Update and my latest FO!

Yikes, I haven't updated my blog in over a month! I have no excuse except blog neglect... Lock me up and throw away the key!

I just finished this project last weekend and love it! It's from Lion Brand's Vintage patterns for today book (the pattern on the cover) and even though it didn't turn out like the pattern called for I actually love it! I still don't have a clue what I did wrong, but it was somehow something I did when I sewed it together. So instead of a kind of vest, it turned into a kind of shrug. Oh well, I call this my "Happy Accident!"




Doug and I have been really busy with work and trying to get our foster license. I think we are getting close to the end of everything. Fingers crossed that our next visit will kind of at least tell us where we are and what else we need to do...

Weight Watchers at work ended last week and my total weight loss is 27 pounds! I was very happy to finally get past the 25 pound mark! Now I just have to keep watching what I eat and remember this is for life, not a diet and that I can do this, even without the weekly meetings!

My mother in law and I have been having lots of fun painting ceramics and my first piece should be completed this week! There is this cute little ceramic place about 20 mins away from where we live and they have classes and everything and will help you if you need it but the first thing I made was a little fishy for our bathroom. He should be all fired and I can't wait to see him! I'll post a picture once I pick him up! I just finished painting a Tweety Bird which I need to drop off and have him fired and then I'll glaze him and he'll be really cute! There wasn't a lot of detail to him so he wasn't too bad. There are a couple of really neat chess pieces that I want to do for Doug for Christmas but they involve quite a bit of detail and I need to get some kind of magnification to do it with my crappy eyes! LOL

Well, that's it from here for the moment! For my friends who have facebook, don't forget to look me up! I'm on there now!

My Gold Medal Porjects for the Crochet Olympics!

Well this is the "Drops Circle Jacket" that I've been wanting to make for well over a year now. It was a pain and I had several rows that I had to frog and re-do but in the end, I am extremely happy with the end result! This was made with 3 strands of thread held together and a size J hook so it worked out very nicely. I opted not to make the sleeves and didn't do the button closure since I would rather close it with a pin.







This is my Pineapple Shawl! It's actually a doily pattern that I converted into a shawl by simply using larger yarn and a larger hook. I used Bernat Softee Baby and a size J hook. This one also gave me a few troubles but after getting through a couple of tough rounds it came together nicely.

A few FO's!

Yes I know, I have been lax with my blog lately... Ok, so I've been very busy and have actually completed a few very nice things so here they are!!!

This was made for one of our engineers at work. He and his wife just welcomed their 2nd child into the world a couple of weeks ago, a little girl. I actually made this out of odds and ends of baby yarn and think it turned out lovely. It's a basic shell pattern and I got it from CPC. I believe the pattern name was something like 5 day newborn blankie or something like that.


Here's a close-up of the stitches:

This one I just love! It's actually a pattern for a chair back and I stumbled across it on Ravelry and someone else had decided to take the pattern and instead of a little hook and thread, she used WW yarn and a larger hook and came up with a shawl so I decided to give it a try! It only took me about 48 hours to complete it and I just love it! I had some baby yarn in my stash and used that. I think it actually would look better all one color and it shows off the pineapples better when I'm not wearing white underneath it but at least you get the idea! This is the back view:

And the front... I used a nice pin to keep it closed during the day. It's nice at work to keep the chill off my shoulders!


And finally a one skein project that worked up in a couple of hours. I got the pattern from the latest issue of Crochet! and used a skein of Red Heart Rasta I think... I made it for Weight Watchers... Our WW group at work's leader always takes our name tags, puts them in a bag at the end of each meeting and draws a name for a prize. Well, she always forgets to bring a bag so every week she has to go into the cabinet and take apart a brand new package with the books and stuff in it to get a drawstring bag out just to draw names and I thought, geez, it's nothing to make a little drawstring bag. So I made it for her and she was tickled pink! I love the colors of that yarn but I swear it's made with bits of straw or something. It's the harshest feeling yarn I've ever felt...

My favorite room in the house!

THE GARAGE!!!

I know, that sounds a little weird but here goes... We have a really cool garage! As you can see from the pictures below it's got the really nice screens on it so if we have the garage door open it's almost like a Florida room. Not to mention the all-weather carpeting which makes it very nice out there. (These pics were taken the day we moved in a year ago. It looks a lot different now!)






We have several things out there now (I need to take some new pictures) including 2 tables with lots of chairs (we play cards and stuff out there a lot), several cabinets which hold all of our board games, puzzles, playing cards, etc., as well as a full sized fridge which is stocked with cold beverages most of the time, a stereo, window A/C to keep it nice and cool on those very steamy hot afternoons and we even have an electronic dart board on the wall.

For the past few months I have really enjoyed going out there in the evenings to watch my movies on my portable DVD player and crochet. When it got too hot to crochet out there I started oil painting. I then started listening to audio books while I painted and now I go out there almost every night for at least an hour to paint and listen to one CD of an audio book that I'm listening to at the time. I esp love to go out there when we have one of our summer thunderstorms. It's so neat to watch it from the safety of the garage yet almost feel like you're outside.

What's funny is that this was originally supposed to be Doug's "getaway room" but he hardly ever went out there so I started to. I think eventually he'll start going out there. We'd like to put a small TV out there, run our dish service out there and once we buy new furniture put the love seat out there and he'd really like it out there then... But for now, every evening after dinner for about an hour, me and the doggies relax in the garage!!!

Has it been almost a month?

Geez, I guess I've really been neglecting my blog, haven't I?

Ok, let's see what's been going on. We've been busy trying to get all of our paperwork together and our house all in order for the foster care process which in itself has been a lot of work. We've also been busy with work. Doug has had a couple of special assignments and ended up working quite a bit of overtime this month.

On the crochet front I whipped up a beautiful baby blanket for a co-worker who's wife just had a baby girl (will post a pic once I get it uploaded) and am working on a really pretty pineapple shawl which is about 3/4 of the way finished!

I've been spending a lot of time out in the garage painting. I finished the 2 paint by numbers sets that Doug got me for my birthday and I think I will get a new one this weekend. It's really nice in the evenings to go out there, listen to an audio book and paint. Fozzy and Tweety love to go out there with me and bark at the people who walk by and I esp love it when we get a nice storm, watching it from the safety of the garage. We had a really doozy of a storm last week that was so bad I had to put Fozzy in the house he about had a heart attack. Tweety doesn't even notice but he doesn't like storms. It was raining sideways, the wind was just blowing and the lighting and thunder was so loud but it was really cool to kind of watch it being outside but not being outside. It's really nice having those screen doors on the garage. I never knew how much I would love it out there but I do...

Today Doug and I went to Orlando and had a great time. We went to see "The Dark Knight" at the IMAX which was incredible and went to Giodorno's Pizza for their famous stuffed pizza. YUMMY! Last weekend I saw Mama Mia which was also fantastic! Pierce Brosnan should never ever sing in public again but everyone else was amazing in the film. I have a gift cert coming for Amazon and can't wait til it get's here so I can order the soundtrack.

My weight loss hasn't been good this month. So far I've gained 4.2 pounds back. UGH! I don't get it, I've been counting and really been careful but I have been going up. I'm sure that wonderful stuffed pizza I had today didn't help either but it was the first time I had it in almost 10 years. I really need to start walking in the evenings and start "moving" a little more. I also need to get diligient about making my breakfast for the week. On Sunday, If I make ahead of time breakfast burritos for the whole week (they are 5 points each how I make them) they are great for my first break in the morning and keep me satisfied til lunch then I'm fine, but if I don't, then I'll buy a muffin out of the machine which is just awful. I think one of those muffins is like 20 points or something insane like that. I must make my breakfast burritos on Sunday!!!!!

We have another 8 weeks left in this cycle of Weight Watchers and I really want to hit my 10% mark. I am still close even with the gain of 4 pounds. I really want to get it. Wish me luck!!!!