Valerean

After finishing this baby blanket I was inspired to make one of my own, as the stitch is pretty and the ripple is one of those mindless no-count one-row patterns once you get past the first row. I also need a mindless pattern to work on as I'm finishing up another project for my day job this week. I pulled these worsted weight colors from my stash. I have more white if I need it, which will be every other 7-row stripe. I'm going to see how the colors look worked up with the white before I decide on whether to do one or more rows in those shades. I crocheted about 6-1/2 rows or 6" of the throw in one evening, so it should take me ten or so evenings to make. If you'd like to try making a granny stitch ripple throw, Yarnspirations has a free printable pattern here .

Last night (October 11th) I had a very interesting dream. I was in a place like an iphone store with dozens of young people sitting around long tables and talking. The atmosphere had a young, college-age feel to it (even though I never went to college, I have visited them), and everyone was dressed nicely and behaving themselves. At the far end was a Starbucks type coffee shop, where I went I make myself some coffee (I'm not sure but I guess I worked there.) While doing so I came up with an ingenious way to make coffee into delicious edible cubes which had the consistency of cold butter. I began mixing up my coffee to see if I could create them, and ended up with a cup of the cubed coffee. I decided a fine brand name for them would be "Jolts." I took my coffee with me as I went to talk to two of the young people, a boy and girl in their twenties, and we discussed the differences in the intelligence of our generations. I pointed out how much more clever and t...

Since I had a lot of fun making a basket this month I decided to try another, this time a cube-shaped basket by Jayda in Stitches using three strands of yarn and a jumbo hook. I chose these three colors from my green stash and went to work. Working in straight rows rather than in the round was a bit of a challenge; you really need to count and keep track of your stitches and rows for this project so you make the cube shape. The fact that it was different from her other basket pattern was interesting, especially as the big X shaped piece of crocheting grew thicker. Definitely sturdy. Here's the finished basket (I opted not to make the side handles for it as I'm going to use it as a cubby shelf bin. It doesn't stand up quite straight, but one of the skeins of yarn I used was a softer worsted, and that may be the problem. The video tutorial was quite helpful, and it used up almost 3/4 of the three skeins of yarn. Although you do have to track your work mor...

You remember the messy yarn lot I thrifted for $7.99? If you want to know how I sorted it, check out my album of pics here .

This is the yarn lot I got for $7.99 from the online auction. It is a bit of a mess, but there was very little smell and no serious soiling (I expected worse from the listing description.) It was also filled with little crochet and knitting treasures, including four incomplete projects, nineteen skeins of yarn, a cone of light blue chenille yarn, and three scrap balls or partial skeins. The original owner evidently had a habit of sticking her crochet hooks in a skein, so I was the lucky recipient of two nice new ones. Here's the other. Also two pair of these connected knitting needles. The other treasures are two stitch markers, a package of brand new bamboo knitting needles, a jumbo pair of knitting needles, and two blunted yarn needles (I don't own any, so I was super happy about finding these.) What I thought was a granny square turned out to be a nice-size baby blanket made with granny stitch in a ripple pattern. Since I have some of the yarn use...

Today I will (hopefully) be starting an eight-day vacation before I dive into the fifth and final project for my day job, which is due on December 31st. I missed my last vacation due to being sick with the flu, so I'm really looking forward to this one. I am beseeching the universe to give me a pass on the usual holiday horrors so I can complete this project and wrap ip 2025 on a positive note (workwise, anyway.) The other thing I have to decide is whether or not to retire next year. I'm inclined to keep working for as long as I can, and my publisher agrees with me on that. I have a fabulous editor and work with an amazing publisher, so I love my job. It provides an extra income for us which is helpful in these expensive times. As long as I work we only have to pull the minimal required dispersement out of our retirement accounts. On the other hand, my guy will be 76 in December, and he's having some health and cognitive issues that indicate he will likely need ...