Long Time No Blog

I've been busy with my other blogs, ravelry and facebook and realized today that I haven't posted on my crochet blog in months....all Summer actually, but that is typical of me and crocheting anyhow. Not that I didn't work on anything, I did. I made a nice cotton throw rug for the Aliner, some little creature habitats for our hairless rat and my nieces little hamster. Some scarfs and other small random projects too. I picked up some awesome Mini-mochi yarn in NY and made this lovely scarf for myself. I have another skein and plan on making the matching hat. I used the same pattern to make a green scarf for Carol. I love this pattern.....let me go check the name of it on Rav.....It is called Ziggy Lace Scarf. It works up nice and easy. I have not updated all my Summer projects even to Ravelry. Sometimes I just can't find the time. The Internet is a huge time suck and it seems like it takes me further away from my crocheting and ironically away from whatever it was I came online to look up in the first place. I can't totally condemn it because of the endless supply of crafty inspiration, craft and yarn coupons and awesome patterns I would never find in my local store or library. I am more motivated this time of the year to pick up my unfinished projects. One big monkey on my back right now is the Cathedral Rose afghan that I started last year to benefit a trip for Taylor with People to People. But the economy sucks and us just like most of middle America we are freaking broke and there are no extras like this, even with auctioning off an awesome project. I've been working off of my stash more and take the time to dig through it when I am thinking up new projects. Here is a site though that I can always find current AC Moore and Michaels coupons. After working with the mini-mochi splurge I bought in NY I really wish I had more free cash for my hobby, but I'm more lucky than a lot. I also look at my stash and think about all the cash spent on yarn I'm not even using. If only I could take that value and buy quality and not quantity. But when I buy yarn I feel "guilty" and don't always remember sometimes it really is just better buying less, but better.
Either way, like I said my crochet skills are back in season, so I intend to keep up on this blog a bit more diligently. Can't work on the Aliner too much over the Winter, although I do have some work to finish up sewing the curtains. That has been a fun but demanding project in itself. I am really looking forward to finishing that and using it next year. I can almost see myself sitting in it on some camping trip in the pouring rain crocheting a scrap afghan that will find it's home in the cozy camper.
Only other crochet thing on my mind at the moment is about the recent conversation going on in the Ravelry forums about yarn bowls. I would love one of these! But $$$! that I do not have for something like this...even if times were good, idk....kinda pricey. But it makes me think about other bowls and how they are used. Like rice bowls, or those soup bowls with lids that have an open slot or hole for the ladle to stick out. Or even just some random pottery bowl that has been dumped off at the Goodwill. So I am going to keep my eye out for something cool like that. It would definitely help keep the yarn off the floor and pet hair while I am working on a project at home. Plus it will look pretty on the table. We'll see what I can find out there, treasures everywhere if you look hard enough.

Cathedral Rose Window Afghan Update

A few updated pics on the Cathedral Rose Window Afghan.


My current desktop wallpaper, tweet, tweet.

Where in the World?

I haven't posted much here lately, but I have posted here. Please check it out if you haven't yet. I am currently working on the Cathedral Rose Window Afghan. Pictured here is our color plan. This afghan will be auctioned off to help fund Taylor's trip with People to People, which you can read more about on my other blog....dedicated to the topic itself.

If you are on Ravelry you can keep up with it here. So far I am loving the pattern!

Since the Ice Storms.

Christmas was nice. No running around this year, nice and quite. Money was tight, but not so horrible that the kids didn't have a nice Christmas. In fact I think they really enjoyed the day. I got an awesome coffee maker. I didn't even know I needed a new one until I started using the new one. I had a Krups that I bought off of eBay at least 4 years ago now. It was the carafe type. I hate burnt coffee. My MIL broke it last year while she was staying with us, but I found a new one at the Outlets on clearance for $10. She didn't like my coffee maker. I think she broke the original carafe on purpose....but then again she thinks I broke her coffee maker on purpose too. Oh well. Anyway, the new one is a Cusineart. It has the bur grinder built right in. All have to do is put the water in. I can smell the coffee grinding while I am downstairs in bed before the water even starts to cycle through. Mike is so good at knowing what I want, even when I don't! He got a car (truck) starter, and even though this present was really only there because of his brother it was nice to see him have something to open too.

New Years has come and gone too. My two resolutions are to a) be motivated, more motivated than I have been. b) get into some kind of exercise routine. Even if it is just walking. I've gained weight since I quit smoking last March. No regrets, but I do need to start doing someing about it. Plus it's just time to, 36 and all. Not that 36 is old at all, just time to make sure my ass doesn't spread into some kind of uncontrolable wad of goo. And I do not want to sport "mom-butt" in any form what so ever. I'm still a camel toe kinda gal and want to stay that way as long as I can help it. I think I should also be more systematic about the household finances, it wouldn't hurt.

Next week is suppose to be record cold. Again, this is New England and that's what happens. Jan. is always super cold. But it's also already almost half over! Feb. is short, and my anniversary. March is long, long and cold. I hate March, except it's Mike's birthday and this year I will be celebrating my first year smoke free. Yay me! Nothing can top that one actually. Then it'll be April and Spring will be here once again.

My company is being bought out by Dow. I'm still not sure if this is a good thing or not. But it should be complete by today, if not next week. Not that there will be any immediate changes I guess. I just hope there are no lay offs. Times are so hard everywhere. We had our group meeting this morning and it seems like I am involved in a lot of projects, helping out. Being a tech is a good thing, diverse and all. Hopefully that'll count when they are lining up the ax.

Crochet wise I am dababling in a few projects at once, as usual. I am working on an afghan for Taylor. Not the orginal plan, but orginal colors. She'll be happy with whatever I make her anyway. I am also working on a small brown wool rug for in front of the hearth. The one I have there now kinda got beat on over the power outage days. I also have made one mitten with the same wool. Now I have to make another. Thank God I actually followed the pattern for a change. When my BIL (lol, Brother-In-Law = BIL, his name is Bill) goes back to SC this Spring I am going to partally use the back room as a craft room. I want to organize my yarn, take pics for my notebook stash on Ravelry and display it in a way that looks nice and shows off the yarn before it's worked up into its final form. Yarn is an art in itself. Maybe someday I will have enough money to buy snob yarn. In the meantime I am really liking the Vanna's Choice colors. I should go crochet after I am done here as a matter of fact. I finished my ripple pictured above somtime around the holiday. I love the colors, done in Vanna's Choice too.

I am very sad about the trees Worcester is loosing to the ALBs (asian longhorned beetles). Utterly amazing watching the landscape change by the second. So sad. Wish I could do more to stop it. Wish I had known it was going on when there was still a way to slow it down. And I hope so much that my 4 maples in the back will make it. So far they are okayed by the feds, so far.

I've joined twitter, as happyhooking. Kinda cool to have updates on what people are up to. I mostly joined in case Ravelry is down, just so I know why, lol.

That's about it. Not to exciting, not that it's a bad thing!

Worcester Ice Storm 2008

Holy shit, that sucked. All I want for Christmas is my power to stay on! The picture to the left made it to the WBZ picture gallery.

Here is a link to the family photo album. It was cold. Our power was off from Thursday, midnight until Monday morning about 7am. I was so happy when it came back on, and I am so sad for those who are still out. A lot of people in the smaller towns are out because their electric comes from a municipal source. If I had a generator I would "rent" it out. We heated the house with the fireplace, if you want to call 50F in the living room and 40F elsewhere heated. But it got down to 15F outside Saturday night. I can not imagine how the pioneers made it, or how the homeless survive. We are all so lucky. Amazing how an act like this makes you stop and think.

Here are a few pics if your not up to looking at the 90+ in the link above. I still have a few aftermath pics to post. Like the Caddy that was on the front of the T&G over the weekend with a huge branch over it. I took one after they got the branch off.

This is the view to the left out my front window. We had a microburst in October of 2007 and it took out a lot of trees in this area. We lost maybe 15 trees in that storm. So it could have been twice as bad this time. We live on a privite street, so the city does not come down here to clean up at all. This is when I think I should be getting some kind of tax credit for cleaning it up myself. It took us two days to clean up, and it's still not right.


We took a walk up Clark Street the morning after and I got a couple cool pics after the sun came out.


The kids are out of school all week. They are going to be going to school until July! Poor things, they actually want to go. They are being pretty good. I am lucky they're a bit older, I would hate to go through this with real little ones. Kenzie was able to take her blue belt test tonight, and she passed :) She was scheduled to take it last Saturday. Today the Dojo opened back up. Master Alty (in Leominster) is still without power and they say it could be 5-6 days longer. I really hope everyone has power by Christmas!!

Ravelry Invite?

I have a handful of Ravelry invites. If you don't want to wait the few days it takes to get one let me know and I'll email you one.

If you don't know what Ravelry is, and you crochet and/or knit you really should go check it out....best thing invented since yarn!

www.ravelry.com

The History of Crochet

From the Crochet Guild, newsletter 10/1997:

You and I call it crochet, as do the French, Belgians, Italians and Spanish-speaking people. It is known as haken in Holland, haekling in Denmark, hekling in Norway, virkning in Sweden.

Other forms of handwork ­ knitting, embroidery and weaving ­ can be dated far back in time, thanks to archeological finds, written sources and pictorial representations of various kinds. But no one is quite sure when and where crochet got its start. The word comes from croc, or croche, the Middle French word for hook, and the Old Norse word for hook is krokr.

According to American crochet expert and world traveler Annie Potter, "The modern art of true crochet as we know it today was developed during the 16th century. It became known as 'crochet lace' in France and 'chain lace' in England." And, she tells us, in 1916 Walter Edmund Roth visited descendants of the Guiana Indians and found examples of true crochet.

Another writer/researcher, Lis Paludan of Denmark, who limited her search for the origins of crochet to Europe, puts forth three interesting theories. One: Crochet originated in Arabia, spread eastward to Tibe t and westward to Spain, from where it followed the Arab trade routes to other Mediterranean countries. Two: Earliest evidence of crochet came from South America, where a primitive tribe was said to have used crochet adornments in rites of puberty. Three: In China, early examples were known of three-dimensional dolls worked in crochet.

But, says Paludan, the bottom line is that there is "no convincing evidence as to how old the art of crochet might be or where it came from. It was impossible to find evidence of crochet in Europe before 1800. A great many sources state that crochet has been known as far back as the 1500s in Italy under the name of 'nun's work' or 'nun's lace,' where it was worked by nuns for church textiles," she says. Her research turned up examples of lace-making and a kind of lace tape, many of which have been preserved, but "all indications are that crochet was not known in Italy as far back as the 16th century" ­ under any name.