I finished my nautical themed baby blanket. It is pretty awesome. I made it using the pattern HERE.
It will be displayed in my store sometime in the next few minutes.
Www.etsy.com/shop/beforeitwithers

Stringy Specs...
88 rows at 5 minutes per row plus a border that took 40 minutes...8 hours
5 skeins of red heart yarn...1820 yards...1.034 miles of yarn!!!
Bright yellow...pale yellow...brown...tan...navy blue
38x36 inches...about 3x3 feet

Blanketing Bad

So...since I have been staying at home with the baby, I have started a new series on Netflix. Breaking Bad. I highly recommend it. Anyways, I have noticed a trend. Every couch at every house in the show has crocheted afghan on it. They make me a lot more excited about my blanket projects.

Maybe one day my blankets will be famous.

Something new...

So after completing my last crocheted blanket...see previous post...I got started on my next one. Most of my crochet projects have been for little girls and big girls and women. So for this next one I decided to switch it up a bit. I rummaged my far too large yarn collection and found some more boyish/manly colors. This blanket kind of seems to have a nautical theme. I am liking what I see so far. Like on my previous blanket, I have decided not to use a specific pattern and will use the random color generator. I found the pattern for free here. And this is what I've gotten so far.

 

Let me know what you think. This blanket isn't claimed yet so if you are interested in ordering it, let me know. I plan to be finished with it by the end of the week. 

On another note I went on my first trail run in about a year.  

It was nice to finally run again and it was a beautiful day. I just happen to be blessed enough to live 10 minutes from a trailhead of the Cumberland Trail, which is a part of the Appalachian Trail. This means it is quite steep and rocky and covered in roots in lots of places. There were some parts of the trail where running was not the most logical thing to do. But I chose not to follow my logic. And guess what resulted...two busted up knees. Yup...I was the girl who wiped out on the trail. Here we're the results.  

While the baby was sleeping...

I am a temporary stay at home mother until I start teaching in August. My son is 7 weeks old and still spends a lot of time sleeping. So this is what I've been working on while Shea is sleeping...

 

My motivation for this post as well as my latest project came from Lucy at Attic24. I am grateful for her free patterns as well as the encouragement to stick to a project as we see her works in progress. I made the blanket below using her hexagon pattern and throwing in a bit of this and that I came up with as well as ideas I pulled from other generous bloggers. The blanket is a birthday gift for my sister. Sorry it's not up for grabs. But I do sell custom blankets so let me know if you're interested. 

This is where it all started.

 

I used 7 colors of Red Heart Super Saver yarn...black, white, bright yellow, pale yellow, pretty in pink, petal pink, and turqua. The colors together remind me of a lemonade stand under a bright blue sky.  Then I got started on the first of 48 hexagons. The journey had begun!

 

What made this blanket so fun was that there was no strict pattern. No two hexis are the same. I used the fun Random Stripe Generator to randomly distribute the colors. Here is a sample of what was to come.

 

 

I made the edges using a combination of what Lucy used at Attic24 and the pattern found here.

 

 

The finished product came after about 18 total hours of work between diaper changings and tummy times and feedings...while Shea was sleeping.  Here is the final result.

 

 

Stringy Specs:
Blanket 44x38 inches
48 Hexagons (20 minutes each) plus a 4-row border (2 hours)...18 hours
11 skeins of yarns (364 yards each)...4004 yards
$3 each...$33
2.27 miles of yarn
33.33 football fields

 

Things are a bit different now...

So...since my last post was in June of 2010...there is a lot to catch you up on. I am sure no one is reading this but maybe one day someone will. Because I feel maybe little pieces of my life may be worth reading. For example: my husband and I are both teachers so we have lots of stories in our pockets. I am/was/going to be again a CrossFit doing runner who happens to love to crochet. I am a 24 year old wife and mother of a 7 week old baby boy and 2 shelter dogs. My son is of the human species. The canines are a male wire haired terrier mix who looks a lot like Wishbone and a pit bull who looks like...well a pit bull. And for those of you who are judging me for having a pit bull we will address that later. So since I last posted... 1. I graduated from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga 2. I married my best friend on my graduation day. 3. I went on a honeymoon to San Diego California for my honeymoon instead of the planned trip to the Bahamas and it was amazing...another story for another day. 4. Celebrated Christmas during our honeymoon with the new in-laws...wonderful. 5. Returned home to a new job teaching students with social and/or learning disorders in a public high school(this is where some of you may gasp) yes, a public high school. 6. Moved into a great little 2br house walking distance from downtown Chattanooga. 7. Adopted Roscoe, our hyper little wire haired terrier. 8. Tried to find jobs closer to family in either Texas or California with no luck and realizing that would not be a possibility any time soon. 9. House hunted and realized what we thought we wanted we couldn't afford. 10. Stumbled on my dream house that we still couldn't afford. 11. Offered what we could afford on the house and kept our fingers crossed. 12. Got a major steal because the family was desperate to move out. 13. Moved from our little rental house in the city to our own house in the country where we are surrounded by farms, see deer in the neighbors yard on a regular basis, hear donkeys braying from inside the house, and occasionally have to stop for llamas to cross the street. 14. Decided we were ready to start a family...and started by adding a pit bull to the mix to prepare our little terrier to not be he center of attention anymore. 15. Told my husband I was pregnant...another story for another day. 16. Got put on bedrest when I was 34 weeks pregnant due to preterm labor 7 weeks early...was told he would come any day. 17. Three weeks later our healthy little boy was born and that brings us to today... Today: 330 am...woke up for the first time since 11pm to feed our little guy. 630 am...my husband woke up to change little guy's diaper...which he had completely soaked...and the sheets on his bassinet were changed for the first time of the day...then he ate his 2nd meal of the morning 7 am...hubby cuddled with him before he had to get ready to go work at the summer camp we have worked together the past 2 summers. Now 856 am...watching little guy sleep in his monkey swing eating strawberry pop tarts and about to watch The Bachelorette with my mother in law while I work on finishing my sister's crocheted blanket she asked for for her birthday. Here's a pic of the messy pile of yarn and part of the blanket...I will take more work in progress pictures later. Hopefully this is one of the most boring posts I write but I felt you needed a look into my life to see what you have in store. I promise the other posts will be worth your time. At least I think so.