Rectangle Granny and Cardigan

There isn't much progress to show on the ruffled caridgan. I've reached the stage where I need to sew the pieces together so that I can crochet the ruffle. Today I practiced seaming a couple of swatches together, and I think I have the hang of it. I have the sleeves pinned to the cardi, and if I feel like it and can catch a time when the cats are asleep, I'll start sewing the sleeves and sides.






I saw an afghan pattern on eBay for an afghan made of rectangular grannies. I found a pattern here and came up with this. It would be different from any other afghan I've ever made, but who knows if I will ever finish it.





Last Saturday I did get to go with some friends to the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge. It isn't far from where I live, but I don't visit it often. It's especially pretty there this time of year when all of the wildflowers are in bloom. We saw buffalo, longhorn cattle, and elk. We stopped at Meers near the reserve and had longhorn beef burgers and the best peach cobbler I've ever tasted. Four people ate for less than $40, too. I bet you can't beat those prices anywhere.

Even though I enjoyed the time I spent with friends, I was exhausted when I got home. I had been to the doctor earlier that week because I hadn't been feeling well at all for the past couple of months. I got the results of the blood tests on Wednesday, and I had tested positive for Lupus. Now I realize that one blood test isn't probably enough to say that I have it, but I have some of the other symptoms. I've been extremely fatigued and many days it feels as if every bone in my body hurts. The arthritis medicine the doctor gave me is helping some, but I'm afraid to do anything for fear the pain will worsen. He wants me to see a rheumatologist, but those people are few and far between in this part of Oklahoma. The nearest one is at least two hours away, and I don't think I can make the drive alone. I haven't decided quite yet how I'm going to manage it.

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.

Placemats and Tablerunners

Bron's been working on things for her new home, and it made me remember that I have some patterns from Annie's Attic for tablerunners, placemats, and things like that. Of course, I had to go through my pattern collection and look for those patterns and booklets.



This one I thought was done in separate leaflets, but all of the patterns are combined into a little booklet. It's title is simply Dining Decor and was published in 1983.









Then I found one called A Dozen Mile-A-Minute Placemats and Matching Tablerunners. I was surprised to see that most of these are done in acrylic yarn like Red Heart. There are only three out of the twelve that I would actually like to make.









The last one that turned up was purchased on sale from Annie's last year. It's called How to Crochet the Celtic Way. I've actually made one of the trivets using this method, so I can say it's much easier than it looks. The trivet was pretty flimsy, though and wouldn't do much to protect your table.

I've wasted all of the time I can, so I guess I'd better get back to work. I've got towels to fold, and sheets to put into the dryer. I need to mow grass, but everything is still fairly wet today after the rain yesterday. Besides, my nephew has had my lawn mower for a couple of weeks now and hasn't returned it. I've left him a message telling him that I really need it back. I love the boy dearly, but he's just like the rest of the Neys (except me). He borrows things and doesn't return them. Then you have to nag and nag until it's returned. or in some cases, just go steal it back.