Finish one, start two more…

I wrote in a previous post about starting the year finishing up several projects before starting any new projects. Ask me how that’s going??? Well, I did finish one project that I started a while back.

Finished afghan!

Finished afghan!

But, since then I’ve completed three new projects and started two more. Here is the link for the Brain Wave Beanies. I made two last week!

Three beanies I finished last week! Find link for Brain Wave beanie in body copy.

The start of my washcloth.

I’ve been wanting to crochet some washcloths for a while now. At one time I bought a pattern book and several balls of cotton yarn to make them with. I’ve yet to make a one! However, over the weekend I was moving some stuff around. I had a small tote bag with the pattern book and cotton yarn sitting in the corner. I picked it up and thought “oh, I could just whip one of these out real quick!”. I flipped through the pattern book to find something I liked. I started reading the pattern and realized it was for size 10 cotton thread instead of the larger cotton yarn. I was excited! (Doesn’t take much to excite me, does it?) I was excited because I have tons of the crochet thread sitting around! I’ve made a couple of doilies in the past, but I really haven’t had the interest in making more. I inherited quite a bit of crochet thread from my great-grandma, who tatted and grandma who crocheted doilies. Plus, I’ve bought some over the years. The only downside to all of this is what I thought was going to be a simple and fast project is now taking longer to complete. Smaller thread equals more time. I am pleased with how it’s turning out though. And I really like the thread for a washcloth instead of the cotton yarn.

My other project is a baby afghan. I bought some yarn on clearance a few years ago with the intent to make a baby afghan. Well, I did start on it, but it didn’t go well. It wasn’t ‘regular’ yarn. It was hard to see my stitches. So I just wrapped it up and put it away. I finally thought of a way I could use it. I’m combining some regular yarn with it in the pattern. I think it’s turning out quite well!

Start of the baby afghan.

Close up of baby afghan.

Can you help?

Warm Up America! needs 150 child-size afghans (at least 54″ x 42″) for Morehead State University’s Build-A-Bed campaign. This organization builds beds for children in need in Eastern Kentucky. Warm Up America! provides the blankets for this event and we need your help to fulfill this need. Please send the finished afghans to the WUA! home office before April 1, 2015. Thank you for your support and spread the word!

Warm Up America!
℅ Build-A-Bed
3740 N. Josey Lane
Suite 102
Carrollton, TX 75007

Wake Up America Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/WarmUpAmerica

Wake Up America website: http://www.warmupamerica.org/

Whew!

Is it just me or is 2015 racing out of the gates?! I had two really good blog posts in my head ready to write after the first of January. For the life of me, I can’t remember what one of them was. The following is the other…

I had a great time off from work December 31st through January 4th! I had grand plans to clean and work on some crochet projects. Ask me how those went? I guess you could say I accomplished a little of both, but not what I originally had in mind. Before Thanksgiving and Christmas I worked really hard to clean out clutter and just clean in general. Some might consider me a bit of a hoarder. But, nonetheless I was ready to part with “stuff”. While in my cleaning and de-cluttering, I boxed up old t-shirts. My plan for these shirts was to make t-shirt “yarn”. As I was cleaning the boxes of shirts ended up back in my closet. But, they had been labeled, that’s progress, right?! So, come January 1, I took out a box of shirts, gathered my materials and got to work! I first searched my Pinterest boards and looked through the tutorials I pinned for this project.

Ready to roll!

This is the one I settled on and got busy! I will tell you, it was easy and simple enough, but VERY time consuming. I wasn’t in a hurry and I took my time. I watched movies and took breaks. After all, I was on vacation. I spent four days cutting up shirts. The first and second day I spent about 7-8 hours cutting, pulling and winding up balls of yarn. The third day wasn’t as long, probably 5 or 6 hours. The last day I only cut for an hour or two. I still have about 8 shirts to cut up. After my four days of work I ended up with 29 balls of t-shirt yarn!

All in all, I was pretty proud of what I accomplished! Now, to decide what I want to crochet with it!

Also, this post wouldn’t be complete without my last yarn purchase…

Yarn purchase 1/4/2015

I made a quick run to Walmart to pick up a couple skeins to finish out my current project. I talked in my previous post about finishing up projects I started. This is what I’m working on right now. It’s an afghan/throw for a baby/toddler or couch. (I apologize for for the terrible lighting.) The dark gray skein I picked up for another project in progress, but realized it was the wrong shade of gray. I’ll find another project for it. This yarn addict doesn’t return yarn! 😉

Current project