Closing in on 2013

Another weekend down and 2013 is closing in. I can't believe this year is almost up! I've decided to do Crazy Aunt Purl's Totally Do-Able 12 Month Plan for 2013. It seems easy enough and I like to have some sort of game plan for the coming year.

This weekend was very chill. Grad school is finishing up this Friday and my final paper is under peer review so there wasn't much I needed to work on. Saturday I went to the Gladiator's hockey game across town with my mom and some of the kids she tutors on Wednesday. It was a reward for one of the boys for making A's and B's this semester.

Love a good hockey game!

Gandolf was at the game to promote the Hobbit which comes out next week.

 

Today was church, napping, dinner, working out, and knitting. A week or so ago I tried my hand at crocheting. I was thinking of making a blanket. I didn't get very far.

Nearly 2 rows of crochet.

Tonight I ripped out the crochet because I came to my senses and realized I was never going to have the patience to finish an entire crochet blanket. I decided to make a blanket square instead.

Patterns for washcloths (I'm using them for blanket squares).

Just a few hours of work.

Needless to say I'm much more successful with knitting than crochet. It only took me a few hours to finish the first square.

I'm also working on a pair of socks for myself. I think they look very Christmas-y so I'm hoping to have them finished by the end of the year.

My own hand-dyed sock yarn!

The weather has been very mild up to this point. There were a few days where it got close to freezing but then it's been in the 60's since then. That means that wool sock wearing is probably not going to happen until after the 1st of the new year. It usually gets coldest here in Georgia in January and February.

This next week is shaping up to be very busy. I've picked up 7 new clients plus taken on most of the initial assessments coming in to the office. My schedule is so full! Praying that it stays that way for the next few weeks though. I'd rather it be a little crazy and busy before Christmas than to come home to it after I get back from Romania.

"Dabbling" in Crochet

I got to thinking the other day about possibly teaching myself to crochet. Now that I'm self-employed I have a little bit of free time to learn (if I so desired). I've heard some people claim that crochet is faster than knitting and I thought this might be of some advantage in the blanket making department. I mean, there's an afghan hook the size of Texas that can apparently be used.

Giant afghan hook

My previous experience with crochet has been rather limited. I can make a chain but that's about it. Then I remembered the purple mitered squares blanket. I needed to start piecing it together and I didn't want to sew the thing up (I hate seaming with a passion). A quick Google search on crochet seaming and I had a rough idea of how things were supposed to go. Of course I pretty much adapted the whole thing to Whatever-Way-Worked-Best-For-Me which I'm sure made needle artists everywhere cringe. This is one of the drawbacks of teaching myself something new. I usually just interpret it as best as I can and jump right in. Case in point: for the first year or so after I learned to knit I purled backwards. Side note: I did eventually fix the back of that sweater. And no, I haven't finished it! Thanks for asking...

I assembled all the supplies for seaming.

Squares and yarn

Blurry crochet hook (not blurry in real life, only in crappy-taken-at-10-p.m. pictures)

Then I got to it. My first set of squares came out quite well I think.

First 4 squares seamed together.

It took me an entire movie (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, in which Daniel Radcliff sports some very voluminous hair) to finish seaming all 16 squares together. There was only one mishap. I had originally intended to seam the squares with the "fraternal twin" squares opposite one another (you can see that in the picture above). Well, one set got mis-seamed.

Fraternal twins on the same side as one another.

Not a huge deal and definitely not something I'm ripping out a whole half hour of seaming to redo.

After spending a whole night dabbling in crochet I don't think I could leave my first love, knitting. It would be like saying I was just going to go make out with that guy who's not my boyfriend because he looks like he might be a better kisser. In the end nothing is as good as it seems and everything takes a little work. Plus, I got a sore thumb from crocheting. Not sure how that equates to the kissing thing but I'd rather not work that one out.