End of month

And yet another post in May!  Wow, it's a miracle!  Anyway, on with the show!  I have slowly (very slowly) been cleaning off my balcony, but we had a heavy bit of rain on the 14th, like crazy downpour and I unfortunately discovered that the rain gutters were in severe need of cleaning!  My balcony flooded with water nearly coming into the house, yikes!  Aftermath of that was a soggy mess of leaves, a wet box that was tossed out there for recycling and a lot of empty pots of dirt from plants that USED to live out there.  So it was time to kick it into gear and get the balcony clean and shiny again.  So you may be wondering why after writing that paragraph am I posting picture of granny squares first thing....interesting story.  I figure, a clean balcony means I need a new blanket to have outside. Right?

Really it was a great excuse to use up some old exchange squares I have had forever.  I gathered all the larger ones (about 8 inches) and set about trimming them in white.  Now this of course was in between cleaning the mess that was my balcony.

stack of squares

I did both the balcony and the squares over a few days and really enjoyed the progress of both.

adding an outline

evening table

When I had the balcony done and set up, I was able to sit outside with my work and enjoy the bees in the trees and the hummingbirds clicking about.

working outside

I joined the squares together as I went along so the process was less tedious and even did the weaving in of ends as I went.  I added a simple border to it and viola..done!  A nice lap blanket for the cool morning or evening.

done

Great way to use up things I had on hand already and makes a lovely splash of color for the balcony!

it's own spot

So my house is clean and my balcony is clean and it was a 3 day weekend.  Good times!

lazy dog

I worked on my corner 2 corner blanket which grew nicely.

c 2 c

35 inches

Until I realized I made a huge mistake in yardage calculations!  Damn!  Ripped out a ton of my work, like a whole skein plus of work....did I say damn?  I am still working on it but don't have any new post frogging pictures yet.  Mostly because I need to finish up the baby blanket for my Nephew first and this is for my Grandson.

frogging

I ordered some stork scissors from Amazon with my Mother's Day gifts and I love them! They're so shiny and sharp! 

new scissors

I did some plant potting and some redistributing of plants around the house.

new plants

all clean

Found a nice journal to keep record of my crochet projects, since I am forever forgetting details!  Now I have notes on yarns used, sizes and hooks.

weekend table

So my Monday off consisted of crocheting and generally crocheting more!  and of course hanging out with the dogs, who are always happy when I'm crocheting in the chair.

this dog...

Max needs a haircut!

stripes

Like seriously happy, they love this down throw that I keep out for them and as you can see it's not just the dogs!  I move for a minutes and they crowd in, I literally have to climb back in to get my space back, which I of course accommodate them anyway. 

sigh...I got up to get a drink

I worked up the striped blanket and got the stripes all done and forgot I need to weave in ends before adding the border.  Oh man.  So that's what I'm working on and should have done this weekend.  

so many ends!

A hair update as well, here we are after 6 months.  I started this no color adventure in November and still sticking with it in May.  I may cut off a couple of inches this weekend if the mood strikes me.  I belong to a group on facebook, where these lovely ladies show off the progress they are making and some cut the color out, but I don't think I'm quite ready to go that short yet.

6 months

Friday afternoon and with less then 2 hours left of work...yay!

Listening to:  Radioactive by Imagine Dragons

May has arrived

Been a busy bee and I like it.  I tend to come up with ideas all of the time, but of course I am always in the middle of a project when these ideas come to me which means I always have more then one project going on at any given time. Examples to follow because I've been taking pictures!  

I always see these fabulous granny square blankets on Pinterest and always want to do them, but of course they take time and planning and whatnot...but what if I did a scrap one?  Oh goodness the possibilities are endless but I really wanted random and simple.  I decided that I would make little one round squares in leftover bits of yarn I have.  Only requirement is that it's acrylic yarn and worsted weight so there is consistency in all squares.  I haven't much planned the size quite yet, but I have a good start on little squares.  They will actually be 2 rounds, random colors and a third round in mustard yellow.  I am looking forward to the finished product.

little squares

The 3 stranded baby blanket is coming along.  Works up pretty quickly and it's so squishy!  So easy to do.

a sea of stitches

This here is my random ball of yarn, did I post this before when it was much smaller?  Maybe back when I started it in March...no matter, its grown!  I hope that I will be able to come up with some creative to use this on when it's bigger.

random yarn ball

So as I said in the last post I made a flower garland to hang above the fireplace.  Here are pictures of the flowers and one of the overall look.  I just switched between the red and turquoise and put them on a chain of white.  Took a few tries to get them all even, but got it done.  

red

turquiose

strung up

Here is a photo of the beast hook in action!  3 strands and that hook!  

working away

Went on a road trip North for the gender reveal of my newest grandchild and this was one of my travelling companions 

smiley faced Max

Was a quick trip but Max got some snuggley time in with Brooke. 

Max and Brooke

So the gender reveal had everyone guessing and was a fun time at the park.  The cake was filled with the color to let everyone know and the box had balloons to match as well.

Patryce & Brandon getting ready

Patryce opened the box and Brandon didn't cut the cake, but grabbed the corner of it....he was very excited :)

Yay!  It's a Boy!

Boy blankets it is!  I also have a Nephew who is having a boy in July that has requested a blanket too.  Time to get home and get going on these blankets!

Decided while fueling the car I best get some snacks for myself because 400 miles without something to snack on is a shame.  I know this because I did it on the way up, only had a horribly crunchy granola bar and water.  The trip back I wanted to be prepared!

road trip snacks

So back home and finished up the 3 stranded blanket, really need to figure out my photography skills better for these blanket shoots, can't seem to get a decent shot off anymore.

trying to get a good photo

Now Brandon LOVES legos, always has and is super excited to have his child play with legos...of course this will be much further down the road then he thinks but he's still pretty excited about this!  I have a lego backpack pinned on my yarn board over on Pinterest that I would like to make for Disneyland, I thought this might be a great idea for a blanket too.  Hmmm, well the actually brick is easy enough to whip up, so I did 3 and outlined them in black so I could test them out and get a feel for them.  Turns out I like them, Katlyn likes them and Brandon is going to love this idea!  I did the measurements and the math and figured out I need 42 squares of each of the 4 colors I'm going to use.  Red, blue, green and yellow, basic colors all outlined in black and then I will put them together.  Yep a crazy hot mess of ends to weave in and yikes I'm feeling it already!

3 lego bricks ready for measurements

I came home with new succulents as well and did a fair amount of playing in my plants over this past weekend.  Got them cleaned up and watered and made a new planter out of some new ones.  Overall everyone looks good, I've had one plant that I got from Lowe's 3 weeks ago not do well at all, I don't know what happened but it just started dying, I pulled it apart and got the only bit left of it repotted, hopefully I am able the save it.  Also 1 I got from Home Depot in Windsor, Stein decided it looked like a tasty treat and I came home to bits of it all over the floor, stupid cat!  I hoping that it will survive as well.

updated indoor garden 

newest planter with the 2 struggling

I decided that my finished blankets need a bit of ribbon, but don't have any ribbon wide enough.  I do have a spool of white tulle that is 6 inches wide...scissors at the ready and tada!  Made a lovely wrapped up blanket.

all done and ready to gift

Since Saturday was all about plants, I made Sunday about crochet. So after running errands I settled on the couch with my coffee and yarn to work on things, I chose legos, that is until Katlyn got home from work and asked for some hair flowers for her coworkers. 

into my weekend!

a few hair flowers

Monday night I grabbed my basket with my Water Lily blanket bits and while watching wrestling got blue added to some flowers.  One day this will be a blanket...one day!

a lovely sight

There we are, a proper update for the week and it's still early in the month!

Listening to:  Lonely Is The Night by Billy Squier

Mid month update

Walaaaa...it's all done.  I do love the colors of this and it's super soft and snuggly and perfect size for a car blanket.  The girl is quite pleased as well.

hard to photograph with animals around

I had to fold it up because the dogs kept walking across it while I was trying to straighten it properly and get a good picture.  Colors are truer in the above photo.  Now that's off my hook I shall have to find a new project!

Surprise mail day!  Brooke sent me a present, I do love getting surprises in the mail! 

oh yeah!

So since I finished up the Spectrum blanket, having nothing really pressing to work on, I looked through my wips.  My Water Lily blanket has been sitting around for ages, so I grabbed the basket and sat myself down to see about finishing up the green round on the balance of the flowers.  

such a delightful basket of things!

closer

Kid sat next to me while I worked on the squares.  I had bunny garland up for Easter but while cleaning the house I figured it was time to change it out.  Since there are no holidays upon us right now, I went with simple flowers in red and turquoise attached to a white chain.  I realized I have no other photos of the garland other then this when I saw this picture.  I will have to get something a smidge closer! 

plopped next to me

My new hobby....succulents!  I love them and when visiting up North, my son has an odd little plant he showed me called Living Stone.  I decided to look for one of my own and went to Lowe's and Home Depot.  Didn't find it but came home with all these guys!  I am having so much fun with these plants.  I have a Jade plant that I have had forever out on my balcony and decided it was time to do something with it since it's just a leggy mess.  I took cuttings from it and from 2 other plants I've had for awhile and have them resting up before repotting them as well.  

3 repotted, 2 waiting to be repotted

waiting for them to callous

So plants and crochet!  I love my hobbies!  My Sister is in the process of moving and gave me 2 big plastic bins of yarn, yes more yarn sorting for me.  Good thing I have a new grandchild on the way!  Managed between the plantings and reading to get the green done on all the rest of the flowers.  On to the blue!

all the green done

One last photo to show off the grow out progress of my grey.  I am pretty darn pleased with it (most of the time) and really love how it sparkles in the sunshine!

coming along nicely

I think that about wraps up for now, I have many other things going on right now so there will be another update fairly soon...hopefully less scattered about.  I'm going up North this weekend for a gender reveal party to found out what color blankets I can start making!

Listening to:  Bittersweet by Apocalyptica