Crackpot Quilters’ Blog

by Nancy

I’m working on the edge of my afghan now.

(The red pieces of yarn are just markers to help me count the stitches.)  It’s going well, though it does take a l-o-n-g time to get all the way around it.  I have done two rounds of white single crochet and a round of purple single crochet.  I’ve started the next round, which has me doing a spike stitch for the first time.

It covers up some of the purple in the previous round so that the border looks mostly white with small purple (and in a later round, yellow) squares.

I’ve also started a small new crochet project: a hat for myself.

It’s made from this pattern and comes together very quickly.  I’m a little unsure about how the size will turn out, so it might end up being a hat for someone else if it doesn’t fit.

I’ve chosen the fourth block I’d like to do for the Secret Quilting Project, too!

by Nancy

My first-ever crochet afghan is done! 

I finished sewing the final seam today, and am so pleased to see it all together!  It isn’t actually 100% done because I plan to add a border, but it is definitely a blanket now.  Yay!

by Nancy

I knew our sunny, 50 degree days in January wouldn’t last forever, and today they came to an end.  It’s been rainy and chilly today, so it was the perfect day to do some more work on getting my afghan assembled.  I got all of the December squares attached, so now the afghan is in two big panels, each of which are about 2ft. by 6 ft.  And I just need to do the final seam between the two panels, and I’ll have a real afghan!  Yay!  I think I’ve picked a border that I want to put on it from Around the Corner Crochet Borders, too.  But that will have to wait for another day, since it’s getting late…

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…