite large. I’ve almost finished using one skein of each color and it’s already nearly long enough to cover my legs!

I initially began this as a selfish project; I was going to keep it for myself. But, I started thinking about it and I may give it to the little elderly lady that we take care of… Or I may keep it… Or I may use half the yarn to make one to give away and use the other half to make one to keep… I haven’t decided.

No pictures have been taken, because it isn’t finished yet. I may take some photos tomorrow, because I know this thing won’t be done for a while and I don’t want to keep you waiting.

To be continued…

My last project, the star-shaped baby blanket, was commissioned by my cousin. She also said that she wanted some of the potholders that I had made, a while back…

The pattern I used is called the African Flower Mandala Potholder and it was written in part (she turned it into a mandala potholder) by a lovely woman named Alice Best. She is the author of one of my favorite blogs: Crochet with Raymond.

I got the central flower portion of the potholder pattern from Heidi Bears. I just love her bears made with this flower! So cute!

Anyhoo… For these potholders, I used Peaches’n Cream cotton yarn (seven different colors) and a size I (5.50mm) crochet hook.

These potholders are really fun to make! The possible color schemes seem endless! They work up quickly, too. It takes me about 3-4 hours to make one complete, two-sided potholder. They are made with double crochet and single crochet.

The potholders are approximately (my guess without measuring) 10-12 inches in diameter. A nice size for potholders; no concern about your hand being bigger than the potholder and getting burned.

And they are nice and thick. The backs (which I’m not showing, because they’re boring) are a solid circle of double crochet, with no spaces. Between the thick back and the thick front, there is plenty of protection from the heat of pulling hot things out of the oven, or off the stove.

So, all six of these babies are going off to live in California. I do so hope that she likes them!

My cousin saw my handiwork on Facebook and asked me to make some stuff for her. It’s another baby blanket and some of the African Flower Mandala potholders. So much yarny funness!

I had decided on the Star Blanket, but the pattern seemed… wonky… That or it was just me (which is more than likely the case). Because it just wasn’t working, I decided to find another pattern.

The yarn I’ve chosen, Bernat’s Baby Blanket, won’t work with just any pattern. It is super thick and needs a pattern that isn’t simply highlighted by lovely stitches. You can’t see the stitches, with this squishy yarn. So, I had to find a suitable pattern.

After auditioning several patterns, including my own design, I finally settled on the Merry-Go-Round blanket. It’s a good thing too; I was starting to think that I wasn’t going to be able to use this yarn for anything at all! I’m making the blanket with two colors: White and something called Peachy (it’s a pink and orange variegated). I’m currently in the middle of round six, and I couldn’t be more pleased. It is working up perfectly.

This Baby Blanket yarn is kind of hard to work with. It’s really thick and kind of stretchy, so your hands really get quite a workout. But, because it’s so fat, it’s working up quick. This is always a good thing!

I’m deviating from the stripe pattern, in that I’m making some stripes wider and some more narrow. There is not enough white in the pattern, for what I have. So, I’m doing two white rounds and one variegated round. I may use more of the pink, in later rounds; but for now, this seems to be working. I also don’t want to have too many of the pink rounds, because of the fact that it is a variegated yarn and will look too busy. I like having big blocks of white, to make the colored yarns “pop”.

I’ve finished three of the potholders, so far. It is a fun pattern that I can finish, from start to edging, in just a few hours. It’s called the African Flower Mandala Potholder. I’ve made several of these and just love the pattern! I still have some cotton yarn left and should be able to get at least one more out of it. I might get two or three more, if I make them really colorful.

The last time I made these potholders, I ordered the yarn online. This time, I went to Walmart and I must say, I was quite disappointed with their selection (or lack thereof). I really expected them to have better choices. But, they didn’t have the Sugar’n Cream, just the Peaches’n Cream; that could be the problem. But, I grabbed several colors and proceeded to spend the next two evenings and one afternoon having fun with the hook.

I definitely knew that I wanted to make one of the red and orange, because I just love that color combo. But, after that, I came up with some combinations (using more than two colors) that I felt were quite inspired. One of them I love so much, I considered keeping it! But, I won’t do that… I bought the yarn for her, so I need to give it to her. I’ll just make myself another one (or two or three)!

Well, I’m off to work on the baby blanket… Look for pictures of the blanket and potholders, this weekend. I don’t have adequate (or quality) light when I’m home these days – except on the weekends. See you then!

I officially hate my local hairstylist… I was so upset when I left her salon that I totally forgot to run the errands that I needed to run. I flew straight home and proceeded to wet and blow-dry my hair, to try and fix what she did. It looks better than when I left, but I’m still not happy…

I asked for Melissa Steadman, from thirtysomething:

And I kind of got Samantha Carter, from Stargate:

However, it’s actually a bit shorter than Carter’s (I don’t have those nice bangs – mine only come halfway down my forehead). Also, my hair isn’t straight; it’s curly and frizzy.

I even showed her the picture of Melissa, that you see above.

She got the back and the bottom (below the ears) correct. But she seemed to go off course, when handling the top. I wanted the top to be long, at least to the top of my ears, with some chunky layers for texture… It has about four inches to go…

“When it grows in it will be perfect!” she said; as I silently seethed… Yes, when it grows in… IN ABOUT SIX MONTHS!!!

Thankfully, I was able to make it look (a little bit) better than she did. Her styling was just… Bad… All bad… She had it parted in the middle and all fluffy on top. I looked not too unlike Alice, from The Brady Bunch (imagine the sides a wee little bit longer):

I’m really hoping that with lots of product and blow-drying, I’ll be able to get it to look more like Carter’s than what I have now. I see lots of gel in my future…

The worst part is, I blame myself. She cut my hair once before, and I hated it then, too. I was going for an A-line, below the chin in front and jacked up super-high in back. Well, the front ended up being much shorter than I expected. MUCH SHORTER. I thought, well, maybe I just didn’t explain it correctly… And curly hair can be hard to get right, because it shrinks when it dries. This time, I showed her a freaking picture and she still screwed it up! I’m never going to her again… I think I’d have better luck at Supercuts. I think she just cuts too many elderly ladies’ hair.

Okay, I’m off to have a little cry now…

My poor sister… She has been waiting, patiently, since MARCH for her birthday present! The poor thing probably thought she was never going to get it. If I had been much more determined to knit it, she probably would never have received it!

I originally started knitting the scarf, using the Falling Water pattern. A lovely pattern, to be sure… However, not the best for a brand-new knitter, such as myself. And not the best for the yarn that I was using. It is the now-discontinued Knit Picks Kettle Dyed, in Auburn. Lovely pattern, lovely yarn, not lovely together. The color changes in the yarn, while subtle, still managed to swallow the delicate lace pattern. After SEVERAL frogging sessions, I put it down and began searching for another pattern. Well, eventually, I decided that if I knit it, it would never be finished. So, I decided to find a nice crochet pattern.

I started three different patterns, again disliking the combo of the yarn and pattern. I finally settled on the Spring Ripple Scarf. I’ve never done dc2tog before, so I had a few re-starts on this one as well… At one point, I looked at sweetie and said “I think this yarn is cursed! Even a simple pattern is getting messed up!” But, I persevered; and five days later, the yarn is all gone, made into my new favorite scarf pattern!

Behold! My sister’s scarf! Please excuse the terrible lighting. I was anxious to get photos and I don’t get home from work until after dark.

This scarf was made using a fingering-weight 80% superwash merino (so soft!), 20% nylon, sock yarn and size F (3.75mm) crochet hook. And since I have neither wires/pins nor mat, it was not properly blocked. But, I think it blocked relatively well, regardless.

I rinsed it in warm water and some of my hair conditioner and then folded it and hung it on a coat hanger. I tugged and pulled and tugged some more, stretching it out. After a few hours, I flipped it over and did some more tugging. Then, this morning, I opened it up and strung it over two coat hangers, again tugging and pulling. It was dry when I got home. It’s not perfectly even, but it is nice and wide and long. I know she likes her scarves like that.

I hope she likes this one.