Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Grandma's Afghan

Last Sunday, the day before school started back for the fall, My Husband's grandmother passed away. Our family was already in the midst of a crazy week, and the whole world was turned upside down for my Mother-in-Law in the span of 3 days.

Last week, my MIL went to Louisiana (where her Mom lived) to help her sister and brothers sort through Grandma's things and decide how to go forward as a family. They got back late Sunday night, and we went over to visit last night. The kids were SO excited!! They had missed their grandparents, and it had been a long week with them gone. They did bring back a few bins of items, things for herself and things for us.

For me, I got a bin of yarn, a navy Vera Bradley purse (!!!), and a BEAUTIFUL new quilt for our bed. I don't think Grandma ever even used it, and it is gorgeous and I can't wait to snuggle under it! I knew that Grandma was a crocheter since we have many items of her handiwork around our home, and I was excited about my project idea - the perfect thing for Grandma's yarn.







The little bin of yarn (I think like 1/20 of my stash would fit in there!)is of many assorted colors and many of them verigated, and none of them even remotely resembling the others. That was a little bit of a problem, but I am good at what I do so I came up with a plan.

I am taking a pound of off-white yarn and the little bin if colorful yarn, and making a granny square blanket for my MIL. The off-white, the base color, came from my own grandmother's stash that I inherited last year, and each square will be the off-white every other round, and one of Grandma's yarn colors in the other rounds, per square. The squares are quick, taking less than 15 minutes, but I am NOT looking forward to weaving in almost 900 ends! Some of the squares are pretty whacky, but I'm sure my MIL will love the tribute to Grandma. I have 13 squares done, I'll show you more when I have more to show!!

Friday, August 19, 2011

School is a time-suck

I have been out of school on Summer "break" for 8 days. I start back on Monday. I have finished up all of the pre-requisites for the Nursing Program at my school, now I have to wait to apply in January, and start next Fall. That is a REALLY long time to wait, especially since I am not the world's most patient of people. In the meantime, I am taking some other classes to finish the degree and keep the Pell Grant money coming in.

I had stopped working on yarn for a while, just due to studying constraints, but I am starting to get back into it now. Since we last talked, I did finish a few projects, though!

This is Baby Andrew showing off his blanket.











That's about it... and only because Mama wanted him out... and we all know that babies don't come until their blankies are done!

I am working on a blue baby blanket made from $.97/ball Pomp-A-Doodle. It doesn't have a baby to go with it yet... but I couldn't pass up a $6 blanket!! I also started working on a pink and green blanket from the book "Interlocking Crochet" by Tannis Galik. I am not very far because it is really confusing to me, but I am sure that I can figure it out with all my 30 years of experience!!

In other news, I had to disconnect the Hook 'N Stick website because I didn't have the money to keep it up, and with school I hadn't had the time to really give it the attention it deserved. We all know I can ignore the heck out of a website, but there I had to pay for it!

I will try very hard not to ignore you so much! Good luck to all the kids (and their parents) going back to school!