Little Red Riding Hood and Autumn's New Blanket

Hello,
 It has been months since I posted. I have been happily busy with my 3rd grader, Brownies and I started a new job. I am still crocheting though. Most of the time I forget to photograph what I have made and give it away. I have some photos on my phone that will not upload to my computer. I don't know why they won't, I have tried several times to put them in my photo gallery.
 Here is a wall hanging I made for the nursery at my last job. I don't know if it is still hanging, I quit about a month after putting it on the wall.

 I took some time off with my daughter this summer. She wanted a new blanket, I have made her three so far. This one has 720 1 inch squares in all different colors. I used the continuous join method in light pink, after joining, each square is 2". If you haven't tried the continuous join, you should. It changed how I do motifs. I think it is awesome. It was a lot of work. I loved making it though.

 The finished blanket is 6' by 7' and fits nicely on her bed. Luckily, this summer has not been very hot and making this blanket was no problem. I used scraps of yarn for the little squares and I still have some left over. I am going to start a ripple with the rest. I vowed a year and a half ago to use up all of the yarn I have. I have been good and haven't bought any, unless it was to finish a project or it was something someone asked me to make for them. I figure that by Christmas I can go yarn shopping again. :)

My Favorite Blanket So Far

Spring is finally here. Yay! I love winter, but this last one was too long and too cold. School will be out for the summer in a few weeks and every year I make an afghan for Autumn's teacher. Her teacher this year is brand new and this was her first class. It has been fun watching her grow as a teacher and it has been nice seeing how much the children have learned. A few weeks ago I asked her what her favorite colors are and she said orange and yellow. I had no idea how I was going to make an afghan with orange and yellow as the main colors and still have it look nice. It turned out to be my favorite of all the blankets I have ever made and Will wants me to make a big one for our bed. Here it is.

I hope she likes it. I had fun making it. I used the Grandala pattern from Alice Best. Her pattern is my favorite granny motif and I use it a lot. Thanks Alice.

March 2014

 I am sitting here watching the snowplows out in the street. When will spring come? This year, I don't know if it will. We have somewhere around 35 days of below 0 F this season. I have lived here for almost 15 years and this is the most brutal winter I have experienced. I usually love winter, not so much this year though. It doesn't help that I have been in a cast, on crutches or in an orthopedic boot since September. I had surgery in January and I hope to be 100% by summer. I have been really enjoying summer the last couple of years. I get to take the older kids at our daycare/preschool on day trips. I love it and my daughter is one of the kids in the summer program. Right now, summer seems like a distant dream.
 I spent most of January laying on my couch recovering from surgery. I made so many things and gave a lot of them away without taking photos. I couldn't put any weight on my foot and I couldn't get up to sit at the computer either. I did manage photos of some of the blankets I made.

The first two are for family and they are very warm, made with super bulky yarn. The last one was for one of Will's co-workers. She welcomed her first grandchild in January and he asked me to make her a blanket and a hat. Of course, I didn't get any photos of the hat. Lol.
  The first blanket is the Neat Ripple from Lucy, my go to pattern for ripples. The second one is my pattern for a Granny Rectangle. The last is just a straight forward granny square, continued until I thought it was large enough. It is 40"by40".
 Now I am working on a little patchwork granny blanket for a girl I know, I was 17 when she was born and she now has three daughters of her own. She doesn't know I am making it for her baby and I am also going to make something for each of her older girls.

I am also working on a huge ripple, haven't taken any photos yet, it is a stash buster. There is also a tote bag that we are working on in our Ravelry group, Everything Zen. I think it will be perfect for carrying stuff around on all of our field trips this summer, like to the pool. I can't wait. Here is the yarn I am using, I may add some more colors.

I hope everyone is having a good weekend. It is still looking like winter here and in most of the country. Talk to everyone soon.

Happy New Year!

I love the start of a new year. I don't make any resolutions or anything like that. I do usually start a new project though. A couple of days ago I saw a post on Facebook about a CAL that was starting for a Mood Blanket. I was intrigued. Then a group started on Ravelry for the the same blanket. It is also on Instagram, for some reason I can only access Instagram on my phone, so I joined the FB group and the Ravelry group. The idea is to make a square or stripe in a color that suits your mood each day in 2014. I love it. Some people are assigning colors to moods and some are picking out colors each day depending on their mood at the time. That is what I am going to do. I spent a few hours on Ravelry and Pinterest last night looking at lots of squares and motifs. I woke up this morning and made my coffee and looked through a few motif books I have. Then I chose Pale Plum (Redheart) and mixed a couple of motifs. This is the square I will make for 360 days, the last 5 days will be spent on the border.

This will be fun and I won't get bored. It only took a few minutes and it won't take away time from my other projects. I am not sure what join method I will use yet, there is plenty of time for that. Here are the links to the CALs. Crochet Mood Blanket on Ravelry. Crochet Mood Blanket on Facebook. There are almost 700 members on the Facebook site already. Just ask to join and they will hook you up.
 I spent some time on a new blanket yesterday. This is my version of a mixed stitch blanket. I am having fun deciding what to do next with each row.

 Last week Autumn spent Christmas Eve day with one of her best friends and she asked if I would make her something for her Christmas gift. Autumn picked out the colors and told me she wanted me to make a striped hat and scarf for her friend.

Her friend has a pink coat, most of the girls here do, and she wore the set that night to church.
So far my year has started out nicely. It is snowing and it is so pretty and cosy. I am not going out in it, I can't get my cast wet, but I will spend this nice New Year's Day cooking and working on projects.