Pre-Game Jitters...

I ended up signing up for 13 different projects....THIRTEEN!!! How crazy am I?! Thirteen projects in 17 days?! At least 3 of them are WIPs and a bunch of them are smaller ones that I can finish in less than a day....but I am going crazy and just want to get started! I've got roughly 33 more hours before I can begin my Ravelympics projects.....

So to settle my pre-game jitters, I'm making more book thongs! Yay! LOL I have a Cafemommer that wants some, so I'm working on the set of 10 today. I've already got one done and another halfway done, so I doubt these will carry me through all of the 3 days that are separating me from my pile of projects sitting in the corner....that are giving me intimidating looks....argh!

The Ravelympics!

So, for those of you that don't know, I'm also a part of a social networking site for knitters and crocheters. They're putting on this "competition" (it's really all more for fun....no prizes or anything...) in the spirit of the Olympics....we're allowed to start our projects when the opening ceremonies begin and are trying to see how many we can finish by the time the 17 days are up! I just signed up for something like 9 projects.....Yikes! I didn't realize it was that many until I counted them! LOL I'm pretty excited about it....I'll be posting them here as I complete them....this is going to be so fun!

In other news, since my last posting, I've finished not only the do-si-do lapghan for my mother-in-law and the snowflake scarf for a good friend, but started and completed the mentioned prayer blanket for a friend that lost her brother in a car accident, a prayer blanket for a son of a friend who is Jewish and in Iraq for the Army, a set of 6 book thongs, and a set of 4 daisy squares for charity! I've also started another 6-point-star for the wife of said Jewish soldier (who also happens to be stationed in Iraq for the Army) and a baby blanket for a fellow Cafemommer. Those two blankets and another granny square blanket are 3 of the projects on my Ravelympics, so I have to find something else to occupy me for the next 4 days....lol The blankets are in the WIPs wrestling category, seeing as how I started them a while ago, but I'm not supposed to continue work on them until the opening ceremonies, per Ravelympics rules. :) I guess I'd better go search my stash for the needed colors to do all the projects for the games! :)

Here I go again...

I decided to do another prayer blanket, but to use the colors I want, I have to finish my snowflake scarf and my MIL's lapghan....Well, I got to the point in the snowflake scarf where I'm on the last of 7 sections. I laid it out to take a picture for ravelry and noticed that it didn't line up! My perfectionist nature has kicked in again and I stopped because I'm actually debating on taking it apart to the point of error, which is 30 rows ago!!!! Ugh! I can't make my mind as to whether or not I'm going to let it be and just finish it (since I'm only 32 rows away)...Ha! Who am I kidding? Of course I'm going to take it apart! LOL But I don't think I'm going to do that today. I think, since I moved on to the next shade of blue and am done with the shade I need for my MIL's lapghan, that I'll finish that off first. I can't wait to be done with them! I'm so close!!!

Grab your partner, do-si-do....

I wanted to do something special for my mother-in-law. She was an amazing source of support while my husband was spending his year in Korea, and I wanted to make her a little something to show her my appreciation for that. I settled on Happy Yellow House's Do-Si-Do Lapghan pattern to use, but, of course, with colors that stood out to me as "her." In hindsight, I think I should have used a soft white (or off-white/aran) instead of the country blue. I think that would have made the colors flowed better and not looked too…overdone? But I know she'll like it, just the same. :) And as it’s rare that I do a pattern as written, anyhow (lol), in this one, I tweaked it to where there are 5 solid blocks and 4 multi-colored ones instead of the other way around. I'm pleased with the overall effect of the 4 "pinwheels" instead of 5. I think that has a lot to do with my elementary school days, oddly enough....

When I was in 2nd grade, I was so excited...in P.E., we got to learn how to square dance! I'd looked forward to that my whole 1st grade year! lol And when you square dance, of course there's 4 people per group. Unfortunately, I don't really now remember the steps in square dancing, but I remember that "do-si-do" was my favorite. (Hmmm...maybe that had something to do subconsciously with why I picked the pattern....I wonder...) And I remember that it was the part when you and the person across from you skipped to the center, hooked elbows, swung around and skipped back into place, and then the other pair copied. Or maybe it was with the person next to you...I don't remember that detail, now. LOL But that's my excuse behind having only 4 multi-colored squares instead of 5. Four makes more sense to me. There were 4 people in each group (or "square") that danced together. So why have 5 "spinning" blocks? I'm not saying there's anything wrong with how the pattern's written. In fact, when I started out, I had every intention of following that pattern, to a T. It just rarely ever ends up being that way. LOL I made a block of the purples swapping places and decided that I liked the dark purple as the "pinwheel" better, so I wanted to even out 2 of the dark pinwheels with the light. And that meant, unless I was going to undo the blocks I'd already finished (which I most certainly was not!), I'd have to alter the pattern and change it to 4 pinwheel blocks instead of 5! :) Since I got that order of yarn in the mail, I can finish it now, and then send it on it's way to my MIL.....

"It came! It finally came!"

And for those of you that may not be aware, I just quoted the movie Toy Story, though my excitement of what came has nothing to do with a rocket. LOL Can you tell that my almost 3-year-old (YIKES! He's almost 3!?!) watches that movie?.....A lot? LOL No, what I'm excited about is a lot less explosive.....hahahaha....that's funny, b/c, well, I'll explain in a minute. My package was yarn. YAY FOR YARN!!! :D I've not really gone out and mingled with the Italians yet, and haven't wandered into any of their shops to see what kinds of yarn they have, but I know that the BX (Base Exchange) doesn't carry any yarn. It really is a tragedy, in my world. But I found a place online where I can buy yarn that is reasonably priced, and the first thing I ordered through them came a couple days back. Now I can finally finish the projects that have been sitting around, waiting to be finished, but unable to get them done for having run out of yarn. Now the funny part is that one of my projects is actually titled on Ravelry as "Pink Explosion." LOL......*crickets chirping*....ok, fine, so I have an off sense of humor. lol

Anyhow, I know all my blogs and social pages (myspace, FB, CM, etc.) have all been pretty quiet for a while. I've just not really been in much of a writing mood as of late. I've been in more of a pondering mood, which tends to lead to long silences from me in the cyber world. But today is a really good day. (I think that partially has to do with the fact that I got to sleep in until almost noon today, since The Husband was home to get up with the boys, and after yesterday, I really needed that sleep! LOL) So here I am! :) I should really catch up on my blogging now that the stopper has been pulled from my silence.....lol And then it's off to finish the umpteen million projects I've been almost done with for months, now....(Okay, so the "umpteen million" is exaggerated....the "months" is not....) Time to get crochet-happy! :D