QoGS

Lately, I feel like the Queen of Granny Squares.

Living so far away, I really feel disconnected from family and friends.  I also love sending people things in the mail, ever since a special someone sent me cookies at a terrible time in my life last year.  Spreading joy through the US Postal Service is a great way to keep in touch with people I care about back in Pennsylvania.

Back in March during a visit with my Mother's family, my cousin Mark and his wife Heather announced their first baby would be born late this summer.  Having JUST learned how amazingly fun crochet is, I decided to set to work creating a blanket for baby!

The hardest part:  Heather doesn't want to know the gender of her baby.  She is decorating with a theme that would suit either a boy or a girl.  I find this very progressive and interesting, considering we live in a day and age when some women put so much stock in the gender of their child they do crazy things to achieve their coveted boy or girl.  I won't go into it, but I might decide to do the same as Heather if I'm ever (super accidentally) having a baby. On second thought, I'm not very good at waiting for news like that.

So this is what I came up with:

The pattern is:  Carseat Blanket by Mary Ellen Wells.  I used Acrylic yarns because babies are messy.
Caron One pound Makes up the blue border and various colorways of Vanna's Choice make up the centers. All in all, it cost a little more than $50 dollars for the yarn, but I had plently left over, and I'm making a hexagon afghan for myself with them.  I bought an extra shade for mine, a really girlie pink.

Its not even close to done, but here is the pattern: hexagon how-to.  Pics soon, it's going really fast, maybe it'll be done by Zach's birthday?

Ravelry project link.

Errant Skeins Afghan

the afghan in all its 15% completed glory

This is my wedding present to my husband-to-be. We are getting married months in the future, but of course I began this now so that I would have no trouble finishing it by the date of our civil ceremony in mid-July.

The original pattern is for a baby blanket made with sock yarn. Instead, I am using up all the old skeins of worsted-weight acrylic yarn that I have, and believe me, there is enough yarn in my stash! I was very surprised at how all the colors look together. While we have quite a few blankets already, I wanted to make something with more modern colors that was brand-new for the big move. The photo here is doing the brightness and vibrancy of the yarn no justice.

Here is the Ravelry link if you care to follow:  Wavy Gravy

Unfortunately because of the Afghan, I have still NOT finished the last Toasty mitt.  I suspect that I will be done by the end of the evening and have pictures posted soon, and the intended recipient who is anxiously awaiting his mitts will have the [slightly itchy] pleasure of wearing them before it gets too warm.

In the pot this week:  Fusilli Alla Caprese from the Food Network, with some added improvements.  Instead of the basil, I used fresh spinach as I am not a dedicated basil fan and neither is Zach.  If I made this recipe again, I would cut the cherry tomatoes in half first, as smashing them with a fork in the pan definitely caused one to shoot its seedy juice into my eye and all over my shirt.  I would also suggest using either a softer cheese than mozzerella, or adding the chunks straight to the pan and melting them for a few seconds because the heat from the pasta was simply not hot enough to do the job.

Nevertheless, a few seconds in the microwave melted the cheese nicely.  Speaking of which, I'm pretty hungry right now, so I'm off to heat up some of these leftovers and chow down.  Peace.