Happenings...

Ben is such a happy boy. He loves to play on his playmat, especially when he can look in the mirror (star). Victoria is in gymastics since the beginning of September and she's loving it. She is so happy to go and play with her friends and go on the balance beam and bars...Here she is all ready to go:

Ben has been a teething monster! He's a much easier teether than his big sister and I sure am thankful for that! But anything he can get his hands on ends up in his mouth. Poor Tyrone:

We've been keeping busy lately, with a busy social calendar coming up in October. Last weekend we went to Knoebel's with Derek's extended family for a reunion-type event. Victoria had a great time going from ride to ride with all her cousins. Ben was exceptionally happy for the day and did great with no real naps. It was nice to go and relax and not have a crazy-busy park like you would have in the summer. Believe me, I know it - I worked there for 4 summers when I was in high school & college.

WIP Updates

It's been a few days since I've updated and thought it was time to show the progress I've made on my ongoing projects. First up, Brayden's blanket. I really like the Rectangular Granny pattern and using chunky yarn makes it seems like you're making progress. I'm not completely loving the Vanna's Choice yarn, but it's the first time I'm using it so I know you learn as you try. I do enjoy the colors of it and I'm told it matches his bedroom a bit with the color blue I chose:

I feel it looks a lot bigger than it is... but I'm happy with the progress so far.

Next up - I taught myself a new skill: KNITTING! I am so thrilled that I've caught on enough to produce something worthy of appearing in the blog. I'm just working the knit stitch and hope to add pearl and then go from there. I really, really want to make knit hats - but I need circular needles first!

And last but not least - a peek at the Mystery WIP. I love playing with these bright, vibrant colors!!

Thanks for looking!

Things I'm Loving

• My Mystery WIP! I finished one part of it and I'm so excited. I missed the excitement of working on something and the anticipation of seeing it finished... I'm so glad I got back to being crafty.
• The approach of autumn. Even though it was near 90 degrees this week, there's more of a crispness to the air in the morning and I love it!
• Belly laughs from Ben... especially when Victoria is the one making him laugh.
• Quality time with my family. Now that my husband is working at night sometimes, it makes me appreciate the nights that we are all home together so much more. Last night was fabulous- we went for a nice, long walk and stopped so the princess could have ice cream before we got home.
• The Bloomsburg Fair. Well, at least I hope I still love it. I love the anticipation of getting to go this year (tomorrow!). I haven't been there since 2007 and I use to go multiple times per year when I was still local. I can't wait to have some yummy, bad-for-you, fair food.

Mystery WIP

So, I'm going to be working on something I'm going to refer to as my Mystery WIP! The only reason it's a mystery is because it's something to do with my sister-in-law's baby shower and just in case she becomes aware of my blog, I'm going to keep it quiet. It's nothing outstanding or too fabulous but I'm LOVING the yarn! I really need to start taking photos of my supplies out in natural light or BEFORE it's too dark in the house, cuz the colors are off on this picture.

I'm using Sugar 'n Cream in Hot Green, Mod Blue & Warm Brown. The colors (in person at least) are awesome!

I like the idea of working on more than one project at a time, it keeps things interesting.

Getting so big!

Just a quick note today: My baby boy isn't so baby-ish anymore :( Benjamin got his first tooth today! Every day he chews on my finger/knuckle at some point and today, as Derek was telling me how fussy Ben was before his nap, I felt the sharp edge of his brand new tooth scraping against my finger!

Once you can actually see it in a photo, I'll get one posted :)

New WIP: Brayden's Rectangle Granny

After finished up Benjamin's blanket that I am absolutely in love with, I started my next project: A rectangle granny for my nephew. I already had purchased the yarn a few weeks ago, so I was ready to move on. The lighting in this picture wasn't the best so I think the colors look a bit darker than they are in person.

I am so pleased that I've already started and have the first color round finished. I *think* I'm doing a striping pattern of six rounds of the blueish color, 2 rounds of white, 6 rounds of the brown/taupe, 2 rounds of white... then repeating that sequence.

These pictures show the foundation row and the first round. I'm already done with the first color, so I'm on to the white, which is starting Round 7. I have no idea how many rounds the blanket will be, but I know it will most likely be at least 40... we shall see. I'm using Vanna's Choice yarn and it's a bit chunkier than the yarns I typically use. I loved the colors and the feel was good, so I went with it. I'm also using a size I needle instead of my normal G.

Since this is a chunkier yarn and I'm using a bigger needle, I think it may work up a bit quicker than usual. I hope. My goal for this one is to be done by October 17th so I can give it to Brayden AS SOON as it's done!

I also have small side projects going on, but that will be a mystery project until the big reveal after my sister-in-law's baby shower!

Ta-Da: Granny Stripe Revealed!

My first blanket in two years is finished! I started it on Aug 6th and finished it yesterday - 6 weeks total. I think that was pretty good, considering there were many days that it wasn't even touched. I am so pleased with how it turned out!! Here's the preview, about half way or 2/3 done, but you can only see a glimpse:

Then, here's the blanket after I finished the body, before I cleaned up all the yarn ends and put on the edging:
And here's the finished product. I added a simple edging of Hdc around the entire blanket. Easy!

Things I'm Loving

Okay, I must admit that I'm "copying" from PaisleyJade and doing a "Things I'm Loving" post. I'd love to start doing this once a week, just to reflect on happy things!

Right now, I'm loving BEING HOME! I was away at a conference, even though I was commuting and was home each night, I was gone for long days, dealing with city driving and traffic and an hour long commute. Today I took a "Mental Health" day from work and stayed home with my family... we went shopping!


I'm also loving Phillies baseball and I'm so excited that they are in first place in the NL East!I'm also loving the granny stripe I'm making. I know I've talked about it for quite a while, but I have about one row left before I start the edging!

Also, the weather is making me so happy. It's perfect and fall is coming!! And, here's my current favorite picture:

Hopefully I'll be back in blogland more often... keep an eye out for the Ta-Da of the granny stripe, coming in the next week!

Crafting anxiousness anyone?

I'm not sure that even makes sense, but I seem to feel a bit of anxiousness when I'm wrapping up my current WIP and waiting to start my new project. I seem to always stick to one project at a time - maybe I need to change that up and work on projects simultaneously. The only time I ever really work on more than one project at a time is when I make something small, such as a hat, while I have a bigger project going on.

I think my anxiousness is heightened when I have the yarn on hand for my next project, but I love to plan ahead! Do you ever experience something like this? It's nothing bad, but it always seems to get to me, especially when I start having a hard time finding the time to finish the current WIP and get the next one started!

Oh well, hopefully this weekend I'll wrap up the granny stripe and start on the new creation... we shall see!

Current Work In Progress

In one of my earlier posts, I talked about starting to crochet again. I started with a Granny Stripe blanket, inspired by Lucy at Attic24. I was so happy to find her blog and a number of other crochet blogs to get me back to my craft. It's a huge stress reliever for me, and I love watching my projects shape up. I've been meaning to take pictures of the blanket in progress, but I kept forgetting to do it when my camera and blanket were in the same space... until this past weekend. I didn't take a picture of it all spread out, it'll be more surprising with the final ta-da that way anyway. Here are two pictures taken of my bundled, work in progress:

I'm making an "unpatterned" blanket so the stripes are different sizes, either 2, 4 or 6 rows per color with no order of colors. I like it that way, makes it fun to decide as I go. I love the way it's shaping up and I can't wait to see my little man all bundled up in his green & grey granny stripe!

As far as the progress, I have 9 stripes to go and then I'll start on the border. Hubby is helping decide the striping/colors as I go so it's nice that he's involved and he likes to be involved.

Hopefully I'll have a few more pictures of my next WIP, a granny rectangle for my nephew that I hope to start in the next two weeks once the current project is done!

Cold mountain air and a beautiful view

This past weekend we went camping. I was a bit unsure about how it would go, seeing as I'm not an outdoorsy type of person and we were taking a 4+ hour drive to get to our destination. Well, we arrived to a cold, rainy place which made me even more unsure about how the weekend would unfold. Once the rain cleared up, even though it was still cold, it was a really nice weekend. The little ones really seemed to enjoy it, especially the princess who has been there before and was looking forward to the trip.

On Sunday, when the weather was better we went to the top of a mountain area. The view was amazing.

Here's a few more snapshots of our weekend in the mountains, enjoying the fresh, cool air...

And then there was our little visitor... I wasn't so thrilled with his visit, but my sister-in-law thought it was awesome.

Hope you enjoyed checking out the photos... I hope to keep adding more color to my blogging :)

Long weekends are wonderful!

It's Thursday, but it's my Friday! Today was the Little Man's last day at daycare, next week he starts staying home with his daddy. It should be quite an adventure but it's going to be awesome for my husband to be able to stay at home with the kids.

Tomorrow, we're having a *hopefully* relaxing day of getting packed and ready to go to my sister-in-law's camp. I have to admit that it's been quite a LONG time since I've been camping, and I'm not such an outdoorsy type person but I am looking forward to peace and quiet for once. Not sure how peaceful or quiet it will be having a three year old and five month old along, but we shall see. While we are gone we will have no WiFi or cell reception... I'm not sure how I'll survive!

I'm hoping to make a lot of progress on the Green & Grey granny stripe for the Little Man and if I'm lucky, I'll finish it. We do have a 4 hour car ride each way, so there will be plenty of crocheting time for me :) I was also hoping to make a decision on colors for my nephew's blanket as that is next up on my to-crochet list but I made the mistake of taking my husband to the store with me while I was looking and we couldn't agree on any color combinations. I did find some Bernat Chunky yarn that I'd like to try out, but I guess we'll see. Right now the colors are up between a chocolate brown, brick red and tan or grey and burnt orange. I really want to do a shades of blue/teal/green but my husband didn't like the color scheme. I guess that's what I get for letting him have a say!

I hope that I'll return from my weekend with an update that I've finish the granny stripe! I hope everyone enjoys the weekend, I'm loving that I have four days off and return to only four working days again next week!