Mission Accomplished... sort of!

Well, I did it! I finished the Mario Bros. "?" Bag.


It's not that it was that difficult, it's that I finally finished something for the first time in a while. Even if I did take a shortcut:



That's the back of the bag. The pattern definitely did call for 2 question-mark panels, but, A) I was running very low on orange, as it was just a scrap ball to begin with, B) Colorwork looks nice, but I'm really not very good (read: Impatient) at securing and weaving in loose ends, so the less the better C) It's a bag... you are only going to see one side of it at a time, and since the black/purple stripes actually look quite nice, I consider it reversible!

I tried to reward myself for finishing something by purchasing good, new yarn. I spent literally 2 evenings perusing the deals on Little Knits I had finally narrowed it down, and I had them in the cart, and then I saw that there was a minimum order of $25... being as frugal *coughcheapcough* as I am, and unable to increase my total of $15 any higher, I closed my browser and went to bed.

Over the weekend, we went camping in the White Mountain region of New Hampshire. It was our first camping trip, both as a couple and as a family, and we had a blast. I will blog about the experience at some point this week, for sure! I kept looking for any little yarn shops in town, so I could pick up at least a ball of yarn as a souvenir. But I tend to chicken out when it comes to LYS's, mainly based on the horror stories I hear about knitting snobbery and class wars and yarn snobbery in general. I never got my souvenir.

After a very lame, but serious attempt at knitting this Honeycomb Washcloth for practice, I put it aside and decided to bust out my crochet hooks (against my vow to swear crochet off until I successfully knit SOMETHING), and got started on this lovely Tiramisu Baby Blanket:


Except, my version will be not so much "Tiramisu", but emerald green:



I won't decide on the ribbon color until after we find out if we are having a boy or girl. I may decide not to even keep this blanket and may gift it. We will see when I'm more or less done, exactly what it is I want to do. But for the moment, I am satisfied.

Alrighty, enough crafting talk for the moment. Time to get back to the 'real' world for a bit!

Crafty Goals

I suppose you can almost call this an addendum to my last post.

I need to find a way to motivate myself to get out of and stay out of the chaos that my crafting life currently is, especially since crochet has always been my escape from the chaos of every other aspect of my life.

I need a system.

First things first, I actually got at least half of my yarn stash at least listed on Ravelry. The other half is either scraps or unidentified, and I'm not quite sure how to put it in the 'system'. But it's a lot easier to see the grand scale of things in a list than it is to stare at a few overflowing boxes in a closet. Looking at the actual number helps me say "Good god, woman! Use some of that up before you buy any more!"

I've also been spending a bit of time winding any oversized skeins into smaller balls. While skeins are easier to work from, balls come in handy when you have to frog a significant amount of a project and don't expect to get back to it anytime soon. if I was to be working on a large project, I would rethink this, but for the most part I don't see myself doing too many long-term projects, I don't have the attention span for it. Converting skeins to balls is also involving a significant amount of detangling, which is pretty much the bane of my existence, but needed to be done.

In between anything related to organizing (and spending a little bit too much time in the Ravelry groups and forums...), I am still working on the Mario Bros tote that I have listed on the top right of my blog. I have the question mark square completely finished, and while the pattern calls for 2 of them (one on each side), I decided that you're only ever going to see one side at a time, and decided to make the opposite side in black and dark purple stripes. I have about 8 more rows of that, and then to make the sides of the tote and the strap, and it will be finished. I'm not allowing myself to start another project until this one is completely done.

When I do finish it, I intend to put all of my crochet tools aside for a time, and seriously take on learning how to knit. I tried this a few months ago, but kept getting distracted by a cool crochet project, or frustrated with how long it was taking me to knit, or not being able to read the patterns correctly. I can knit. I can purl. Both are very slow and tension is very inconsistent. I am also intimidated by all the different needles... At least crochet hooks are all pretty much the same, just different sizes. Although I know what all the different knitting needles are FOR, I still find them intimidating. The idea of managing 4 DPN's at one time really frightens me, not so sure I have the dexterity for that!

So, in short, these are my short term goals for the next few months:

Organize. Finish. Learn. Conquer.

And when I say "conquer", I really just mean get comfortable with two pointy sticks. I want to be able to look at either a knit OR crochet project and say, "let's do it!"

cADD. (Crafting Attention Deficit Disorder)

Hey, I did plan on this blog being introspective, right?

My name is Jess, and I have a problem. I seem to be unable to focus on a single project for more than a day or two. I have a 75% finished Baby Beanie, which I had put aside to make and hour-long preemie hat and did not feel compelled to return to. I have at least 20 million various body parts for even more various Amigurumi critters, which include but are not limited to, Brobee, Toodee, and Muno from Yo Gabba, a dragon, the worm from Labyrinth, a green and teal quail, and a few gnomes. I have about 6 rows of a forest and lime green tunisian crochet bag/boy-purse/satchel for my 4 year old son. I also have 18 rounds of a baby star blanket complete, of which I decided I needed the skein I was using on it last for something else. Somewhere in the room is 5 12-inch hexagons, which, someday, are supposed to go into a Painted Turtle Afghan. What I've listed so far is only a VERY minute percentage of WIP's. Sadly, my Ravelry queue seems to grow at a much faster rate than my WIP's.

Because of this (what I have been told, common) severe dysfunction, I also have way too many skeins of yarn that somehow, even though I have a designated yarn storage area, managed to tangle around each other, as well as around legs of beds, electrical cords, children's toys, and more, which may or may not be mostly salvageable and I... you know... just haven't gotten around to trying to fix. But I still keep buying more!

Add in the fact that I have yarn work that I am slightly less skilled in-- more advanced Tunisian, tatting, knitting, crochet lace-- speaking to me in the most tantalizing and delicious foreign tongues, and my god am I a mess.

Is there a medication for this? MEDICATE ME!!!! :-) I promise I will share!