Drive by crochet projects ....

I've been subbing the past couple of weeks now that I'm a shiny new college graduate (yes, I plan on gloating a wee bit) and haven't really had the time to sit and just take a moment to say "Ahhhhhh." My evenings are full of kids and bubbles and my first attempt at Pho soup and ...and .... and..... all the things I've been missing out on.

However, in the grand tradition of being me and unable to sit and do nothing, I have found a minute or two (during Dr. Who catch-up) to crochet few little projects.

A bit of back story: you might not know this about me. I'm quite obsessed with microbiology and the history of disease. I get oddly and absolutely giddy over the prospect of studying the Black Death or perhaps growing some E. coli in a petri dish. It comes from being a history and science nerd, I suppose.

Anyway, since I spent weeks working on my lesson for the Plague in Europe, and it was all around my students' favorite, I decided to crochet a plague doctor doll as "thank you" present to the teacher I worked with at school.

Why yes, yes he is hanging out on la Guillotine replica made by a student for a project, but that's a whole other post. Ha! I didn't come up with this pattern, but it is available by NeedleNoodles. Super cute and creepy!!! For those of you kind of wondering what the heck a plague doctor is... these were the guys who walked around in slightly terrifying bird-looking masks trying to save those suffering from bubonic plague. Creeptastic!!!! 

I was also able to work with another wonderful teacher who let me take over her biology class. I'm certified for both because I can't make up my mind on a single thing, ever. So of course, nothing would do but that I continued the plushy theme and crocheted her a cute little E. coli! He's my favorite bacteria after all. 

I loved him so much I had to crochet one for myself immediately and then added in a little Rhinovirus (aka the common cold  to you non-nerds) so that he has a friend. This may become a slight addiction as the pattern by TheSoftScientist I found had several viruses and bacteria to play with. Mr. E. coli is not included in her pattern, I worked his little flagella up on my own and added it to her pattern for Tuberculosis. Icky, squishy, adorable microbiology fun!

To step out of the realm of slight gross, but no less weird.... I also crocheted this little guy as a gift for one of my very favorite kiddos. He is in love with all things Toy Story, but he didn't have a lot of the alien toys. Voila! 

Once again, due to time, I purchased a pattern, rather than worked him up on my own. I made changes as I went, but that's mostly because I can't seem to stick straight to patterns. Every time I picked this guy up, I was thinking "The ..... CLAAWWWWWWWWWWW." Hehe.

Since it's the beginning of summer, I've picked up the forever unfinished Ugly Awesome Granny 'Gahn to work on again. It's almost done crochet wise, but may take five million years to weave in ends and put together. I've tried to set a goal for myself to enter it in our state fair to see if I could actually finish it up. If you remember, I had to practically start over as I really didn't know what I was doing when I set out.

Wish me luck! Get out and enjoy the sunshine!!!

Project Deconstruction... it's painful.

If you remember, I was working on the ugly awesome granny square blanket several months ago. School happened and it got thrown in my yarn box where it sat until two days ago. After finishing the giant granny lapghan and begrudgingly happily giving it as a wedding gift, I realized I wanted my own granny to snuggle. So I pulled out the ugly awesome granny. Whoa. If you ever want to realize just how much progress happens when you actually practice and improve a skill, forget about a crochet project for a few weeks.

The ugly awesome granny wasn't awesome. Well, the colors were. And the patterns. But I digress. It was horribly discombobulated. It was a not-so-happy granny.

If you notice my feet at the bottom, you'll realize just how far I had gotten on this project. Boo. If I had been attempting to make a ripple granny, I would have been spot on. Are there such things as ripple grannies? I think I just didn't pay as close attention to the joining as I should have. This attempt was done with the "join as you go" method. Easy in theory, but apparently it was not working out for me. I think  I'll try it again in the future with a smaller project. 

I've mentioned Attic 24 in the past and I'm going to do so again.

Lucy at Attic 24 is an amazing crochet lady. She has many fab tutorials. I'm currently working on a blind your eyes bright version of her crochet bag. Anyway, back on topic, she has a fantastic tutorial on how to join squares with single crochet after you have created all of them. (tutorial is here.) I think that's the method I'm going to try for this granny. That way if I screw it up, I can cut one string rather than a billion. One more side note: You should also read her non-crochet posts. She's an excellent writer.

So after huffing and puffing and asking my husband, "Do you think I should start over?" for the millionth time, I decided I couldn't go further. It was demo time. I wanted to save as many of the squares as I could because, hey, there's a lot of damn work and awesome ugliness there!

It took hours. Hours. I was trying to save squares and yarn. It was a painstaking process. I grumped at myself throughout the whole process. 

All that work wasted. But it was going to be better. It was going to be ugly awesome amazing. I managed to save most of my squares and quite a bit of the yarn for the rows I had to cut. 

Today, I spent quite a bit of time re-crocheting the rows I had to cut free. Now all but two grannies are five rows each. The other two are ten rows. I still like the idea of different sized squares, but I'm going to go at it less haphazardly this time. 

I still have about a gazillion ends to sew in as I didn't do that I as I went along either. Oh well. I'll get to it eventually. We really need to develop the technology to make ends sew in themselves. That's my least favorite part of this hobby. 

I WILL FINISH THIS AFGHAN THIS SUMMER. It will happen. After tearing it apart, I absolutely have to see it done again. The yarn demands it. Haha. Time also demands it, since I have several other projects promised to friends and family. I also want to finish my bag before too much longer. More about that later. 

Wish me luck! Here's to hoping round two does not end as painfully as round  one!

The Big Reveal...GRANNY STYLE!

So as the whole entire world knows.... my sister just got married. I have been talking about this wedding for a year. My girls were two of the four prettiest flower girls ever. I got a kicking dress and my hubster actually wore dress clothes. Much fun was had by all. I was so busy playing Matron of Honor (why does that sound old? I'm no matron!!!) that I forgot to take pictures most of the day... so you'll have to wait to see us in our wedding finery.

I decided a mere two weeks before the wedding that I needed to whip up a gift. Not just a small gift either. That's not how I roll. I made a mad dash to the yarn store and decided I was attempting a granny blanket. My other granny (the ugliest, awesomest granny in existence) is sitting forgotten in my yarn box because all my time and effort was spent on this new granny. After two weeks of 4 hours or more a day crocheting, I did it! Yay!

I'm pretty proud of this sweetheart as it's the first full size blanket I've ever completed. It was my first foray into blocking a crochet project too. Which of course happened at 10pm at night in my mama's basement the night before the bride arrived. Again, are you surprised? 

See all the little pins sticking out the sides? This is to make the square look... well... square. For the first time in too long in my life, pinning meant actually using pins, not Pinterest. (Haha, you know you laughed.) I sprayed the whole thing down with water and let it dry. It's one of those things that helps with shape and is made for people who are OCD. 

Now this granny isn't technically a full afghan. I also learned that there is such a thing as a "lapghan" out there in the crochet world. It's apparently a blanket that is smaller than a traditional afghan, but larger than a child sized afghan. I just thought it was a cool term to use so that people thought I made a small blanket on purpose, rather than the excuse that I ran out of time and my hands and wrists were all hurty. The finished size was 54 inches by 54 inches.

I also found a cool scallop edge to do courtesy of the lovely Lucy at Attic 24. If you are at all a fan of the hook and yarn world, check her out. She's amazing! 

Rather than do millions of single grannies together, I did one giant granny. I loved it. There was no rhyme or reason to the color choices. Just whatever I felt like at the time. I love random things and this was a perfect project for that. The colors were selected to match my sister's living room decor. For those of you that are really interested, I used Caron Simply Soft Yarn in seven different colors: Chocolate, Bone, Dark Country Blue, Light Country Blue, Country Blue, Light Blue, and Ocean. 

I am SO pleased with how it turned out. I was a little sad to see it go, but it was a fantastic gift to give. I'm thinking that rather than a million scarves for Christmas, this year, everyone's getting afghans. Excuse me, "lapghans!"

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Hooked on Granny.

After my month of a million scarves, you'd think I'd be sick of crochet. NOPE.

I am hopelessly addicted to yarn.

I have always wanted one of those hideously ugly and yet awesome afghans that I now know are called granny squares. I love the random rainbows of color.

I've started my very first granny blanket and I'm pretty proud of myself. I'm also tickled at the sheer amount of yarn I've collected for this project.

23 different colors of yarn in blues, purples, greens, blacks, greys, and white. I have sparkly, I have ugly, I have hand-me-down yarn. This baby is going to be sweet.

I have a LOT of work left to do. It's going to take me about a million years to finish sewing in ends that I didn't sew in as I went a long. Shame. Shame. Shame. If only school didn't start in two days, I bet I could have in done in a week or two. With homework already pouring in (grumble, grumble), I bet it gets done about the time summer hits. 

I really love the mish mash of colors, don't you? It's so ugly, it's gone right past ugly into beautiful.

Yay GRANNY!!!!