My Next Project

Thanks, Bron and Priscilla, for the compliments. The vest was fun to do, and I may actually wear it.

For my next project I've decided to try something with sleeves. I had seen these one done by someone at Crochetville and realized I had the yarn in my stash and the pattern. It's the Crochet Ruffle Cardigan done in Plush. I had purchased four skeins in Wine some time ago, and I was thrilled to discover I had enough yarn in my stash for the cardi.

I don't know why I have such a block when it comes to wearables except that I don't have a lot of confidence in my ability to sew things together. I can duplicate any stitch or pattern, but sewing things together is like running into a brick wall. I reread all of the instruction books I have and watch the videos online before I begin and think I've got it, but when I pick up that needle I just freeze. I swear I'd drive 50 miles to take a class on finishing items if I could just find one.

Vest

This is the vest I began a little over a month ago. It's finally finished with the ends woven in. It still needs a good blocking, though. The pattern is from The Crochet Yearbook, Volume I that I purchased last year from bookcloseouts.com. I used about 5 skeins of Paton's Grace and a F hook. If I had known I was going to have so much yarn left over, I would have made it a little longer. As it is, this one ends at about the hip bone.

The pattern had only one mistake, and it was a minor one. It said to seam up the shoulders and side seams, but there are no side seams. I made a few minor adjustments. I was suppose to double crochet around the edges, but I used a single crochet instead. The pattern in the book used buttons, but since I seldom wear a vest buttoned, I left those off. The one thing I don't like about the pattern is the last row on the bottom edge. It's a wrong side row, and I'm just not crazy about that. I tried adding a single crochet row along the edge, but it didn't look right either. If I made the vest again, I would add another single crochet row along the edge, so the final row would be on the right side.

Tiny

I'm babysitting Tiny while his mom is at the vet being spayed. (At least I think it's a he. He's not too crazy about me turning his butt up in the air to try to figure it out.) It's hard to believe this little fellow is almost 7 weeks old, but he's eating solid food and drinking water from a bowl. He'll use the litter pan if I can catch him in time. Next week it will be his turn to go to the vet for his shots. Hopefully, that will make it easier to find someone to adopt him.


That's fiberfill from a play toy that you see on his right eye. It looks like that toy is going to have to be trashed.


Right now he has a tummy ache. I left some of the other cats' food bowls on the floor, and I discovered him with all four feet in one the them chopping away. I have a can of goat's milk that I need to mix up for him and see if he'll drink it. Cow's milk isn't good for them, and kitten formulas are very expensive. Goat's milk is a much cheaper substitute for the formula.


His mom is the last of the females that needs to be spayed. Now maybe the neighbor's toms will go home and leave us alone.


Now I don't want you to think I'm some crazy old lady that goes around picking up strays. I just happen to live in town that's a dumping ground for unwanted pets. The ones I can catch have all gone to the vet for shots and to be neutered or spayed. It will take me all summer to pay off my credit card, but at least there won't be anymore kittens.


I splurged the past weekend and bought a pizza and rented some dvds. There's a new pizza place in Snyder that just opened up, and I wanted to try their pizza. It was really very good.


I rented The Wicker Man, The Fountain, and The Illusionist. Bron had mention The Wicker Man once, and she said it was bad. I wish I had listened to her because it's a really, really awful movie. The Fountain had nice special effects, but it was boring otherwise. The Illusionist, though, was really pretty good, or maybe the others were just so bad anything would have been an improvement.

Round Ripple

The pattern is from the book, 100 Crochet Projects by Jean Leinhauser and Rita Wiess. (I know I've also seen it in one of those little books published by Coats and Clarks, but I can't remember which one.) The afghan is made with 7 skeins of Light and Lofty in Tahoe and a N hook. The finished afghan measures about 60" in diameter. It's nothing fancy- just another stash busting project.

I'm thinking I'm going to really like this new autosave feature on Blogger with the way our Internet has been behaving lately. We've had nothing but trouble for three days, and it's very frustrating to have a post ready only to have the Internet go down. I do try to post, but I sometimes lose what I've written. (As I get older I seem to have less patience, and it doesn't take much to frustrate me.)

I'm going to have to buy groceries this afternoon before the rains come again this week. They're forecasting a chance of rain for the entire week, and buying groceries when you drive a pickup with a regular cab is not something that you want to do in the rain.

I'm thinking about trying to make my own vegetarian chili. I used to be able to buy it in the can, and I'd make hot dogs with it. I can't find the chili in the cans anymore, so I'm going to be forced to try to make it myself. I've found one recipe that sounds pretty easy and can be cooked in the slow cooker. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Mindless Crochet

I made this in a couple of evenings last week while we were having some wild weather. It's a very simple shell pattern that I found at Bernat. The pattern called for Galaxy yarn, but I substituted Light and Lofty in antique blue from my stash. Three and a half skeins made an afghan about 31" x 35", excluding the fringe. I like to use my N Crystalite hook when working with this yarn rather than an aluminum one. For some reason the Crystalite just works so much better for me with this type of yarn.

I had planned to donate it to the nursing home, but I'm afraid the fringe would be dangerous for a nursing home resident. I wasn't going to add the fringe, but the afghan needed something, and I didn't have enough yarn left to crochet an edging around it.

I love how quickly this yarn worked up! If I ever make any more afghans for gifts, I'll certainly use the bulkier yarn.

It's Been Awhile

The month of May has been a time of extreme weather in Oklahoma. Tornado watches, thunderstorms, heavy rains, and flash flood warnings seem to be the norm for us this year. After more than two years of drought I shouldn't complain, but we are saturated right now. Oklahoma lakes are finally beginning to fill again, so I guess some good has come of it.

I haven't finished the crochet vest. I just can't seem to make myself finish it. Maybe when the weather calms down I'll be able to concentrate on it again.

Yesterday it had dried up enough that we could move some of the cattle around. We had a couple of calves that needed to be worked, and we wanted to return some of the mamas to the home farm. Things went well, and we were able to get it all done in a few hours. It's a good thing we finished, too, because I woke up to rain again this morning.

I have been crocheting, but it's been mindless crochet. The kind that you can stop and start again without trouble when they have one of those severe weather warnings on TV every few minutes. An entire evening of those warnings can really make you a nervous wreck. The crochet is necessary during those times, or all I would be able to do is pace the floor until the bad weather passes.

I don't have any pictures of crochet, so I'll show you some farm shots instead.

This is some of the cows coming to see if they can talk me out of any food.

This is the wheat field that we baled for hay.