Skittles Blanket - Quick Update

Not going to be a lengthy post, but I just finished construction of the skittles blanket.  I still have 203 ends to weave in, though.  But the time-consuming part is completely done!!!  Here's a picture I took a few minutes ago, and then this post is done.

I also chose to make an edging all the way around, and I'm really glad I did, it looks much more finished than my other completed granny square afghan.  (Why are they called granny squares, anyway?)  It's also quite heavy, I wasn't expecting it to have so much weight.  I am now going to try to weave in all those ends tonight in the hopes we can take it to Matt's parents' house and give it a quick wash tomorrow since we're going to be out that way anyway.  (It needs to go in a washing machine without an agitator so it doesn't get mutilated.)

Woo hoo!!!

Rainbow Fibers

This post isn't going to have anything to do with the weather.  Or politics (I'll get into that later, I'm planning a rant at a later date).  This is gonna be all about the projects I've been working on since I last posted stuff about my projects.

Since I last posted, I finished my own Christmas stocking, an entire set of coasters, unmade the two placemats so I could remake them (the pattern I originally chose sucked), completed a placemat with the improvised pattern, finished my Christmas tree skirt, and started yet another blanket.

Placemat with PS3 controller for scale.

The story with this placemat is that I realized how much I hated the pattern (since I couldn't get it to stop buckling), so I made this one and unraveled the pink one since I hadn't finished it yet.  Unfortunately, I had to toss the purple one because I'd already woven the ends in and I couldn't unravel it without having to cut it into little pieces, making it useless to crochet with.  So I bought more purple yarn.  I don't think Matt actually knows I bought more yarn.  At the moment the kitchen table is more of a catch-all than a place to eat, so having the placemats isn't terribly important right now.  That situation probably won't change until at least after this stupid, stupid semester is over.

Both Christmas stockings.  I may revisit the stocking situation at a later date because I don't love these.

These are the Christmas stockings.  They look okay, but I'm not in love with them.  The one that is mine is definitely not what I would call "me" - it's a little more traditional than I would like, but I couldn't decide on a color scheme that was still kind of Christmasy while being a statement of my personality.  So I'll make a new one at some point down the road when we actually have a mantle or something to hang them from.  I still haven't figured that one out.  We have stockings for Matt's parents' house at Christmas that go with their decor, so these are exclusively for our house.  Might look up some ideas on Ravelry or something later.  These will do for the next few years, though.

My completed Christmas tree skirt.  It is 48" from point to point.

This is my Christmas tree skirt.  Finally, finally done.  I only started it in July, so I guess that's less of a finally than some other projects.  (I have a blanket I started in 2007 and finished in 2013, and another I started in 2010 and I still haven't finished it, among other projects.)  I love this Christmas tree skirt, though.  It's sparkly and awesome, and it's not the shitty fake snow with the crappy glitter that I've been using as a tree skirt.  The package on the fake snow may have said "Christmas tree skirt" but it is horrible and I hate it.  Which is why I wanted to finish this project so badly - then I can not use the one I got for $2 at Walmart.  But yay!  It's done!

So, just under two weeks ago, I got very upset at my homework (there was about 3 hours of crying involved and no progress made), and said something along the lines of, "Fuck my homework, I'm making a blanket."  So I started making a blanket and it's basically taken over my life for the last 11 days.  I think maybe this blanket was meant to be made or something, because I can't stop working on it.

Composite of the progression of this blanket.

It has never taken such a short amount of time for me to get to this stage of a project this large.  This is also the largest thing I've ever made.

Current progress as of the writing of this post.

That is the Skittles Blanket, as Matt has so dubbed it.  It is currently 5 ft square.  I am on the final color, but I'm unsure of how many rounds I'm going to do of the really, really intense pink I'm currently using.  I love this blanket.  I feel happy just looking at it.  Maybe that's why I needed to make it.

It is also already big enough to cover pretty much my entire body head-to-toe, and I'm not even done making it BIGGER.  As you can clearly see, it's already almost large enough to use as a bed blanket.  This thing is a monster.  I love this blanket and can't wait to finish it.  Of course, I still have to weave in all those damn ends (this is the only thing I'm waiting on for another blanket I made), but I don't think I'll mind so much because it makes me feel so happy.  I think I might make a rainbow hat or something just for grins and giggles so I can take the happy with me wherever I go (at least when it's cold outside).  That's a definite possibility, actually....

Anyway, that's about all I have to talk about.

Gigantic Update Woooooo

I wasn't kidding when I said I suck at the whole "keeping up with a blog" thing.  So, things I didn't talk about when I posted last was actual life stuff.  So I'm going to start with that before the other things (I have pictures to post).

For those not in the know (so basically anybody who doesn't talk to me regularly or doesn't actually know me IRL or isn't my friend on Facebook), Matt and I are staying with his parents for the summer.  We moved in May 18th, and we move out August 7th.  We have 23 days to go!  You better believe I'm counting every second.  Honestly, it's not horrible, I just feel a little more restricted than I like, and I'm not used to living under someone else's rules, being 27 and all.  We had some initial bumps, and now we're either smoothing out or nobody is communicating anymore.  Not sure which.  In any case, that's the current living situation.

A few days before my last post, Matt and I were involved in a car accident.  Thankfully, we weren't hurt.  The truck also was not hurt.  We hurt some grass, though.  And we totally went on two wheels before we got very friendly with a ditch.  I thought we were going to roll and die, and since I'm not a ghost, I can tell you that neither of those things happened.  Basically, some girl (who I think was probably playing with her phone instead of paying attention to the damn road) randomly came into our lane (we were on a 2-lane highway going 65 mph), Matt swerved out of the way, and then she hit the two cars behind us.  She had to be medevaced to the hospital, and both other drivers also went to the hospital.  Here's what two of the cars looked like:

Red car is the girl who caused the accident, black SUV was the unfortunate guy who rolled.  Matt's dad didn't take photos of the other car or our truck because they were quite a distance away from where these two ended up.

It was a pretty scary experience, but we're fine and life goes on.  We still haven't used that road since that day, though, except when Matt's parents have been driving.

Moving on to happier things, at the beginning of June I went to a Backstreet Boys concert with my friend Erin.  We've been friends for about 18 years now, so it was a pretty cool experience.  Here's a photo:

We had a blast.  We've decided next time we have the opportunity to do this, we're taking Matt as our DD and we're going to get a little trashed and really let loose.  We totally acted like 14 year old girls instead of grown women, screaming and jumping and the like.  It was a fabulous night.

Also this summer, we went to our friends' daughter Vivian's first birthday party, which was pretty neat.  The birthday song freaked the birthday girl out and made her cry.  Aww.  We also took home from the party our other friends' daughter, Aubrey (all our friends are also friends with each other these days), who we were supposed to keep for five days and then give back, but we ended up with her for nine (and it was supposed to be like 18, but her mother couldn't stand being away for so long).  There were some family health issues Aubrey's parents were helping with, and it would have been very complicated to bring her into that situation, so we kept her since she was already with us.  Got to try on the parenting hat again and all that jazz.  We miss having her and plan to steal her again for a weekend sometime after we move.

After Aubrey went home, I went to visit Heather again for a few days, partly to get my curtains made finally and partly because we like hanging out.  While we were on the way, we stopped at a Sonic to get drinks and stuff, and we saw this:

I love classic cars.  They are just awesome.  They don't make them pretty like that anymore.

When Heather's grandma found out how much the fabric I bought cost, she decided to just do all the sewing herself, so I learned all about pinning.  Pinning takes longer than the actual sewing.  I spent probably five hours pinning, and I think she spent maybe a total of 30 minutes sewing.  But they're done and they're gorgeous and it is just killing me that I can't hang them until August.  And I kind of need to buy a curtain rod still.  Ha.  Here's a picture of the curtains hanging up:

I still have to iron them (oh goody) before I can hang them, so I'm going to have to leave them here until we buy a curtain rod and then I'll have to come back over to Matt's parents' house and borrow their iron because we don't own an iron.  I don't iron anything!  I love these curtains, and even though they cost a bazillion dollars, it was money well spent because they should last a long time and they're exactly what I wanted and I'll use them forever.

Speaking of things I'll use forever, I'm almost done making my Christmas tree skirt.  I underestimated how much yarn I'd need and need to buy another skein of the sparkly green I've been using to finish it off, but I'm just about there.  Here's the process (begun June 24th, last picture taken today):

Here's some other projects that are either finished or near completion:

Matt's Christmas stocking, two ornaments, purple placemat and matching coaster (all of these things are finished), and the pink placemat is nearly finished.

In terms of crafty things, it's been a pretty productive  few weeks.  I need to get a move on on the placemats, though, because I'd like to have those ready to go when we get moved.  I also want the tree skirt done before school starts so I don't have to scramble to finish it when it comes time to put the tree up for Christmas this year.

I guess I've exhausted the topics of life stuff (not much is happening so not exactly a whole lot to tell) and crafts (I still haven't finished that pillow, either, because I'm afraid to mess it up), so I guess I'll move on to weather stuff.  I'm still not paying a whole lot of attention to things, but I will say that it's currently unseasonably cool for Kansas right now and it's amazing.  I should be outside enjoying it but that requires wearing real clothes and I don't wanna make the effort.  I might try later though, when there's less sunlight.  What a vampire, ha.  I do have a lot of cloud pictures to show, though, since it's hard not to pay attention to the sky with that whole always being there thing.

June 25, 2014 - I took this because the clouds reminded me of the clouds Pixar uses a lot in their movies and it made me really happy.  This was the best picture I could get, since we were going 70 mph on the highway and things like trees and hills kept getting in my way.

June 26, 2014 - Not weather related, but we had an inch worm in the garage and he excited me greatly.  I made Matt take him to a plant (he was climbing the doorjamb) so he would have a chance of survival.

June 29, 2014 - Believe it or not, I actually took this picture with my cell phone camera, since that's all I had with me.  These mammatus clouds were part of a supercell that produced a tornado (I don't think it did much damage if any) later on in the evening.  I took this at about 8:30 PM.  Best mammatus cloud picture I've ever taken.

July 7, 2014 - Even with the edit, I can't make the picture look like it did in person.  The clouds were gorgeous.  The weather wasn't anything very special, just kind of wet and then just stupid hot because it's Kansas and it's July.

So, overall, nothing particularly special, looking forward to the next 3 weeks hopefully going by very, very fast.  Next week, we're going to see about getting my favorite ring repaired.  I haven't been able to wear it in 3 years because the band snapped (thankfully palm side) while I was vacuuming.  Yay.

Other than that, nothing exciting going on except laundry and crocheting until August gets here.  (Laundry never does seem to have an end.)

Project Overload

So I am not very good at making the time to formulate a post. See, it takes away from the crocheting, and that’s primarily what I want to do right now. I never get to make pretty things during the school year because I’m so focused on school and everything and being exhausted and cranky and I can’t work on an involved project during that time. But this summer… this is the summer of the projects. (I’m going to need to write another post later about stuff in my life instead of just crafts and weather.)

So many projects. I’m making Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon for my friend Heather, I've already made a Pinhead pincushion for Sondra (she’s actually paying me for that one because she’s giving it to someone I don’t know), I decided I’m making all those Christmas decorations I've been wishing I could make, I currently have 5 blankets in progress at the moment, I made mittens for myself to match a scarf I made, I made mittens for Matt’s mother, I’m making Matt’s mother a potholder (possibly 2), I’m making bookmarks for Heather (and maybe even myself), placemats, coasters, and I made myself a pincushion today and started Matt's Christmas stocking.  Here's a picture of all the smaller projects (some are completed and inaccessible and I didn't feel like digging all the blankets out).

These are all the small projects I'm in the process of or have completed recently - Matt's Christmas stocking, a potholder, a pincushion, a Pinhead pincushion, coasters, a placemat, and Toothless.

This is what all the parts of Matt's Christmas stocking look like right now.  I'm starting to worry if it's going to be way tinier than I expected.

Aside from all the crocheting, I’m also learning to sew this summer with the goal of making curtains for the sliding glass door in our apartment. Because I hate blinds with every fiber of my being and I’m sick of living in places with blinds. So my solution has become to make or buy curtains and move the blinds to where they can’t really be seen. I still need to buy or make curtains for the living room and office for the new place, but I need to be there so I can measure those. To the end of learning how to sew, Matt’s mother suggested I take some of my smaller pieces of fabric and make a pillow with them. I think she was expecting me to make something really simple because I’m pretty new at this, but I made this instead, and I think it’s pretty fabulous.

Hark!  A pillow!

Only problem is I didn't sew it in the right direction and the corners are all open and I don’t know how to hand sew at all yet so I can’t close it up. Here’s a view of the predicament this thing has ended up being in.

It also ended up crooked when it started out straight and with all pieces being equally sized.  I don't know what happened.

At least it's pretty, right?

Hopefully Matt’s mother will either have the time soon to help me or my book will arrive and I’ll be able to work independently. She’s not giving me as much instruction as I was hoping she would, so I think I might forego learning how to do it on the sewing machine and either just sew all three curtains by hand or have Heather help me at her house. I don’t know. I was hoping this project would be a chance to kind of get to know Matt’s mother a little better or maybe help us communicate more effectively, because I often feel a little shut out or brushed off by her, and I don’t know if it’s because she’s keeping me at arm’s length because I’m just her son’s girlfriend or if I’m just being crazy. Her method of teaching pretty much involves a quick rundown of where the parts go on the sewing machine and a quick “good luck!” before she runs off to do her own thing. And I’m left alone with this terrifying, daunting project. By no means was I expecting her to do any of the work, but I was expecting her to be a little more involved when she agreed to help me. But it’s okay. I’ll do it on my own and it’ll be fine. I’m probably being oversensitive, anyway. It’s not like I know how to deal with mother-type people in the first place. Anyway, here’s the fabric I’m trying to turn into curtains.

  

And I even artfully draped one of the sections! 

This is what it looks like when the sun shines through it.

On the meteorology front, I've gotten some pretty nice cloud pictures lately, taken a few videos. I feel like I’m forgetting everything I learned over the last several months, which scares me because I don’t want to end up with an empty head all over again. Especially not now that I’ve transferred schools and I’m going to the big, scary one instead of the small, laid-back one. Maybe I push myself too hard during the school year and that’s why I don’t want to look at or open any of my books during the summer. Or maybe it’s because I have horrible study habits from high school and I suck and don’t want to do things I need to do to get the things I want long-term. Ugh. I’m also thinking of double majoring, so I’d be majoring in both atmospheric science and mathematics. Because I’m totally insane.

We've been having some decent stormy weather of late, I don’t remember it storming this often at all last summer. I’m hoping we’re finally leaving the drought we've been in, because I really don’t want to experience Dust Bowl conditions first hand. Reading about it and watching videos of it was plenty. My weather radio even went off today right before we got the severe thunderstorms, though I think the chunk of the squall line that went through our area wasn't actually severe, it wasn't very exciting. Lots of lightning, though, so I’m glad I chose to stay in the house this time. I need to buckle down and make time to read my meteorology textbook from last fall and make sure it’s all fresh before school starts, since I’m only taking the lab and not the lecture of the introductory meteorology course. I hope I’m actually good at this instead of crappy at it like I feel right now. I haven’t been paying attention to the weather and I forgot everything I learned about the forecast models so I haven’t even tried looking at them and I have been pretty much entirely focused on crocheting lately. I’m allowed to have other interests, right? So if that’s true, then I shouldn't suck for not paying attention to the weather every single day. I hope. I don’t know.

I’m done with my crisis. Here’s some cloud pictures and stuff.