Hopping forward with a Ragdoll Bunny

I can't believe it's been so long since I last posted.

The short and skinny of my last year…my mom passed away Feb 28 2016,  and I cut my achilles tendon the same day, surgery Feb 29, yup it was a leap year, packed up my moms house. OK, my sister did 95% of it -  I was on crutches and drugged up.

We helped my stepdad move out of the condo at the end of March and then I packed up my house and moved in to my mom/stepdads old condo in May. He didn't want to live there anymore and it was too big for him.

We found him a 1 bedroom condo in the same building - right across the hall from me. It was perfect for him! He got the lease for June 15th. He ended up going in to the hospital for tests and was there for 2 weeks - diagnosed with terminal cancer. Very sad news, but he was happy to come home to his new place. He unpacked some of his stuff and then was back in the hospital at the beginning of July. He passed away July 9th.

I spent 24/7 in the hospital with him. I am grateful that I got to spend that time with him. He couldn't talk for most of it and was heavily drugged for pain, but he knew I was there.

I spent the rest of July getting his affairs in order and packing up his place.

I spend a month in Toronto for work and then continued with the busyness until vacation time in December. Phew!

It has been a LONG year!

If you made it this far in to the post, well, I have got back in to crocheting some more and trying to catch up on projects from the last year.  My goal is to get those done! And of course, new ones :)

I saw this cute pattern on Ravelry for a Bunny Ragdoll and I had to try it.  I didn't have the yarn size recommended, so just used some Bernat worsted and a 3.75 mm hook. She turned out so much cuter than I expected!

I always see these cute patterns and all the great ways that people make it their own and always feel like the stuff I make doesn't measure up, well, this time around I'm pretty impressed with my practice doll. If I do say so myself.

She was pretty easy to make and a great way to see if I want to do amigurumi. I really enjoyed making her but I'm not sure I want to get in to things with too many details, but I think a group of rabbits is in order, as well as maybe a cat, kangaroo, dog, and sheep :)

March - Log Cabin Comfort Throw Update

February left like a lion and is still roaring.

My goal of getting this afghan done for March is not going to happen. I'm about 35% done and it's April now.

March has been a long hard month. My mom passed away on Feb 28th and I cut my achilles tendon the same afternoon. I spent the rest of the day in the local hospital and the entire next day in another hospital waiting and then having surgery.

There hasn't been any time for anything. My sister has had to do everything from cleaning my mom's place to packing and moving all the heavier things.  I could sit and put things that I could reach into boxes, but I was hopped up on pain meds and nodding off all the time! Being in a cast and on crutches and having to keep my foot up really didn't give me much of a chance to help out.

Thankfully I am more mobile now and can hobble about without the crutches, but I can't go far, and I can't drive. Maybe car companies should make commercials about the benefits of driving an automatic - just in case you hurt your left foot and can't drive a standard anymore :)

Needless to say, I haven't been crocheting. There is still so much to do and until a few days ago, it would take me 3 times as long to do anything.

Maybe next month I'll get a chance to just sit down and breathe, take it all in, and figure out what I feel or think.

February - VW Daisy Afghan

February

I had completed the afghan in February, using the pattern for the Daisy Charity square.  There are so many beautiful colour variations and square placements that you can make this afghan your own. 

Daisy Afghan being blocked

A few people had made their afghans with the diagonal rows of colour with the black outline and I really liked how the colour popped out, so I went with that. 

I didn't get a chance to take any other finished pictures before giving the afghan away to a wonderful lady, Gwen. She was one of my mom's homecare aids. 

The afghan using 5 X 7 blocks would be ideal for a single bed. It almost covers the top of a queen bed. Using Red Heart With Love yarn the afghan is nice and warm and fairly heavy, perfect for snuggling up in!

At some point I had written down all the information regarding the afghan like weight / how many skiens / time, but I'll have to track that down. Things are still a bit hectic around here.

How very refreshing

I finished the Refreshing throw this weekend!

Yay! My January Afghan is done!

Tied in the last ends of the border on Sunday night and then spent the rest of the evening relaxing. It was odd having a few hours in the evening without a crochet hook in my hand.

The afghan is so soft and snuggly feeling and it feels heavy. It seems likes it's heavier than what the un-crocheted skeins would weigh. It can't technically, but it does feel like that. I think it's as large as I would want to go using Simply Soft.

The finished size is 49" X 55". Not quite the size of a bed, but plenty big enough for curling up on a sofa.

I made the afghan 6 squares by 7, so 42 squares total.  Each 6 ounce skien makes 8 squares, so I made  2 extra of the off-white and used the extra on the skien for going around each square in a single crochet border, that way when I joined them together with the off white it would not show through between the different colours.

After joining, I did a row of off-white single crochet around, 3 rows of hdc, 1 row sc off-white, then off-white - Rnd 2 of border as written in RH pattern.

I'm quite happy and proud of it. Not sure what I'm going to do with it yet, but for now I'm happy enough knowing it's complete.

About this Afghan

• 24.5 hrs to complete squares
• 10 hours to join / border

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• 35 hrs total

Caron Simply Soft Yarn

• 2 sage
• 1 orchid
• 1 Plum Wine
• 1 Robin's Egg
• 2 Off-White

Approximately 6.5 skeins to complete.
Approximately 38 oz

An Afghan A Month

An afghan a month!

Ok, I might be a bit crazy, but I think this will work and is completely doable. I hope, although I had a moment of sheer panic that I was taking on more than I could handle...then realized I hadn't actually posted anything and made it all official like...but guess what I'm doing now...ACK!

My goal is to finish one afghan a month. That's all. No limit that it has to be started and finished in the same month. Some afghans are quick and easy and some might take a few months to finish.

The reason I think it will work for me, is because I can work on a few different ones at the same time.

I lean toward afghans that are piece projects and not one huge affair, so it's easier to set a goal to finish a square or two here and there and it keeps me from getting bored with the same old thing.

Currently I have four afghan projects on the go and few more lined up that I'm itching to start!

• Refreshing Throw (98% complete - just need to finish the border)
• Daisy Afghan (90% complete - just need to join/border)
• Log Cabin Throw (5%)
• Moogly Cal (1 square in!)
• Aran Nosegay Afghan (have yarn)
• Stained Glass Window Afghan (Simply Amazing!)
• Spanish Tiles (have to see if I can find this pattern)
• Sunflower Afghan

That's almost a year of afghans already! So totally doable. I have a few more afghans in mind, but haven't settled on the patterns yet. I know I want to do a skull afghan. I purchased the pattern already because I have someone in mind that I wanted to make it for. I just haven't gotten around to starting it yet.

Also, I wanted to do the Color Revolution (10% complete), using the same squares as the Refreshing Throw. I'm just not sure about it now. It may be too big and heavy for Caron Simply Soft yarn. We'll see, it might end up being another Refreshing Throw or a baby size / car blanket.

I really like the colors of the Country Fresh Blanket and I go back and forth on wanting to do it. I do want to try a sampler type of blanket, but the blanket itself isn't really my style. Too country... I'll keep it in the running. If I don't find something else I'd rather do, I'll let it back in.

Ok, I need to go crochet, because that is a LOT of work ahead of me and there are other projects I want to do besides afghans!

TTYL!

Windowpane scarf in Red Heart Boutique Unforgettable Dragonfly

This was the last of my Christmas crochet blitz.

My sister loves the colour of Dragonfly, and since we are having a 'you get what I make' gift exchange, I think this is perfect. She wears hats and scarves, so it's win win. Yay!

I wasn't 100% sure about doing the Windowpane pattern. Not that I didn't like it, but I wanted something my sister knew I put some time in to. Although the pattern is simple, it comes out beautiful with the Unforgettable colourway. It really works on this scarf. It's not too short or too long.  So in this case. I think it's ok that it's easy, because it looks elegant in its simplicity.

I used just over 2 skeins for the hat and scarf together. I could of used 2 exactly, but I wanted the scarf a bit longer.  With 1-1/2 skeins it came out (the hat is about 1/2 a skein) to about 54" so I used another skein to kick it up to 60" long. 

After wet blocking, it came out to 7" wide and 68", not too shabby. The recommendation is to kill it for blocking, but dang, that's scary. If I had more time to remake the scarf if needed, I would give it a shot, but alas, I didn't want to risk it.  I did however tell my sister how to do it if she wanted to :) 

Wrapping things up for Christmas

I wanted simple wrapping for the hat and scarf sets I made for my mom's nurses. I also wanted them 'open' so that they could choose which color they wanted. 

I was shopping the other day and came across Hefty EZ Ovenware that has the plastic open lids and cardboard type bottom that was also big enough to hold the hat and scarf. Perfect! Even better they were inexpensive!

I printed out simple round 2.5" labels (Avery 22808) and stuck them on the center of the lid and used some shiny Christmas ribbon...is that stuff called ribbon? Hrmmm, it's not fabric, but plastic like. Oh well, moving on.

I named each scarf set after the Red Heart Boutique Unforgettable Color that it was made from.  I also gave a simple desciption, since each set has a different scarf.

Tidal Waves: Hat and Scarf set

Echo Mist: Hat and Fringed Scarf Set

Cranberry Fields: Hat and Cowl Set

It might seem odd, but I like the look, a lot actually. It's clean and simple..and best of all they can use the wrapping afterwords! How splendid is that??