quick like a bunny

While waiting for the Advil to kick in I thought I would do a super quick update of the star blanket.  I am worried about these colors playing nice with each other....but this is what was requested!

starting the orange

Yep I said quick!  

Listening to:  Trade Yourself In by Shinedown

Finished one and started another

Got the first baby blanket done.  I love the squishiness of it and though I think it's just a tad too small on the length It came out nearly square.  The stitches kind of pull it together and squish it up a bit, so you could easily add more to the length, but I figured it's a great size for a snuggling baby blanket.  I really do like it and it is very toasty.

finished

Look at that texture!

I will give it a final measure before I pack it up for wrapping and will definitely be repeating this pattern quite soon as my Cousin is expecting a little girl.  Can't wait for those girly colors!  I started on the green/white/orange combo that was requested for the same mom-to-be as the stripy blanket that while contains the right colors (in my mind) my daughter really thinks she is excepting the perfect 3 color combo blanket from me!  Here be the final color choices, let me tell you my Daughter is very picking on her green selection!  I tried every single green I had in my stash (a considerable selection I might add!) and she nixed every one until yesterday when I pulled this Red Heart Spring Green out and she said it was perfect.  So these shall be the colors for the new blanket that I fussed about finding a pattern for until deciding on a star from here

New colors

started the star

Got a few rounds done last night while watching One Piece with Katlyn, just haven't decided how big the colors bands will be yet, kind of winging it.  Not even sure how big it will be yet.  I am just hoping to get it finished before the shower on the 9th!

Listening to: Paralyzer by Finger Eleven

DIY & Disneyland

Here are some pictures of the decarpeting of my house....oh what a mess this has created.  My normally high dust attracting house is now even worse!  I dusted and swept everywhere today.  Now if you look closely you can see that all of the carpet has not be pulled up yet, and that's because that is a corner of a very large wall unit and it needs more then 1 person to move it and since Christopher did 99% of this himself while I was at work and then he left for my Sister's house sitting duties and honestly on Thursday after spending 12 hours at Disneyland on Wednesday, I was in no condition to handle it myself!  So here we are on Saturday morning, Friday night I was supposed to babysit but that was cancelled so I took advantage of being home alone and watched hours of Doctor Who!  To my credit I did watch and cut up carpet padding at the same time and hauled it a couple of bags down to the dumpster.  So this morning I got the rest of the padding down to the dumpster and did a LOT of sweeping and dusting and moved a bit of furniture around (not the big wall unit though) and I feel much better about the whole thing.  I just have to get rid of the rolled carpet pieces now which will go to the dumpster at my work.  I am babysitting tonight and was just told by the 2nd grader little boy I am watching that I need to clean my house! Grrrrrrr!

Oh such joy!

The concrete is a mess

So on Wednesday we went to Disneyland!  Always a good time.  Happiest place on Earth and my son is not smiling and pretty much had a surly face all day.  I guess it's not cool to be all happy with your Mom and your little Sister at Disneyland.

Arrival and this is the same face for Chris throughout the day!

Katlyn on the tram

Christopher on the tram

We had Chris pick a statue of his own for the traditional Disneyland visit picture and of course Katlyn and I took ours as well.

The White Rabbit is her new tradition :)

He chose Dumbo

I found my ears first thing upon entering the park.  I sparkle!

Yay Disneyland!

I won't post anymore pictures of Disneyland, but I have tons!  So be warned when I need filler photos they could just show up!

Stripy blanket almost done at 99% completed right now should get pictures tomorrow.  The babysitting tonight is not going so easy peasy so I don't know that I will be getting it complete tonight, but I am going to try.  

Listening to:   Phineas & Ferb on the TV

a wild week ahead

It's still hot, hot, hot around these parts and doesn't look to let up anytime soon, so the best way to beat the heat is to hang out in the pool!  Saturday we did just that, went over to my Sister's and hung out in or around the pool.  I was in, but really needed to get some pictures of Christopher doing his flips and twirls off of the diving board, so I got out to take pictures. I of course managed to forget my camera so the pictures are all from my phone but well you get the idea.

The newest pool addition! 

Chris putting it to good use?

flying solo 

Riley trying his own stunt (yes he does already have a broken wrist)

So while we were out playing Kid was up to a bit of mischief (as usual) These are my Son's expensive headphones which are now chewed and in need of new ear cushions!  Damn dog, I swear if I didn't love his face off, he would be living somewhere else!  So I have to keep these hidden for a bit until the new pads come in the mail, hopefully I can pull that off.  He hasn’t noticed them missing yet but I am afraid he just might tomorrow. He goes to the office with me to do some work and usually takes them with him to listen to his iPod while he works.
Kid chews things when we leave them  at an unscheduled time (I leave him and Max together so they have each other while we are out) In the mornings when Katlyn goes to class and I go to work he does chew things BUT if I come home from work and have to go to the store and Katlyn comes with me...the chewing and mischief run wild!  Sigh...

We started pulling up the carpet yesterday and Christopher is home today working on that so by the time I get home the living room should be all done and maybe the dining room as well.  The clean up is oh so much fun, but man oh man I hate the carpet.  I was going to take pictures and forgot, so I will take some tonight for updates.  We are going to Disneyland on Wednesday, Chris will be housesitting for my Sister Thursday to Monday, Katlyn goes on a camping trip to Big Bear leaving at 7:30 Friday morning....so much to do in a week!   It will be just me and the animals for the weekend and I imagine a whole lot of clean up from the carpet removal!

Now while I don't have picture evidence of the striped blanket nearly done, trust me when I say...it's nearly done.  I am on the 5th repeat and have run it very tight on the yard usage with only about 7 inches to spare on the orange stripe...whew.  I am still up in the air about a border too, so I will need to buy some yarn to do the border but 5 skeins, will complete the entire blanket.  

That's for this Monday afternoon, I'm sure I will be back soon with some floor update pictures and blanket pictures and of course Disneyland pictures!

Listening to: Gamma Ray by Beck

The weekend's all gone again

Here we are back at Monday and I did not accomplish what I wanted to!  By Wednesday I gave up trying to beat the weather and turned on the air conditioner.  I had been running it only after dark in hopes of keeping my electric bill from causing my heart to stop upon opening the next bill, but I have too many animals and just can't let them suffer like Katlyn and I are willing to do.  We went to my Sister's to hang out in the pool after work on Wednesday and came home to a pleasant temperature for a change and the animals were much happier!

My oldest text me on Wednesday asking if he could come hang out with me for a bit so he is now staying until the beginning of September!  Yay, that means I will finally get my carpet out! He will be put to good use for his stay!  

Thursday is really the only day in which I sat myself down and crocheted for a decent period of time, and while I didn't finish the blanket, I did make some progress.  Friday, Saturday and Sunday we hung at my Sister's house swimming.  No blanket making got done during that time :)

My Galileo thermometer says it's too hot.

Kid's way to beat the heat!

Wednesday evening sunset

My Brother grilling ribs in the dark 

My niece Makayla

So the progress picture, not too bad.  Started on the 4th repeat and I think I may have enough yarn to complete all of the stripes.  Don't know about the border yet and I did want to make a matching stripy hat, so I think I will be buying another set of these colors, but pretty cool that I got it nearly done with only 5 skeins.  

progress as of August 13th

So that's it for today, I am staying home tonight and dinner is in the crock pot already so I can relax at home for the evening!  So looking forward to it!

Listening to: She Will Be Loved by Maroon 5

103 degrees and yarn

Oh mercy this has been a hot last few days, I am working on getting this blanket done though but let me tell you it would be moving quicker if it was cooler.  I think it's me, I am 50 now so maybe I am going into the whole menopause thing...whatever it is I can not seem to cool down even sitting doing nothing but watching Game of Thrones and crocheting!  I am still sweating a fine sheen constantly!  Last night I just couldn't take another night of being sticky with sweat so I broke down and turned on the air conditioner....that's going to make for a lovely power bill!   I bought the first season of Game of Thrones on Friday and Katlyn and I had watched the entire season by Sunday night, so last night I went back to the Olympics and watched track events while crocheting in a much cooler environment!   I'm on the 3rd repeat and at the halfway point.  Yay, I just have to figure out if I am going to do a border or not.   

almost done with the brown stripe.

a close up of the texture

So there you have it, a quicky of an update.  Hopefully I can get this done by the weekend or over the weekend....too bad I can't crochet in the pool or can I???

Listening to:  Goodbye to You by Scandal

New stuffs!

Yay progress pictures, ok well they are new project pictures actually because I don't have progress pictures of my Waterlily blanket.  Though all of the inside flower parts are done 35 pink ones and 28 whites ones for a total of 63, wow this is going to be a big snuggley blanket and I am pretty excited about that.  Too bad it has to hit the back burner for the moment while I get baby blankets cranked out.  The one I do have pictures of is the one I started last night while sitting around an extra 7 hours at work while petty people did petty things.  

I bought these 5 colors of Vanna's Choice a few months ago to make a baby blanket for a friend of my Daughter's.  She had some odd color ideas that included purple, green, black, white and I thought she had said orange way back when but egads!  So many Halloween colors that I really didn't see how I was going to do that and well obviously I didn't.   I'm sure I will come up with something close to what she has in mind, but for now I present this one!

beginnings

steadily working

here's where I finished up at midnight

I love these 5 colors together I am doing a blanket stitch with no pattern other then the pattern for the stitch itself.  I am working 3 rows in each color and then repeat, I had do a bunch of math last night to get a pattern worked out, so after the first 2 rows of blue I measured, turns out 2 rows equals 1 inch, so more math and I came up with a pattern of 3 rows of each color and then repeat for a total of 5 repeats which should give me a blanket of 32 x 37.5.  The stitch is a great texture stitch and I of course love Vanna's Choice yarn. The colors used are Aqua, Goldfish, Chocolate Cake, Sweetpea and Lamb all VC Baby.  Don't have a total on the skeins used but I'm thinking 2 of each.  Hoping to make a little stripey hat to go with this when I'm done. Baby boy is due in October and they live in Northern California where it's a bit cooler than here in the Southern part of the state!  

That's all the news I have right now and I can't wait to get some more work in on this blanket.  I will be hanging on the couch later tonight with this on my hook!  

Listening to: Dragula by Rob Zombie