Crackpot Quilters’ Blog

by Nancy

Here they are, the completed final four squares for my 2011 Crochet Along Afghan! Hooray!  This square, called Ring Around a New Year by Aurora Suominen, has some neat texture to it, but it was a little challenging to do.  So, it took me until January to get all 4 squares done.  But this means that all of the squares for my afghan are done!  I’m working on sewing the November and December blocks together, and attaching them to the rest of the squares, which are all connected now.  I can’t wait to see it all together!

by Nancy

Whew, I think everyone here is glad it’s only a 4 day week!  Andrew is not happy about getting up in the mornings for school and is really tired.  I’ve been trying to let him sleep as long as possible, but I think that may have backfired because then he has to hurry to be ready in time, and moving fast in the morning is not his thing.  So, I think I’ll try waking him a bit earlier tomorrow so that he can take his time eating and dressing and see if that helps.

One wonderful thing this morning was that I put apple cinnamon oatmeal in the crockpot last night, so I woke up to it this morning and it was SO good.  It was the first time that I had tried this recipe, and it was delicious.

And another happy thing is that I finished Nicholas’ crochet chickie this evening!  Ta-dah! 

(The photo is a bit dark – sorry!  I need to work on that.)  Nicholas picked out all the colors, and I wasn’t completely sure when he told me what he wanted, but now I think it works really well.  He told me he was thinking about the color wheel when choosing the color for the beak and feet – his art teachers would be impressed!

And yet another happy thing is that my books about crochet borders arrived today.  As I’ve been finishing up my afghan, I realized that I know very little about how to edge an afghan, and most of my crochet books only touch on it briefly.  So, I did some browsing at Ravelry and at the library, but still didn’t come up with much.  But I got a gift card to Barnes and Noble for Christmas from Ann, and after some research and in-store browsing, I decided to order these two books: Crocheting on the Edge by Nicki Epstein and Around the Corner Crochet Borders by Edie Eckman.  They have all kinds of cool borders and information!  I think I will keep the borders for my sampler afghan pretty simple since there’s a lot going on in it, but the books gave me some good ideas, and I think they will be good references for future projects.

by Nancy

Nicholas has selected the amigurumi animal he’d like me to make.  It’s a little chickie from Super-Cute Crochet by Nicki Trench.  He’s asked me to make it in orange with a red crest.  Last night I made the head.  This morning Nicholas helped to put the eyes in and stuff the head.  Then, this afternoon on the drive home from the Children’s Museum, I finished the body.  It looks a bit weird without a beak, wings, or feet, but here he is…

The plan for this evening is football and more afghan assembly…

by Nancy

Once I started working part time in the mornings this spring, I moved my volunteer time in Andrew’s class to Thursday afternoon.  So, on Thursdays I ate lunch at school with the 1st graders, which was both fun and loud.  And so it came to my attention that I don’t have a lunchbox.  Nicholas, who almost always buys his lunch from the school cafeteria, kindly allowed me to use his, but I did kind of want one of my own.  So, for my birthday I bought myself Lunch Bags! (I had to buy it for myself because I forgot to tell anyone that I wanted it in time for them to give it to me!)

It’s really great!  My first attempt was a fairly simple standard lunch box with a little pocket inside.  Thanks to my experience making gift bags, it was very easy. Now I just need to work on taking pictures with my phone that aren’t blurry!

by Nancy

Now that this little guy has been given to Andrew’s first grade teacher as an end of the year present, I can finally post his picture on the blog! He was quick and fun to make, and I think he turned out great! The pattern is by Jessica Spencer and can be found here free.

by Nancy

Due to two weekends in a row with long car trips, I’m making excellent progress on my crochet projects. Here is this month’s 12″ square, called the Efflorescent Window. It seems a little crooked, but I think blocking will improve that. I did quadruple front post crochet stitches for the first time on this square – wow!