Projects

I had a rainy weekend at home to focus on work and crafting. Fortunately for my dissertation, I really got into the reading. I really was dorky beyond belief and loving every minute of it.

Unfortunately for my blog, my crafting was mostly at the stage of work. You know the stage in any project (or most projects at least) where the thrill is gone and you just have to slog on through to get to the good parts again?

If I ever have a cut a 4 inch denim square again, it will be too soon. Hopefully my collection of hundreds of these little buggers will get me through a few quilt tops. It's a great way to recycle jeans and the end product is a great cuddle blanket, but one too many dates with a rotary cutter gets on a girl's nerves. At least there were no quilting injuries this time...

I did find a chance to start a donation for a mitten collection for Buffalo children. I'm hoping to put together a few pairs in the coming weeks, even if I do end up buying them at T@rget on the night before they're due! This one may be an oops since it ended up more grown-up size than kid size, but maybe there's some cold, mitten-less mutant six-year-old with extra large hands and darnit she'll need some lovin'. Yeah, or maybe I'll just bury this one under the store-bought goods and hope no one associates the freak donation with the single girl who clearly has no clue about the wee ones among us. I'll post pattern and yarn notes when it's finished. I grabbed whatever was on top of the stash and can't decide if this is yarn that should be blasted with vehemence or used for all future child-friendly projects, even if those projects won't fit any child under the age of 25.

Finally, I finished another square of the Lizard Ridge afghan, but we're not really playing nice right now. I want to post something a little more, um, diplomatic to the group knitalong to get advice, but there was much swearing and a bit of teeth gnashing over how this skein knotted up on itself as I was knitting. You knit from the inside and outside of the skein at the same time, and I swear those two pieces of yarn were magnets for each other. It was like they were felting together in mid-air. When I was working the first square, I mis-read the directions and ended up cutting my yarn after each section so there wasn't a long piece to tangle. Zip zap, that square just came together as fast as I could knit it. Since I'm 80% sure I'm going to put a backing on the afghan, I can do a messy job of weaving in the umpteen hundred ends, right? Anyone have any Noro tips for knitting on both ends at the same time? You gotta keep 'em separated! (Hope I can keep my ends separated so I don't have be separated from this gorgeous project!)

On a good note, I'm on my second sleeve of the Central Park Hoodie. Hopefully I'll have blocking shots in the next few days. Bring on the fun parts of my projects!