It's a process

Margaret (Mugginsquilts) from Ravelry has said 2 things that really stuck in my head.  First, pertaining to tension.  In crochet, when you yarn over and pull your yarn through the loop on your hook, you pull your yarn up a little to the height of the stitch, and that keeps your tension and stitches nicely even.  You do the same with knitting.  If you don't, you'll find that you can't even get your needle through the loop on your other needle on the next pass, so.  Very important.  Pull the yarn up a bit when you pull it through.

Second, "Knitting is more of a ‘process not product’ venture than crochet is. If you convince yourself to enjoy the process, it’s very satisfying."   Ahhhhh.   That's why I found doing a long swatch of just garter stitch boring and had to refer to my brand new book "400 Knitting Stitches" to find a knit/purl design I can work on rather than just the same stitch every row.

Garter:   Knit stitch on every row.
Stockingette:  Knit a row, purl a row. (that's the sweater look knit stitch).

Back to that brand new book, it was definitely the right choice for a beginner knitter (determined to be stubborn about learning to knit) to buy.  It includes pictures to show "how to", it includes 400 knit/purl designs, cables, slipped, lacy, and double stitches (and more), then it has a section showing and describing symbols, so you can read both a pattern and a diagram.   Excellent book!

Progress:

Tunisian Throw delivered

So.  I delivered the Tunisian blanket to my brother-in-law tonight.  I started off by telling him that over the years he had brought a lot of hurt and pain to this family, and it was hard for me, the outsider to watch the pain in his mother, his brothers, his grandparents.  But that was the past, and just doesn't matter.  I asked his forgiveness for any and every time in the past I had offended him.  I told him about how this yarn, this blanket, was supposed to be for me and only me, learning a new technique I figured it would have flaws, but somehow when I put my hand in the box and touched the yarn for the first time I just felt "Chad", and from that moment I never had a doubt that this was for Chad and only Chad.

I told him that it was after that that Jason (my husband, the oldest of the brothers) told me that he, Chad, had been clean for more than a year.  That that was just HUGE, after all the years of struggling with addiction, he was clean?  And then shortly after that he had the incident where Jason called a friend to get him medical attention in jail (he got picked up again, but this time not for wrongdoing.  He was a passenger in a car that got pulled over, the cop ran him, and found he had unpaid fines and took him to jail for it), he was released and taken straight to the hospital, where they found his L4 through S1 spine is nearly completely compressed.  Chad has a nearly full left leg amputation so has been walking on prostheses for 30 years.

Anyway.  When I pulled the blanket out of the bag and handed it to him, you could just tell.  He knows this blanket was special.  I prayed over it and him for many hours while I was working on it.  I took it to my mother's prayer partners and had them anoint it and pray over it.  In the night time hours when he feels all alone, he has this to hold onto and KNOW that he is never alone, and never has been.  Someone is out there praying for him.  God is watching him and knows his struggles, his pains,

There are flaws in this afghan throw.  I definitely see them, and they make me cringe.  But when he sees them, he will be reminded that he is flawed, but in his darkest thoughts, in his sorrow for his past, in his worst flaws, God has been watching over him, waiting for him to stand and say "no", to look toward the Light, to reach for Him.  His flaws are part of him, and it's okay.

He is not alone.

These words resound in my head every single day.  You are not alone.  He is not alone.  She is not alone.  He watches over you, and in your darkest moments you are to be reminded .....

You are not alone.

Sculpy hooks

I've been playing around with Sculpey to make a comfortable, no-more-cramps hook.  Previously my favorite has been The Crochet Dude's hooks, pretty comfortable to work with but the cushions tend to come loose.

So I decided to try Sculpey.  

The first hook: (D) Crochet Dude 

Second hook:  (h) Too thin.  My hand cramped up. 

Third hook:  (I) PERFECT: I crocheted for hours and hours and hours with this hook. Then my upper arm and shoulder got tired....

Fourth hook:  (G) Eh, too thick. I think I can still work with it though.

Woah.  Terrible picture!  Darn iPhone!  Or is  it just my lack of photographic talent.  

Things forgotten

Today is Thursday, throw-back-thursday, and I've been sitting here thinking of the things that were totally blog-worthy that I never did blog about.

For instance, when I was making the 2 cakes for my church's homeschool graduation service in May, which included my youngest daughter, Micaela.  8 hours on my feet, then in the @#$%!#! trash they went, and off to Albertsons I went where I purchased ... for less than I had spent on the trashed cakes ... 3 lovely and delicious cakes that everyone just couldn't get enough of.  That was absolutely blog-worthy.  I may have come off a teensy bit pissed and whiny though, so maybe it's better that I didn't blog it.  Looking through my phone, I don't see that I took any pictures of my delicatessin disaster, either, which is probably also for the best.  I used to make wonderful cakes, even some very nice wedding cakes.

Which reminds me, my parents' 50th anniversary was back in March of this year.  I made those cakes, and they were amazing!  Tasted good, anyway.  And I did take pictures of that!

My niece, Jessica, got married several years back.  My mother was making her a quilt for her wedding.  Approximately 3 years later, and a whole lot of junk along the way, such as my dad's massive heart attack and susbequent 4-vessel bypass, my oldest daughter's (Dara) journey of pain and medical testing until she was diagnosed the week before her 19th birthday with severe fibromyalgia, then just a week later Mom having severe reactions with a routine gallbladder surgery leading the family to find out about the disease she had been diagnosed with 5 years before, 6 weeks later my 17 year-old daughter (Micaela) getting hit by an 18-wheeler and impossibly surviving ..... approximately 3 years after she got married Jessica's quilt was finished.  Or I should say, Mom was finished with her part.  Then I took it, and where Mom had done her hand-stitched applique around all 4 sides of the quilt, I did some top-stitch embroidery, outlining all that applique.  It was beautiful.  It was brutal.   The quilting had already been done, and the quilter had used some tight stitches of her own with some clear, plastic thread or something.  I don't know, Mom's the quilter in the family.  But when I got it, it was technically finished and ready to go.  It was rather difficult to pass the needle through,without poking it through the backside.  I bled.  I callused.  I cried.  And about 6 months later I finished.  And then I really cried (with thankfulness). 

My oldest daughter, Dara, has a lifelong friend who married young, has a little daughter, and they just bought their first house.  As soon as I saw on FaceBook that they were buying, I started crocheting her a lovely afghan throw.  Really it was just an excuse to try out Stylecraft DK, but it certainly turned out wonderful!  And really, aren't they all just excuses to play with yarn?  I actually haven't delivered it  yet, but this weekend I'll be getting a gift bag and some tissue paper and delivering it to her, I think it's time now.  They'll be moving in within the next couple of weeks I think.

In the quest to clean out some stash, I made myself an afghan throw.  I luuuurrrrrrve it!!!!!  This is me!  I should have made it twice as big as I did.  I still could I suppose, but now I'm on to other things.  Still, sometimes I'm a bit tempted to pick the dog hair out of it, wrap it up nice and tight, then go back to it and make it bigger later.  It would probably look better in here if it were actually cool outside, not Louisiana summertime.

Oh, I musn't forget my basket!  I love my basket!  I am using it to hold the yarn for my next big project, a cabled afghan for my nephew, who is getting married this September. and I have found an excuse to make more of these, and even bought more yarn to accomplish that .. a girl in our church is preggers and NEEDS a cute little crocheted basket to carry little things like burp cloths, baby powder, wipees, etc. in.  In fact, her mom and mother-in-law surely need a matching basket to keep at their homes for the same thing.  Anyway, here's the one I made myself, I haven't started the pink/gray/white ones yet.

And that's my "throw back Thursday".  Throwing up a bunch of stuff I could have blogged about before, but instead procrastinated and tried to put it all in one blog as though anyone will ever get to the bottom of this one.

If you actually reached the bottom of this post, you MUST post a comment and say HI.

Getting' crafty - The Letter "M"

So ... my daughter was in an awful accident right as her senior year should have started.  She lost her senior year.  As a homeschooler, I seriously was not worried about her not doing her schoolwork!  I just wanted her to concentrate on healing, and sitting up and using her right arm hurt too much at that time.  Well, now she's coming to the end of her senior year, thankful to Abeca Academy for working with us and getting her here!

So, as a homeschooler, how do you graduate?  When my first daughter graduated, there were 3 others in our church that were also homeschooled, and we had a wonderful celebration.  Decorations, cakes (I do the baking), the pastors officiated, pictures, it was just wonderful.  When Micaela would have graduated last year, she was the only one and we would have, what, gone to dinner?  Bleh.  Probably.   However, she lost that year, and this year our church has THREE homeschoolers, so once again we can hold a celebration down at the church, all official and stuff.  A real garaduation ceremony.  With no schools doing all the work.  That means us parents are doing everything.

Graduation pictures - check.
Announcements/invitations (Jason's job) - check
Digging through old photos with plenty of sniffling nostalgia and wishing-I-could-turn-back-time (me) - check

NOW TO THE CRAFT STUFF

Today I am taking a bunch of those photos to the printer/copier/scanner, and making simple black&white copies.  I'll be cutting those out and making a collage on a large paper mache' "M" which I ordered from Joann.com.   DISCLAIMER:  This was a Pinterest idea, and this is the blog I got these instructions from.  Not my idea.  But I am going to list here exactly what I did, any difficulties I ran into, etc.

The M.  It came to me as ugly brown paper mache'.  Must be painted!   I asked Mic if she wanted it "brown-based" or "grey-based" (because Mod Podge comes in a large variety of possibilities these days, including a browned antique-y color).  She chose grey. 

This M is 23.5 inches tall.  So far in this picture all I've done is paint it black using a sponge brush.  As you can see, I'm working on my dining room table (gasp, would that be yarn in the background?!), with a Dollar Store plastic table cloth thrown over it to keep it safe.Getting down in those corners is really tricky!  Next time, SPRAY PAINT!

Copying the pictures.   According to above-linked blog, just copy the pictures black-n-white onto plain copy paper.  This will glue down and collage up nicely.  So, taking a while to fix breakfast and make copies while the M thoroughly dries.

I had to lighten the intensity (they were way too dark) and even bring down the size.  With an M this large, I figured I'd be able to get tons of pics on it, but the reality is, not really.  I want her childhood on this M, and I now realize I'm going to have to just pick pictures again, not just copy everything I dumped in the folder.  Sigh, back to weeding out.

Okay, playing with scissors, lay out photos on the M until satisfied, then paint Modge Podge on the back of the picture and on the M, lay it all down, let it dry, come back later in the day with a good coat all over the M, front/back/sides.  Dare ANYONE to walk near it for the rest of the day until it is no longer tacky.

Here it is propped up against her bedroom wall where it will soon be properly hung. 

And here it was used at the homeschool graduation ceremony on her table.  My beautiful miracle.  My Mic.