Little Raindrops

Posts Tagged ‘Crochet’

It’s been a while since I’ve shown off what crafting I’ve been up to. Mostly I’ve been making gifts for babies. A couple of months ago I made myself a hat because my head was chilly. I didn’t use a pattern, but I think I should have. It works and I wear it, but I’m not in love with it. (Ravelry page for Green Hat.)

When we had our 20 week ultrasound and I thought we were having a girl, I made a little pink square hat. It’s just a rectangle, but when it goes on a baby’s head, it rounds out and the corners look like cute kitty ears. We’ve tried this on Rhino and it is very cute, but you aren’t going to see any pictures of him in this hat! Since we aren’t having a girl, it will be a gift for some girl baby of the future. (Ravelry page for Pink Square Hat.)

I’ve been very busy working on baby blankets. There are five pregnant women in our church (excluding me!) and I’d love to give each of their babies a handmade blanket to welcome them to the world. The first to arrive will be a girl, due in June. I crocheted up this white blanket, but ran out of yarn and have no idea what kind I was using. I put a pink border on it to make it slightly larger, but I still feel it’s way too small. It’s still cute, though! (Ravelry page for Ocean Waves Baby Blanket.)

I’m also knitting a super soft blue blanket for the first boy due (unless ours comes early!) at the end of June. I went through 4 balls of yarn and still ran out, so I’m waiting to take a trip to Hachinohe to pick up more. It’s about 75% finished and goes really quickly, so I should be able to whip that out in time. In the meantime I’m also working on a pink knit basketweave blanket (probably for Denna’s girl, due in July — not in our church, but it seems like most of us church ladies are having boys!) My fingers are keeping very busy with all the blanket knitting!

Rhino and I were invited to Carson and Cole’s first birthday party and I wanted to bring some handmade gifts for the little boys. The invitation was kind of last-minute, so I didn’t have time to do anything too elaborate. I’ve enjoyed making felt toys for Rhino and have really wanted to make more. A while ago I ordered a whole wide assortment of colorful wool felt and thought I’d put some of it to good use. I was afraid it would seem to plain or boring, but I wanted to make the boys each a ball. I sort of winged it with cutting out pieces and assembling them and am slightly disappointed that they didn’t term out spherical enough (they’re kind of squashed), but they’re all right! I embroidered each of their names and the year on their ball and I thought they turned out to be pretty snazzy! I also was working on knitting some precious little bear finger puppets, but I still have to make arms for one of them and didn’t have them ready in time for the party. I guess I should finish those soon and get some photos up!

Jen and I have decided to do craft-alongs together. I picked our first project: baby amigurumi owls from Liz’s Seriously Cute Crochet book. I love the little owls and there’s a pattern for a mother and a baby owl. The baby looked like a faster project, so we chose that. Mine took about 3 hours, including Rhino interruptions. It was pretty easy, but didn’t turn out perfectly. I like it anyway, though! Rhino really enjoys playing with it and I’m just waiting for him to rip off a wing with his teeth. I’m looking forward to making more in the future.

I finished my first knitted project: at hat for Rhino. I found the red yarn at the Shimoda mall here, in my favorite little yarn and fabric shop. It is so soft and fluffy; I loved working with it! I made a couple mistakes with the hat. It’s not supposed to be quite so pointy on top, but instead it should be flat. I kind of think it looks cute the way it turned out, though.

I also didn’t make it long enough and ran out of red yarn, so it wouldn’t come down over Rhino’s ears and the brim would roll up. At first I was just going to leave it like that, but then decided to crochet a border to add another inch. That pretty much solved everything.

I thought it was a fun project and am really pleased with how it turned out. I got to work with double pointed needles and knit in the round and also practiced decreasing for the shaping portion. Then I got a little star crazy with the embroidery, but it’s still cute. Now I’m working on a little earflap hat for Amelia. I got the prettiest yarn that I’m going to use to make matching hats for her and Rhino for this winter. Hopefully they’ll turn out and everyone will be super cute!

I don’t know why I’ve been so lazy about blog posts lately. Oh wait, yes I do — I’ve been knitting! I found an amazing site for crocheters and knitters: Ravelry.com. Over at Ravelry, yarnies share projects, patterns, yarn, chat, have knit-a-longs, etc. etc. etc. Looking through all the patterns and seeing everyone’s projects has been so inspiring and motivational — I have about 100 projects queued up for the future! I’m working on matching winter hats for Rhino  and Amelia since we’ll all be in Colorado together for Christmas this year. I’m also knitting a wool diaper cover for Rhino (or maybe it will be too small, in which case it will be for Amelia.) Rhino’s legs are so chunky and his current PUL covers dig into his thighs and leave ugly red marks. He’ll outgrow them and his medium sized diapers pretty soon, so rather than buy the next size up, I’m just going use prefolds and sew up some fitteds and knit wool covers. Right now I’m just doing a cover, but in the future I want to knit up some super-cute shorties and longies for him to wear around. With all the recent knitting enthusiasm, I’ve had to pick up some new yarn, of course! Liz and Drew took us to Shimoda mall last weekend and I visited the craft shop there. I got some needles in sizes I needed and some wonderful pretty new yarn. It will be a challenge staying away from there! My stash just grew quite a bit and I need to use up what I have!

We’ve had some recent get-togethers with new friends at our home. Last weekend Liz & Drew & kids, Nicole & Mike, and Catherine & Tyler came over for pizza, Wii, and MST3K. We’ve had them all over before for lasagna or shish kabobs and anime, games, and MST3K previously as well. It’s nice to spend time with other couples and I’m so glad we’re getting to know people over here. Mostly everyone we spend time with right now we know from church. Everyone has been so great to us there and I’m really enjoying getting to know other people in the church. Matt’s ushering and I’m working in the nursery now and we’ve opened up and are being more sociable than we ever were in California. There have been some fun picnics and fellowship potlucks lately that have been really good times.

Rhino is doing well. He’s making a lot of really funny faces lately and flashing us huge, toothy grins. He flails his arms all the time, both in joy and frustration. I think he’s getting ready to get mobile — he thrashes around more when he’s on his stomach or tries to climb up me if I’m sitting with him. He sits up on his own flawlessly and is now gently leaning forward and getting onto his tummy on his own from the sitting position. He’s eating yummy mushed peas, butternut squash, and sweet potatoes mostly along with some baby oat cereal. He’s practicing pinching and self-feeding with sweet potato puffs. He’s doing really well with picking them up between his forefinger and thumb (or thumb knuckle) and putting them in his mouth. I had also been giving him chilled baby carrots for a while to teethe on. He really enjoys holding the little carrot, holding it up and showing it to me, waving it around like he’s conducting an orchestra, etc. He’s getting so much better at chewing, he will pretty much demolish (and eat!) a baby carrot. Of course, I’m always sitting with him to make sure he doesn’t bite off a chunk that he could choke on, but really he just kind of grates the side of the carrot with his teeth so the pieces are really small and he can swallow them easily. He really has the best time with the carrot, too — I think they’re his favorite toy!

We haven’t really been doing too much else lately. Matt is back on a day schedule. His new term is starting up this week (he’ll be taking a math class online and hopefully tomorrow will be signing up for another class to satisfy his CCAF requirements.) Tomorrow through Sunday our church is having a world missions conference, which we’re looking forward to attending. School is going slowly for me, but it’s going. And that’s about all! We’ve been pretty dull lately. It’s been raining a lot, so we haven’t gotten out too much. I’m really itching to go on a hike soon and get some pretty pictures before it starts to get too cold. Hopefully we have a nice, dry weekend someday soon!

Rhino had his baby dedication at church today. We have been without a pastor, so we had Jim, one of the church elders conduct the ceremony. Jim also held the first small group we attended a year and a half ago. Because we have grown close to Wayne and Rena, the hosts of our current small group, Jim suggested that Wayne participate in the dedication as well. It was really nice, Jim introduced us and talked about how he knows us. Then Wayne talked about our relationship, Rhino and his name, and read a verse. Then Jim prayed over Rhino. We planned the dedication so Mama could attend. She videotaped the whole thing with our camera. She couldn’t see very well and apparently never actually turned the camera on when she thought she did. So she “filmed” the whole thing, but it never really took. I felt really bad telling her it wasn’t on the camera, and I’m disappointed but not upset. It would have been a nice memento and something to share with other family members, but there will be other important times that we’ll capture. A while ago Mama had sent some clothes that my great grandmother had knitted and crocheted for my baptism when I was a baby. I thought it would be neat if Rhino wore the same clothes for his dedication. Yes, they’re a little girly with the lace and the ribbons, but he’s a baby, so it’s okay! The dedication was really nice, even if we didn’t get video.

Rhino Under Bili Lights

Matt Burping Rhino

Closeup of Rhino in Crochet Hat

Rhino Asleep on Melissa

Not too much of interest has happened since my last blog. Jason’s still here and workin’. Matt just got off an exercise, during which he had to work the 11pm – 7am shift. Today was his first day back working a normal schedule, thankfully. I had my first math exam last Monday which, after 7 hours of straight studying prior to the test, I think went pretty well. Really, for not being in class for half the material I think it went all right. It’s a good thing there are 4 more exams this semester, though.

I finally had my investigation interview for my clearance (after completing the paperwork over a year ago!)

Matt, Jason and I went to a BBQ at my friend Brian’s last Saturday. Brian was in my math and physics classes for the last couple of semesters, but is moving to San Diego this week. We had a blast playing a few crazy games of croquet and hanging out with friends.

We’re getting ready for Matt’s parents to come out a week from Friday. We’ll head down to Santa Barbara to pick them up on Friday evening, then they’re leaving us on Monday morning, so there’s not a lot of time. I’m really looking forward to it, though!

Matt and I gave up our WoW addiction last month for a new one: Guild Wars. I’m enjoying it more, though. Our main characters are level 19 (out of 20) right now and got up there pretty quickly, but there’s still so much more to the game, not just leveling. He has a ritualist/necromancer, I have a monk/mesmer. We also have rangers which we haven’t been playing as much. I’m having a blast and it’s always nice to run around with Matt.

Melissa came over last night and we made dinner and baked cookies. We tried these awesome sloppy joe turnover things (just sloppy joe filling scooped into a rolled out biscuit, then folded over and baked) that everyone gobbled up and she made peanut butter cookies. While I was working on the sloppy joe meat, I saw her pouring salt into a 1/4 cup. Wondering what she was doing, I checked the recipe and saw that it only called for 3/4 teaspoon both salt and baking powder. I missed the part where she added 3/4 cup baking powder, and she was almost finished with the salt! We tried to salvage it, but it just wasn’t happening. It was a good laugh, though. We’ll never forgot to pay attention to measurements. :-p I’ve really just been hanging out with Matt during his off-time while this exercise was going on, so I haven’t spent too much time by myself. That’s started back up again, so I filled today with chores and crocheting.

I collected a lot of cheap practice yarn when I first taught myself how to crochet, but didn’t use it all up. Now I have baskets full of yarn I never really want to use. I gathered up eight skeins to make an afghan for charity with or something. I’ve done a few rows on it now and it’s grown a lot on me. I’ve been wondering what on earth to get my brother’s girlfriend for Christmas and haven’t really come up with anything. I’m sure it gets pretty cold in New Jersey, and an extra afghan can’t hurt. That is, unless Matt really wants to keep it (I think he likes it more than I do!) I also finished my Stitch My Square trades. Unfortunately, it’s not going on this month, so I don’t have any squares to stitch. Here is my community post with photos of all my squares, sent and received.

Well, Matt should be home from work soon, so I’m off to figure out dinner!

I’ve been up for a few hours. I should be working on math homework, but it’s really intimidating. I’m behind on my square trades. I’ve restarted one for the July trade 4 times now. It was just too difficult. So now I’ve super-simplified it, am just doing a plain block of single crochet and will backstitch the Feynman diagram onto it. I did finish one for the August trade this morning, though:

Matt and I finally used our little apartment gym room. It’s nice in there, with a big weight machine thing that Matt likes, a water cooler, treadmill, elliptical machine, recumbent bike, etc. I’ve been lazy since I returned from Georgia. It’s much more fun working on with someone, especially Matt, and he’s agreed to join me thrice weekly. Sitting on my behind in front of a screen all the time has really been getting to me …

Mama sent me two packages the other day. She returned all the journals I had left at home, my electronics tool box, an old dress, Christmas mugs, some Astek caribeeners, and sent us two freezer bags of chocolate chip cookies. Yup, they’re almost gone. The journals are from ‘94 to ‘99 and I haven’t looked at them at all for at least 5 years. I’ve spent most of the morning poring over those. Some of what I wrote is funny, some depressing, some ominous … most of it silly. Bad poetry, goofy doodles, lists of favorites, hearts and names crossed out and circled then re-crossed out, random musings of a 12 year-old, cut out photographs … it’s definitely amusing. It’s all pretty much from before my life got serious. Pages of role playing game character descriptions and background stories. End-of-my-life dramas about how some boy in my 7th grade class dumped me via a crumpled up note. Drawings, poetry, encyclopedia photocopies, and never-sent letters professing my love of Pink Floyd. The most interesting thing is reading about the day-to-day observations of my family life back then, knowing what I know now. It’s all fun … or just an excuse not to do math homework all morning.

I guess that’s what I should go ahead and do now, though.

Yes, it certainly is. Matt was a sweetheart and picked me up at the airport last Wednesday looking all handsome in his nice suit, and greeting me with chocolate and a rose. It’s been a nice, relaxing week for me to adjust to being back home. It’s cool hanging out with Jason and having him around. We play a lot of games together and whatnot. It’s also nice having a third seat at dinner; we don’t have leftovers that will never truly be eaten. Last night the three of us went over to my buddy Brian’s house (joined by my other school pals Missy and Evin) for some food and Office Space and [if we had not been tired and stayed a little longer] Halo 2. It was a good time and it’s nice to introduce Jason to some new people. We went to a new church that Jason picked out last Sunday and stayed later for a great potluck. It was a good time and a nice, small church and it suits Jason really well. Matt and I are going to return to Calvary, though. There is a lot about that particular church that we like, we just have to find a way to be more socially comfortable. That’s up to us, though, and not really any fault of Calvary’s. We also went to Jalama Beach last weekend, which is a very pretty, tucked-away beach right in our backyard.

We had a good time walking up and down the beach and sunbathing. The water was nearly freezing, but Matt and Jason jumped in anyway. They got a tad sunburned and Matt has been suffering all week, but we plan on going back hopefully every weekend. Good times.

I also finally got a chance to upload the photos I took while TDY. I have an album up of visiting with Andrea. I said earlier that we did some origami and crocheting while I was there, here are a few of our finished products.

I also got a chance to do a bit of crocheting while I was hanging out by myself in the hotel room. I started working on a baby afghan and worked on a bunch of squares for Mama’s afghan. These are the squares I completed:

So there’s that. Jason and I played a bunch of pool today. I never really learned how to play, so today was sort of instructional. Of course, I’ve played plenty of games before, but I learned today that I’ve been doing everything incorrectly. We practiced for almost two hours and had a grand ol’ time.

I got an email from Andy yesterday saying that he had been sailing from San Diego to Santa Barbara as part of some crew, proving his seaworthiness in order to be part of some large Mexico –> New Zealand trip. I was so excited to hear he was in Santa Barbara and sent off an email immediately making plans for today. Alas, he called today from Colorado as soon as he received my message. I was a little bummed that he was in California and didn’t even think to get together. He’s a world-traveler now and I’m not sure when our paths will cross again. I’m sure they will. I think sometimes I just get nostalgic for times in my past. College in Colorado was fun most of the time and I do miss the friends I had then. Being that they’re all males, I often feel it’s inappropriate to keep in touch or be as close as I’d like to. They’re good guys and I think of them often. It’s always good to see someone or get an email hearing about all the great adventures.

Matt and I are planning a quick trip next month. Neil Gaiman will be up near San Francisco, about 4 hours away from us, for a book signing. He’s cutting back a lot on his appearances and I don’t want to miss an opportunity. I’ve never been to a signing before, but I think it sounds like a good time. And of all the famous people I know of, I think he is the one I’d like to meet the most. Matt will take a day or two of leave and we’ll probably stay the night up in the bay area. We had only been once, for a Switchfoot concert, and didn’t get to explore the city at all. So maybe we’ll make a big event of it. Anyhow, I’m excited to pick up Neil’s Fragile Things and get to say hello.

Wednesday was my first day of math class. I was really nervous about the whole thing and ready to drop the class that day. I received a text message from Erick earlier reporting that they just started chapter 5. I had just finished chapter 2 and started freaking out about how I’d never catch up. It really bummed me out a bit because I’ve been struggling on my own with the coursework. Then I received another text informing me that they had skipped chapters 3 and 4, renewing my confidence. I went to class and found I wasn’t really that far behind. I just have to do some super-studying for our first exam two weeks from now. I’m not working (though I am researching some exciting jobs) and this is the only class I’m taking, so I shouldn’t have any excuses not to do well enough.

I went to the dentist today for a first exam and cleaning. It went well enough at first and I really like my dentist. Before going to Georgia I had toothaches and learned I needed a root canal due to decay around some poorly installed Air Force filling. Bummed about that, got over it though. I still need to get a crown on my tooth-stub. Today they found another filling that had improperly bonded and didn’t do it’s job. So I have some deep decay in that tooth as well and will go in to look at it again next week and see if we can avoid another root canal. And another Air Force filling cracked and will need to be redone. And my gums are receding around the implant I got when I was sixteen, exposing the metal. It could get worse and become a bad thing, so I need to go to someone else to see about some bone grafting. Fun … and cheap, I’m sure. Ughh. So it was somewhat of a disheartening day at the dentist, but that’s life I guess. I’m just wondering how our wallet is going to take to all this work.

Well, that’s my overly wordy update for the week. Jason starts work on Tuesday, then I’ll be home alone during the week. I have class at night on Mondays and Wednesdays, but during the day I’ll be alone … studying, crocheting, and most likely blogging. So ta ta ’til then.

So I’ve passed my half-way mark here in Georgia. Class is going all right. I’m in Block 3 of 4 and will test out on Monday. It’s a little boring and way more information than I’ll really need to know, but I’m getting paid to sit in class for a few hours a night. My days aren’t terribly exciting. During the week I sleep in, go to lunch with the guys, run some errands, go to the Y, then to school. It’s almost like clockwork. The first weekend here we hung out in Augusta. We ate at the Bees’s Knees (one of my all-time favorite restaurants) and then hung out at the Soul Bar on “Disco Hell” night. I’m not much of a clubber, but it was a decent time (although I learned that Whiskey Sours and I are highly disagreeable.)

The second weekend we drove to Charleston and back on Saturday. We found a really nice rooftop bar where we had some snacks and drinks while listening to two guys with guitars. Sublime and Grateful Dead covers. It was good. We found a touristy hot-spot called Wet Willy’s, a daiquiri bar, and had a good time drinking and dancing. Needless to say, much of Sunday was spent in bed.

This past weekend was a three-day weekend. Lance had planned to take the rental car up to D.C. to visit friends from when he lived there, and I got to tag along and get dropped off near Langley AFB to visit with Andrea. I slipped in silently at 5:00 Friday morning, was greeted by the cats, and crashed on the couch. Friday Andrea gave me the LAFB tour and then we headed over to Poquoson, our childhood hometown. We drove around and saw all our friends’ old houses, passed by our elementary school, saw our church, and the old house. Some things have changed, but not too much. We attempted to explore the old woods in which we used to play (the parts that weren’t replaced with homes), but they were so overgrown and overrun with massive spider webs, we didn’t get very far. We had a half-off dinner at Chili’s, where Michael works. We watched a bunch of movies (Howl’s Moving Castle, Mirror Mask, The Jacket, Kiss the Girls, Along Came a Spider, Snake Eyes) throughout the weekend. The three of us played some Trivial Pursuit and Scrabble. Andrea and I hung out at Virginia Beach, soaked up the sun, had some frozen custard, and visited the haunted house. It was a blast! I brought hooks and taught her to crochet. She did quite well for just three days of instruction! Michael is apparently very good at origami and has taught her quite a bit, so she passed some knowledge along to me. We made Chinese dragons and cubes out of dollar bills, as well as cute patterned pigs and cranes. I have tons of great photos of the weekend, but for some reason I cannot get the card reader to work for me. It’s been so long since Andrea and I have really spent time together, so the weekend was really nice to just be around her and gab. It was definitely worth the long drive. Phew!

I finished my art class, though not as successfully as I had planned. I can be quite the slacker. I’m starting up my math class now, which isn’t designed to be a distance learning class, but I’m communicating with my prof through the end of the month and will try to do it on my own. It’s not so bad … so far. I was on a crocheting kick, trying to get a significant amount done on Mama’s afghan. The past week has been sort of crochet-lazy, though. I still have to make two squares to mail out for my square trade. I received three squares since I’ve been gone, I just wish I were there to open them!

That’s sort of a long-winded overview of what’s been going on out here in Georgia. It’s not the most exciting, I know. The active duty pay will be nice and while I’m out here, the government pays me to eat out (and the Augusta restaurant selection dwarfs that of Lompoc!) I miss Matt terribly and cannot wait to see him. We chat every day, though haven’t really been playing much Diablo II together. He has Jason and the cats and seems to be doing well enough. I’ll be home on the 30th …

I’m sure I’ll have more to blabber about before then, though.