Dribbling Along

Image courtesy of Indiana University
(my alma mater)

Just a quick check in with Yarn Along this week, and no, the title of my post does NOT refer to NCAA basketball and March Madness.  GO HOOSIERS!  (Sorry, I have a sort of basketball Tourette's Syndrome; a lot of us native Hoosiers suffer from it.)  That was just a serendipitous coincidence.

I am sadly lacking in exciting pictures this week, though I did accomplish some crocheting with which I was quite pleased.  I foolishly let my mother-in-law carry her birthday gift--a small set of hand-made, cotton dishcloths--out of my house without taking a picture of them first!  Oops.  Otherwise, the Blueberry Ripple afghan continues apace, and has reached that stage at which we grow slightly weary in well-doing, as the Apostle Paul says, and begin to notice just how MANY different ends are protruding from the magnum opus, and to anticipate exactly how LONG it will take us to weave them all in.  Still, within a fortnight it should be done, and I must admit that I truly love it.  I can't wait to finally show off the finished product.

Book News: Just tonight, I finally finished The Coming of the Third Reich, by Richard J. Evans, which I can highly recommend if you're looking for a history of the topic and which I plan to review shortly here on The Beauty of Eclecticism.

In other words, both my reading and yarning projects this week have been ponderous, time-consuming, and worth the effort in the end.  My progress on them has been not so much dramatic, as simply a proof of the adage, "Slow and steady wins the race."  Not terribly exciting, perhaps, but worth the big payoff when the photos of the finished object appear.  Hope your efforts have been equally satisfying.

Rippling Along

Greetings, one and all!  After a hiatus last week involving a sick SuperToddler and a bedraggled, worn-out mommy, I have returned to Yarn Along, flush with success in my fortnight's endeavor to keep my Blueberry Ripple Afghan growing.  A piece like this isn't just a project, of course--it's a commitment.  When you undertake an afghan like this, you know you're in for a bit of a long haul.  But, it's growing by leaps and bounds, and I'm enjoying it very much.  Would you like to see it?  Well, obviously you would; that's the whole point!  So...

TA-DA!  A bouncing baby Blueberry Ripple Afghan!  Hurray!  I'd say it's just about 3/5 completed at this point.  As a matter of fact, since its intended purpose is to allow me to snuggle up beneath it, and it currently covers me from hanging just below my feet to the top of my abdomen, I'd call that an extremely accurate measurment of its progress!  Now then, let's give this beauty a close-up, Mr. Demille.

What do you think, gang?  I'm quite pleased overall, so much so that I've decided to make another in a different colorway as a gift, when I finish this one (which means you won't get to see that one until after the gift is presented to its intended owner, but eventually there will be pictures and much rejoicing here on Yarn Along, I promise). 

Oops!  I almost forgot the READING bit of this exercise, which would have been a shame, since I've finished FOUR books in the past week!!  I'm reading three books currently, because I'm just a compulsive simultaneous-multiple reader (I've finally embraced this fact about myself), but probably the most fascinating is The Coming of the Third Reich by Richard J. Evans.

This book certainly isn't a light-weight--over 650 pages, and although that includes probably 150 pages of endnotes, bibliography and index, Goodreads counts all of it in my "pages read" count for the year!  I must confess that pleases me, even if the confession indicates some major flaw in my character.  When I checked this book out from the library, the lady who checked it out to me said, "A bit of light reading, huh?"  And she's right; this one is certainly not many laughs.  But it's certainly enthralling; I always wondered how all that lunacy got started, and now I'm finally finding out.  It's not written for scholars or experts, either; if you're interested in the subject, I can recommend this one so far.

Anyway, that's the past two weeks in review.  Hope you're having satisfying times with book, hook, and/or needles!

Blueberry Ripple

Hurray!  Another installment of my favorite yarn craft memes, and a chance to show you my latest exciting crochet adventure.  First off, I would like to announce the completion of yet another of my baby blankets for charity.  My sweet Brigid the SuperToddler had to come and feel it, inspect the work, try to identify all the colors this evening as I was putting on the finishing touches, and she seemed to give it the ToddlerHousekeeping seal of approval, so hopefully some new little one will find it fascinating and comforting.

The famous Christmas Blanket is still her favorite.

However, my photo this week features a project that is very dear to my heart, that I jumped into late last week to give myself some variety, so I wouldn't get bored with the baby blankets.  I had tried a "ripple" or "chevron" pattern once before about 5 years ago, with dismal results, but after seeing them on several people's Yarn Along posts, I decided I just had to try again.  I don't like letting my yarning efforts defeat me if I can possibly help it.  Naturally, what color would I use for an afghan I'm making for myself, especially one which has become a personal challenge for me?  BLUE, of course, and those who know me personally are all shaking their heads and asking themselves if I EVER get weary of all blue, all the time, knowing all the while that my answer is, "How could anyone ever get tired of blue?!"

ANYWAY, I actually finished the book in this photo just a few minutes before I snapped the picture, but since I haven't started another one yet, I figured I'd include it, especially since these two items together were a large part of my life for the past week.  Hope your reading and yarning have been equally satisfying!

P.S.  I forgot to give credit where credit is due for the pattern I'm using for the ripple blanket.  Thank you, Attic24!

Boy, Have I Been Yarning Along!

Well, gang, having nearly finished my diabetic education classes and nearly recovered from the plague, I am finally back, and I have certainly missed you all!  While I was bed-ridden (well, recliner-ridden) with bronchitis, and blessed that my Good Man husband was home to take care of the SuperToddler, I have been crocheting like some kind of machine and tearing through books at an alarming rate.  I didn't have the energy to do anything else, but especially once the cabin fever set in, I had to do something to occupy my time!  I tried a bit of knitting, as well, but let me just say from experience, when you're really sick is not the best time to try and practice a new skill.  I quickly went back to what I know best.

As you can see, the result was certainly substantial!  I now have three finished baby blankets for the local charity, and am about 1/3 of the way through a fourth.  Now that I've done a few of them, I understand even better why my mother always enjoyed making these so much, and her insistence that they work up really quickly.  My first one was rather a long slog, but I've gotten much faster at it by now.  Next big project--crocheting a new set of cotton dishcloths for my wonderful mother-in-law's birthday (good thing she's not a big fan of surfing the internet, so she doesn't really read my blog).  It's good to be back from the undead!

Circling Along

Another week gone already, and my goodness, hasn't it been a week of yarn crafting?!  Well, it has for me, anyway.  Friday I attended my first monthly meeting of my new church's prayer shawl circle; since I didn't yet have their pattern, I just took along some yarn for a new baby blanket I've been wanting to start and got crocheting on it while I got to know everybody a little.  So, two crochet baby blankets in two different colorways going at once right now, and one of them is almost finished.

The big victory this week, however, was that I cast on a new project onto my newly-acquired CIRCULAR NEEDLES!  Are we so proud? Because I am.  Yes, after five years of scheming, dreaming, and several disastrous failed attempts, I am finally making some headway on the Ravenclaw house scarf I have dreamed of knitting.  Indeed, it was my ambition to make this scarf that drove me to learn to knit in the first place!  It's slow going, obviously, since I'm a very new knitter.  Even the halting rhythm I have slowly begun to build up with regular needles still hasn't developed yet on the circular ones, so it's definitely going to be awhile before it begins to look like a scarf, instead of some kind of yarn covered halo, but still I'm terribly pleased with my progress.

 

For any Harry Potter fanatic like me who may be wondering (because I would be, if I were you), yes, I will be using the Ravenclaw house colors as described in the BOOKS, blue and the closest I could find to bronze, rather than the blue and silver of the films.  Anything worth doin', etc., you know?

And what have I been reading in the interim since we last met?  Nothing less than one of the greatest writers in the history of the English language--yes, I have finally read Jane Austen's Mansfield Park.  I feel almost as proud of getting through that thrilling but linguistically challenging tome as if I had written something monumental myself!  If you've never read the book, let me just say that while the effort is absolutely worth it, the way that Jane Austen's language twists and writhes in this one may leave you feeling like you're trying to navigate a dense maze without even a breadcrumb trail, let alone a map.  Don't give up, but be sure to bring a lot of patience and your best attention with you!

Yarning Along--FINALLY!

LOOK!  Look, look, look!

The Christmas afgan is FINALLY finished!  ALL finished.  Ends woven in and everything.  I feel like I just won a Nobel prize for astrophysics or something.

Also, the first baby afghan is coming along nicely.

Even my current choice of reading material leaves me with a sense of pride and accomplishment for several reasons.

1. There ARE far easier things to read than Jane Austen written in the English language.
2. I've been a devoted Austen fan literally for decades.  HOW could I have left out not one but TWO of her canon of works until just now?  Mea culpa!
3. This book is required by two challenges I'm currently supposed to be finishing.  Hopefully I'll get through it before the "deadline".

So, there we are.  I hope your week was productive, filled with yarning delight and reading joys.

Yarning and Yarning and Yarning Along!

OMG! Okay, people, after last week's slump, I got the push I needed to get back into yarning WITH A VENGEANCE!  I don't mean I got enthusiastic; I mean I crocheted for about 6 hours straight one night.  My hands...went numb.  Yeah.  Not even kidding.

So, why the big explosion of all things Yarn Craft?   Well, it was a confluence of several stimuli, actually.  First of all, remember I promised last week that I was now going to turn my attentions to my first true knitting project, my lovely scarf?  I actually did so early in the week, and though it may not look like much, I was almost giddy with excitement at my little beginner level of progress.

So much so, in fact, that I got ridiculously ambitious and tried to jump straight into the scarf that "started it all," the Harry Potter house scarf that I've been determined to make for almost 10 years.  Which has to be knit in the round.  Either on circular needles, or double-pointed needles.  And the only circular needles I had in the house were waaaaaaay too long.  And the only double-pointed ones I had in the house were my husband's bamboo ones.  Size 5.  And I already knit too tightly.  It was a very painful, evening-long fiasco.  (Yes, Michal tried knitting once.  Get this: he was great at it.  He just didn't like it that much.  Prefers spinning and weaving.  Don't men make you SICK with shit like that?!  It's like how they can't cough without losing 30 pounds off their gut, but I can't lose weight anywhere except in my breasts, the one place I would like to KEEP it.  Okay.  Deep breaths.  I feel better now.)

ANYWAY, obviously, that trauma was so great that I really did walk up to Good Man Michael and say, "This incident is dead to us.  We shall never speak of it again."  True story.  I swear.  Also obviously, I had to move on to some stellar crochet triumph with a ridiculously easy project IMMEDIATELY to re-boost my spirits and confidence.  This is where the second stimulus comes in.

My new church does yarn crafts to give to local charities--baby blankets for teenage mothers at the local high schools particularly caught my eye, so the poorly-taken picture above is a little granny square afghan.  It makes me go all dewy eyed every time I think about some sweet little bundle being wrapped in something I made for him or her.  Notice the sort of soft, garden-like colorway I chose; I figured, it's suitable for boy or girl, and it's as close to pastels as I'm ever going to get, because I hate most true pastels.  Anyway, nothing rebuilds your faith in your own crafting ability like a fall-off-a-log easy granny square.  Hurray!  I bought enough yarn to make four little blankets, and maybe enough left over for a matching hat to go with a couple of them.  I'm pretty excited, I must admit.  It feels good to be part of a community again, and I hope my little blankets will let someone who is going through a rough time know that someone out there cares about them.

P.S. I had to go with all acrylic, because it's cheapest, but if anyone wants to help me make blankets for these little ones out of softer, better quality yarn, all yarn donations will be gratefully accepted, and I'm sure the church will be happy to give you documentation for tax deductions and such.  If you're interested, let me know.  Either way, thanks for dropping by the blog today.  :)

Barely Yarning Along

Okay, confession time--and that's an ironic choice of words on my part, as you'll discover momentarily.  Last week's boldly stated plans for yarning greatness certainly did not materialize.  There has been great upheaval in my family's life recently, all of which came to a head in the past week, and crocheting and knitting were among the first casualties of my distracted state of mind.  That's unusual, really, because normally, when something major is going on, I'd expect to want to crochet or knit MORE, to soothe my mental agitation, but this week, I was too busy reading.  The tale unfolds thusly.

Or actually, this is the very short version of the tale, because I wish to avoid all muckraking.  So, in a nutshell, this week saw the culmination of a long process for the Good Man Michael and I of deciding that we could no longer in good conscience be members of the Eastern Orthodox Church, and of our departure to the Episcopal Church.  My week was spent reading, researching and preparing to commune for the first time at my new church, our local installment of which is St. Paul's Episcopal Church.

In short, knitting was not part of my existence this week, and my only crochet accomplishment can be seen in the photo on the right: yes, I added about 2/3 of a row of ruffle trim.  Granted, this is the FINAL row, so if I ever manage to finish it (and to weave in the ends mentioned last week which at the moment are still blissfully free to flap about), the Christmas blanket that will never end may, finally, end after all.  We'll see.  As for what I've been reading this week, the enormous stack of books BEHIND the one row of trim should tell the story more than sufficiently, don't you think?  Hope your week was more productive, and a little less momentous.  Once in a while, momentous is necessary, even a good thing, but I think I've had enough revolution to last me a while, thanks.

And an Afghan in a Pear Tree

Yes, friends, the now famous "Christmas blanket" appears on Yarn Along for one last week.  I had hoped to have it done before I posted this week, but I've still got a few rows of edging to apply, not to mention the seemingly never-ending task of weaving in the ends once the project is "finished".  Is there a knitter or crocheter anywhere on Earth who actually ENJOYS that process?

So, the blanket is finally all but finished, and I will next turn my attention back to the nascent scarf that will be my first completed knitting project if I ever manage to finish it.  I really like the beginning I've made on it, so hopefully it will go fairly quickly, especially as I'm developing that stitching rhythm that we must each eventually acquire in order to succeed at any handiwork endeavor.  Obviously, I will be bringing you the latest updates on events as they occur.

Finally, as to my current reading life, have you ever reached a point at which you've officially lost count of how many books you're simultaneously reading?  That's where I am currently.  Believe it or not, the book in my picture for this week is something I grabbed off my shelves "for a bit of light reading"--Hermione Granger is my hero!--in the midst of also working on a book about an ancient Greek explorer named Pytheas, Jane Austen's Mansfield Park, and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.  (There's pretty much never a time when I'm not re-reading some volume of the Harry Potter series.  Once AGAIN I say, Goodreads, you need a re-read function!!)  After a lifetime spent as a student, I seem incapable of being content unless I'm trying to read more books at once than any one person can balance.  I know; I'm strange.  But at least I'm happy!

Purl Along

OMG!  OMG!  OMG!  OMG!

I did it, everybody!  Using a life-saving combination of books and YouTube--thank you to everyone who posted such helpful videos--I conquered the dreaded knitting needles.  Obviously, I'm only a beginner, but I did actually figure out what I had been doing wrong in my previous attempts, and am well on my way to making my first scarf that actually lies flat.  Hurrah!  So far, I can create the garter and stockinette stitches without difficulty, and this scarf is coming together with the extremely simple rib K1P1.  Still, it makes me ridiculously happy to think that I can now actually KNIT!

Meanwhile, the Christmas blanket is coming along beautifully.  Granted, it's now December 27th, but throughout my childhood, we always left everything decorated until New Year's Day, and now that the Good Man and I have established our own household and family, we stick to the old tradition of the full Twelve Days of Christmas, so I'm hoping to have the blanket basically finished by Epiphany (January 6th).

On the reading front, I actually read an entire book since last week's Yarn Along.  I picked up Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs and could not lay it down until I finished it (review coming as soon as I finish recovering from this plague I've caught).  Now I've moved on to Surprised by Oxford by Carolyn Weber, but it is in my Kindle, and a picture of that wouldn't be terribly exciting if you've ever seen a Kindle, so here's the cover image for you to enjoy.

Happy Yarning, and Happy New Year!

Yarn A Loooonnngggg

Well, my little Christmas blanket from last week's post is coming along much better than I thought it would be at this stage, proving once again that I need to have more faith in myself.  Visual Aid 1 will demonstrate the current overall size of my current crochet project.

(And I apologize for the image quality I am able to coax out of my cell phone's camera function.)  Visual Aid 2 will provide you with a cover image of a book which, I'm sad to say, I am not enjoying nearly as much as I am my latest crochet adventure. 

My review, when I manage to finally slog my way through the book, will probably be short, operating on the "if you can't say something nice" policy.  BUT, I'm only 30 pages in, so I won't offer any more words now that I may be forced to eat later.  Either way, at least the blanket is coming along nicely.  My SuperToddler, Brigid, gave it the ultimate ringing endorsement.  "Christmas blanket!  It's so beautiful, Mommy!"  A mother's heart can ask for no more than that.

My Very First Yarn Along!

I  must admit, I'm pretty excited about this for several reasons.  First of all, I discovered Yarn Along, a regular feature hosted by Ginny of Small Things, months ago.  I've been wanting ever since to dig my yarn back out and dive into a project, but life...  Need I even try to finish that sentence?  Of course, the biggest life event that stood in my way was my mother's death in January.  She was the one who taught me to crochet, just as her grandmother taught her, and picking my hook back up again was an extremely bittersweet thought.  I've only now worked up the courage go back to it, not to mention the interest.  But it's winter now, (even if I can't get the weather to cooperate and give me some snow).  It's almost Christmas; I sit in my living room every evening in my recliner and enjoy the glow coming from our tree in the corner of the adjacent dining room.  Can there be a better set up for crocheting on a long winter's evening, with baby and husband safely tucked away in their beds for the night and Jim Dale reading Harry Potter to me through my earbuds?  Yes, it's definitely time to crochet again.

In my own defense, I'd like to point out that I'm a better crocheter than a photographer.  I did find out a couple of nights ago, however, exactly how rusty I was even at crochet, when I had to restart this project four times before I finally figured out what the pattern was saying AND remembered how to execute said instructions.  Pretty sad, considering that this is a very simple pattern.  The grey matter is warming up again, though, and believe it or not, that little green and white lump has aspirations of becoming a lovely afghan in various Christmas colors when it grows up.  You're going to be seeing this project develop for a few weeks, I'm afraid; the book of the moment will change much more quickly in the weekly photographs than the crochet will, because an afghan takes me a little while.  Anyway, I'm back at it again, and that's the important thing.

As for this book, you'll notice it says "Etc." at the end of the title.  I have finished the "A Christmas Carol" portion, and am now working on "Etc.," namely The Cricket on the Hearth.  Naturally, a review will be forthcoming here on the blog when I have finished it.  Happy Yarning/Reading!