Afghan Done, New Projects to Start

Finished the Afghan for Dad last Friday. He liked it. It took a little over a month to complete.

Onward to projects 2 and 3: Design/build a website and design/build/fix/add on to my parents' pool deck!

A Pound of Rough Yarn

49/77 (7 squares not shown) = 63% done.

When I first looked in the yarn section at Michael's, I couldn't imagine why someone would ever need to buy the 1lb of yarn. I purchased it yesterday. It's deceitful how much yarn goes into making something. I already went through two of the regular sized black yarns (like the white in the picture).

The first time I got yarn, it was at Wal-mart, and the HeartSaver brand is about all they carry. It's cheap and more rough. I was unaware of the soft yarn, which if I could turn back time, I would have gotten instead. It's made of the same material but because of how they manufacture it, it ends up being the thickness of one ply smaller than it actually is. That makes it soft somehow.

I was halfway through before I knew about the soft yarn. I decided to stick with what I've been using for consistency. Who knows - maybe washing it will make it softer? I checked the label, and it should be fine in the washer. I'm going to have a test run on a single square first... Or maybe I'll just throw it in the dryer with a dryer sheet and see what happens.

Afghan Approaching 50%

36/77 squares finished = 47% complete!

And before someone corrects me, I know the picture only shows 35 squares, but there's one more not pictured.

I checked my camera settings and it can do time lapse. I just have to find my tripod. Hmm... There'll be plenty of squares left to test that out on later.

I told my friend that this afghan is like downloading an MP3 in 1997: it'll take two months.

Hopefully I'll get a lot done over the holiday, assuming I'm not working with Sarah, the best, most beautiful, perfect-in-every-way person in the world.

Here's the original post with more information about crotcheting the afghan: Finishing my Grandmother's Blanket.

Circus, Afghan, Losing Weight

Thanks to my most fabulous coworker, Zane and I went to the circus Friday night for free at the New Orleans Arena. It was my first time (that I can recall) going to the circus. It was more fun than Cirque du Soleil but not as professional. I was excited to see live tigers, but they didn't actually do much. Whatever happened to the flaming hoops? The elephants and ponies were much more entertaining, and oh-my-god elephants have large poop. The circus was READY with many a pooper scooper.

They fell a number of times during acts, something I never saw at Cirque, and it didn't take away from the awe of everything else. My favorite part was definitely the seven dirt bikes riding around in the steel sphere. I'd put pictures up from it, but Zane wouldn't let me use his phone!

For Father's Day, my sister got Dad a gift card to Lowe's and packaged it in a mini tool box. I'm still working at the afghan and will be for at least a month. Last night I got bored of making squares, so I started stitching them together. After I took the picture, I made a quick mock up in Photoshop of the finished pattern. Thankfully, I did that before finishing because I made a change to it!

I was contemplating making a time-lapse video of some of the process, but I need to see if my camera has that option. I'm not going to go through the process of editing normal footage. That's more work that I'm willing to put into it.

Speaking of WORK, one of the great things about my place of employment is their encouragement to live a healthy lifestyle. Starting July 11th, they're going to do a "Biggest Loser" campaign pitting teams against each other for weight loss. I joined, but I'm also not actually interested in losing a ton of weight fast. It's just a fun incentive to keep things interesting and is a good motivator to keep going to the gym. I'm content with the progress I've made so far: about 20 pounds in two months.

Finishing my Grandmother's Blanket

I learned to crochet because I wanted to make a couple friends flowers for their hair a couple months ago. Why, you ask? Long story short, one friend likes flowers for her hair, didn't have one one day, so the other friend made one from paper. I showed that friend up with my own paper flower. Then I jumped ship and moved, so I wanted to do something nice for them both.

I planned to learn to crochet after Mom, my sister, and I cleaned out my parents' attic and found my paternal grandmother's lot of unfinished crochet materials. She died before when I was too young to remember. The picture on the left is only a portion of her granny squares. I moved them into a separate bag to organize. I thought it would be nice to finish her blanket some 25 years after her death, and I knew my Dad would really like the sentiment.

Some of the squares aren't in great shape from being in the attic so long, so I decided to make an Afghan and just incorporate some of her granny squares into it. Plus, this way the blanket won't be that wonderful 1980's cacophony of color and will better match the room it'll be in.

Well, I started the work last Friday, and as is everything I do, I completely underestimated the time it would take. I'm using the SunRise pattern shown in Theresa's Art of Crochet tutorial on youtube, and it's taking me over an hour per square (but I'm getting faster).

I'm using 17 of my grandmother's squares that I'm adding a black double stitch border on and making 60 other squares from scratch. This will most definitely not be done for Father's Day.

This picture shows the two different squares I'm making from scratch and the two different color of squares I picked from my grandmother's stash. Hopefully I'll be done in the next two weeks. Twelve squares down, 65 to go!

I'll have no desire to ever crochet again after this.