stuff I want....

Of course, there's nothing like thinking about going on a "stuff diet" to make you want a bunch of new stuff. Not handmade stuff. Not thrifted stuff. But shiny, pretty, brand new stuff.

I want....

this perfume

a Diana lens for my DSLR

a new computer. In pink. With windows 7, please.

just about everything from the new Liberty of London at Target collection.

this dress from Monsoon.

Just a few things

I've been watching the Olympics and crocheting up a storm. I've got 75 of the 100 or so granny squares I want for the new blanket I'm planning. At least I hope 100 squares will be enough. Have you been watching the Olympics? What's your favorite sport? I've always loved all the figure skating and ice dancing categories, but this year I've been loving the various ski categories, like super-G, which is funny, because I won't have anything to do with skiing in real life, as it combines two of my least favorite things- high places and the cold.


I took a fun and fast color quiz. Apparently my color is yellow, which I wouldn't have thought. Supposedly this means that I can't help searching for new ideas, methods and styles. And that is so true about myself.

My sister's baby is finally home from the hospital! He's such a cute little peanut. Seriously, he's too small for even newborn sizes, but just a little too big for the premie sizes. I've been told he won't be that small for long. His name is Oskar. How cute is that?!

I've been thinking about taking Dottie Angel's Challenge to only buy handmade or thrifted/second hand items for self and home for a year. More about that later.

This photo made me squeal with joy at the sight of it. The color. The little birds! If only I knew where I could get the paper, I would totally have an accent wall in my dining room.

The finished blanket

It just occurred to me that I'd never put a picture up of the finished blanket. Honestly, I'm as pleased with this project as with any project I've ever done. It just came out so nicely. I wish the pictures had come out better, but this is the best one I could get. In person, the colors are brighter, darker and more saturated.

As you can see, I used Attic24's join as you go method of joining the squares together. It's just so much neater looking than any other method I tried and it's actually a lot easier than you think it will be. I highly recommend her tutorials in crochet. They're so clearly explained and photographed. I hope some day, someone asks her to write a book on crochet, because honestly her tutorials are better than any book I've found thus far.

Then I finished it off with six rows of granny triplets all the way round and a final row of shell stitch. I'm not sure I did it "right". It works, but since I figured it out by looking at the shell stitch on a vintage afghan I bought on eBay, who knows if it's the "official" way to have done it. Doesn't bother me too much. I'm a knitting heretic and often don't do things the "right" way in knitting (the way I do my perls makes most knitters go "what the hell are you doing?!). So why should crochet be any different, right?

Anyway, I have to say, I started this crochet thing most because I wanted a way to make a biggish baby blanket for my sister's new baby boy in a really short amount of time. And it was fast. Way faster than a similarly sized blanket would be if I knit it. But boy, has this become it's own kind of addiction. In the time since I finished the blanket, I've also crocheted the front for a throw pillow, no pictures as yet and 1/3 of another afghan, this time bigger and for myself. And I can't see myself stopping any time soon.