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‘m busy working on this baby blanket for my nephew - so far I have 16 1/2 rows completed and I need at least two times that to go, maybe three times. I haven’t decided yet. I never timed how long it takes me to crochet, I just work on it a little at a time. Well today I timed it - and wow.

It takes me about 10 minutes per row for this blanket, I’m not sure how many stitches across but it is a double crochet. So 16 1/2 rows times 10 minutes…. 165 minutes = 2 3/4 hours. What! Seriously? I am amazed. I honestly don’t feel like it took that long but maybe that’s because I’m only doing a row or two at a time and then walking away.

I really want to make an afghan for myself. I’m thinking a couch lounge blanket size. I haven’t started because I don’t have that much yarn and I admit even though I am a newbie crochet’er, I have yarn standards. I don’t want to buy just whatever yarn at the local craft store but the problem is also that I just don’t know what kind of yarn to buy. I see people making these afghans with scrap or leftover yarn they have - my leftover yard consists of some 100% cotton, a couple of red heard baby and another cotton.

Do you make an afghan with cotton?

Maybe I’ll stick to baby blankets and scarves for the time being. Oh and I made those fingerless gloves last year - I ended up giving them to my step dad who is a golfer and he loves them! He actually wants another pair but while these ones ended about the middle of the palm of your hand, he wants some that go all the way to his knuckles. Sounds like a quick and easy gift for him!

If only my Dad were so easy to buy/make for!

There is a pink and purple fleece tie blanket - basically you lay two fleece fabric pieces together, cut fringe and then tie the fringe twice. The bottom fabric tie will end up on top - see how it is darker on top? That’s the purple.

And here is the fabric for one blanket I am making for a gift this year. I admit I was not too happy with having to use orange - another thing I am trying to do is use what I have, and I already have orange! - but after looking at it all day long, I think I like it.  Once it is all together the orange around the edges (since that is all you would see when you look at the print side) will look nice.

I did get started on the other crochet blanket tonight as well. I did the starting row and then about 1/3 of a second row. It’s been cold here so I’m thinking of lounging on the couch with a blanket and a good movie and I should have a good bit of it done. Do that a few times in the next couple of weeks and done! The fleece blanket is much faster, maybe 15-20 minutes per side is all.

A friend of mine taught me to crochet one day. It was a quick and easy lesson and I caught on right away. I went online and found NexStitch.com with fast loading videos and easy to follow along instructions. That fixed it for a couple of stitches that I just needed to see vs. being told about over the phone.

Then I bought The Happy Hooker. I LOVE that book! The first half is the basics - easy to read and understand instructions and also illustrations. The second half is full of patterns. Lots of cute funky ones like crocheted belts and skirts and completely cute ones like the pattern I used for a blanket Alice’s dolls ended up owning.

I’m bringing this up to remind myself! I promise I’m going to start the blanket I’ve been talking about this week, I am determined to do so because it takes time and I love the idea of doing an all handmade Christmas.

I got out my fleece for the tie blanket - I’ll have pictures on that tomorrow as I did get the fabric ready to go, which takes just a few minutes and then actually making the blanket doesn’t take very long either.

I forgot about this! Alice’s friends, the neighbor girls, gave her a Fairy doll for her birthday. I think it is a Barbie Fairy doll? I might be wrong. The doll is cute, she has wings and awesome hair. She has two braids in the front and the rest of her hair is in a high ponytail in the back. Of course that part is all curly so it’s a puff ball. Well Alice wanted to have the same hair as the doll the other day and I did the best that I could.

You can’t see the doll too well, but that purple puff is the back of her hair. I tried to wrap Alice’s into sort of a bun so it would be similar. She loved it! I don’t remember wanting my hair to be the same as my dolls as a kid, but I’m sure I did. She liked it so much I did it for her again today. So we’ve had three days of matching hair.

And in crafty news the baby blanket I’ve been crocheting is getting bigger and since I’ve completed more of it, I feel a lot better. The other day I felt like it was never going to end! I need to look up how to do scalloped edges once I’m finished. I’m planning on making two more for gifts for my baby nephews, the size is easy to adjust so making them bigger or smaller is all you have to think about.

I finished my nephews car seat blanket a couple of weeks ago. It was right before we all got sick so I didn’t get around to taking a picture of it until yesterday. I love the pattern! It was very easy to follow and I ended up getting the blanket done in less then a week or so. I still need to make the other blanket for my other nephew, I’m going to start on it soon.

I really need to buy better yarn. My craft store has a bad selection and it seems that noone there knows how to help. I ended up talking to another yarn browser who helped me find something.

Remember my obsessive blanket project?

I’m working on row 17 right now.

I started to crochet a blanket for one of my nephews the other day. And I messed up on the first row - but I didn’t realize until I had already completed three rows. I figured eh, that’s not too much I’ll just cut the yarn and start over. I started over yesterday and did two rows before realizing I messed up the first row again.

Today I started and restarted the blanket at least four or five times. I’m not sure what was going on - clearly I shouldn’t have been trying in the first place! But I got it and so far have six rows done.

Of course I misplaced the charger for my camera battery so no pictures until that is found!