YARN THEFT!

Say "hi" to Maxi. He is my son's dog that we are keeping for him a couple of months. Maxi is a Pit Bull puppy, and he actually has a really sweet personality, athough he is a bit mischevious........ I had always heard the scary "Pit Bull" stories, but no one warned me that they are YARN THIEVES!

As I was trying to crochet my illicit potholder last night, he was trying to steal the yarn ball away, right out of my hands! Here is a photo of Maxi posing with some old Red Heart yarn I let him have, along with some Lion Brand that I had been using to make my Monkey sock...... He now has his own yarn "stash"!

I fell off the wagon again!

First, let me say that it's my neighbor's fault I fell off the baby blanket bandwagon for a day!

After we got home from Thanksgiving lunch at the neighbor's, I got a little crochet time in. I just made another potholder/hotpad for fast and easy crochet gratification. This time the pattern was a plain old standby. My neighbor had several of these in her potholder drawer, and I thought to myself that I haven't made one of those in a few years! Here is one version I found of it, "Origami Hot Pad", another is here with step by step pictures, and it is easy breezy, mindless crochet that doesn't take months and months to finish! Besides, you can never have enough potholders!

I have to work today (UGH), while the rest of the US goes shopping on the busiest shopping day of the year. Personally, I would rather just be home crocheting potholders baby blankets!

Pass the stuffing, please!

The turkey is in the oven cooking and smelling wonderful! I began preparing food for the big day last night. First, I threw together an old Thanksgiving favorite of my kid's, as my DD calls it, "the green pie". It is merely a graham crust, with pistachio pudding (thus the green color) and topped with whipped cream. It came about one year after my Dad had married his second wife, who was diabetic. I came up with this pie in the sugar-free version for her, and somehow it hung on every year after that, becoming a huge hit with my kids! It is always requested by DD every year, and the years I can't be with the kids, I know DD carries on tradition..... :). This year, neither one of my kids can be here, but I made the "green pie" anyway (guess it has kind of grown on me, too)!

DD also gave me a new recipe to try, a banana nut roll. I have made the traditional pumpkin roll for the last 2 or 3 years, so I guess when she found this recipe, she thought she would give it a whirl. She liked it alot and passed it along for me to try. I made it last night and it looks YUMMY! We are eating with our neighbors today (I was trying to be totally anti-social this year, and just be home alone with DH, but NO ONE will let us rest unless we go eat somewhere else!) :) That is what holiday traditions are all about, right?

I made jalapeno bacon bites and will also be taking a Broccoli-Rice Cassarole with us to the neighbors. Can't wait to dig in! Happy Thanksgiving, ya'll!

Next in Line

Nothing much going on with Crochet or Knitting lately. I didn't finish the baby blankets in time for the shower, so that is what I need to continue to work on until done. After that, I am interested in making some of the items from this book:

Almost every item in the book is something I would like to make! I don't usually find very many crochet pattern books that I can say that about. But the main reason I got it is that I fell in love with the Teddy Bear pattern:

I saw a photo on Ravelry of the finished bear and it was so cute, I had to go find the book so I could make it, too!

Wedding, books, crochet

DH has a childhood friend "R", that he has known since he was 3 years old (ok, I'll do the math, they have been friends for 46 years). We don't always see each other that often, but we have managed to keep in touch with "R" at least 5 or 6 times a year since we got married. R's son got married in a small ceremony this weekend, and they had a reception afterward here at Lake Bridgeport. No photos of the wedding group, but pretty scenery, eh? This was the setting sun on Saturday.




I haven't finished the first "Starry, Starry Night" Baby blanket, but decided I needed to start the other one (they are for twins). If I can at least get it to the point of getting the "clouds" on it like the other one, I am thinking I can knock out the final rows on both in time for the baby shower. I have already added 5 rows of blue to this one, since I took this photo earlier today!

And I took time out of my crocheting this week to read this: "The Bone Garden" by Tess Gerritsen. I always enjoy each new book she puts out, and this was no exception.

Starry Baby Blanket

Here are some progress pictures of what I have been working on for the last couple of weeks:

It is a baby blanket pattern called "Starry, Starry Night" by Melissa Mall. I was browsing around in Ravelry and found the pattern. SO CUTE! The pattern can be found free, here. I am using Lion Brand Babysoft yarn in Pastel Yellow, Pastel Blue, and White. The pattern calls for an "F/5 (3.75mm)" size crochet hook. I still have about 8 more white rows to crochet around the outside of the blanket, and I will be done with the main body. Then I just need to make several small "stars" and scatter them out around the blanket. It would already be done, but I haven't had time to work on it much this last week! I got the yellow and blue part done in about 1 week of sporadic crocheting, but have been pretty busy and only gotten a chance here and there to work on the "clouds". I will post the finished product soon (hopefully by the weekend).