SO Excited!

Just got off the phone with son #1.  He's finishing up his time in the US Army on May 1st and will be driving from Ft. Drum, NY to PC, OR the next week.  I offered to fly out and drive home with him and he said YES!
So now I just have to find some extra cash (lol) and a flight.

Can we say "ROAD TRIP"?!!!!!!!!

DETERMINED!

This picture is my 2nd attempt at a "mood blanket".  I like the pattern just fine, but I didn't put it on the bed (oops) to see how wide it needed to be, and its barely wide enough for a lapghan.   Where's a rolling eyeball when you need one?  Oh, and btw - MB1 (moodblanket1) was made into a scarf.  It just wasn't flowing right for me.

The basket has all the larger balls of leftovers from various projects, the plastic bin has bits and pieces I intended to use in loom-knit hats, but decided to incorporate into the new blanket instead, and MB2 is in the metal bucket.  If you look closely at the plastic bin you can see my hook on the beginnings of MB3.  The pattern is called "Granny Scrap Blanket" and I got it off of Ravelry.  Super easy!

And now I'm off to crochet!  Determined to GET IT DONE.  Smile.

When hubby is gone.....

Spring break ended on a good note - we bought a car, finally.  A 2006 Kia Sorento in black and gold.  Must admit, the gold wouldn't be my first choice, but its a classy looking rig, and had the one thing I really wanted (heated seats!), so I'll overlook the gold.  Besides, it took a full month to find, so I'm glad to have that marked off the to-do list.
We came home Friday and on Monday hubby left for his annual IMS (Incident Medical Specialist) conference in Hood River.  Usually when he's gone, we stock up on chick-flicks and spend the evenings catching up on all those he'd never be interested in.  This year though, there's still much unpacking and organizing to do, so I spent Day 1 cleaning out the hall closet.  Fun, right?
Said closet is now a happy place.  The top shelf houses the musical instruments plus all the pictures that will be hung on the walls, someday.  Shelf number 2 has all the quilts and blankets neatly folded, for once.  Shelf number 3 has a mix of finished scrapbooks, folded sheet sets, and Michael's mail that is waiting till he is discharged from the Army in May.  On the bottom I've put the fans that will come in handy with warm summer temps, but are so in the way the rest of the year, plus my finished yarn creations in one of those Rubbermaid totes that we all love to have.  (Right?)
I was left with the question of what to do with the yarn stash.  There just doesn't seem to be a place where it isn't in the way.  I am working through it, honest.  Still, I don't think I'll ever be completely stash-less.  I'm not even sure I want to be.  Smaller stash, good.  No stash?  Not-so-much.  For now, the two 3-drawer plastic containers are side by side against the wall in the closet.  I'm thankful they fit even if it makes the closet look a bit crowded.   Michael will be home soon and his space reassigned, but that's only enough room for one of the containers.  Eventually the pictures will make it to the walls and then there will be plenty of room.
One can dream.

BRIGHT pink shawl

About a year ago or so, I was given this BRIGHT pink yarn to make scarves with.  But it was so BRIGHT that I had a hard time getting motivated.  Besides, I had plenty of yarn in my stash already so I kept putting it off.  Finally, in light of the challenge to use up some yarn that had been languishing in some deep dark recess somewhere, I decided to buck up and do something worthwhile.

If it had only been a single skein, a scarf would've been the easy answer and I would've been done already.  But 3 skeins just seem to need a bigger project.  After some rooting around on Pinterest, I stumbled into a blog called "Laughing Purple Goldfish" which had a "Simple Triangle Shawl" pattern for free.  Seemed like the ideal project, and I could send it to the rehab center with Mom's quilts and the other shawl I've already finished.

Here is the finished product:

One-skein wonders

These two scarves are my response to a challenge from Linda at Linda's Crafty Corner.  Since I joined the stash-busting challenge for the year 2014, I'm determined to drastically reduce the excess here.
The challenge was to take that yarn that you regularly pass over in favor of something else and put it to use.  Since I have several that qualify, but none of them really work well together, I figured it was time to divide and conquer!  The blue one is done in my version of a grit stitch, and the brown one is from a free pattern I picked up at Michael's awhile back.  Both were simple enough, but the brown one used up the yarn faster.   Both are one skein of yarn.

First Shawl, ever

In early February my 91 year-old mother fell and pulled some abdominal muscles.  She spent 10 days in a rehab facility which was not the most pleasant of experiences, but she did it with grace.  While there, she noticed several residents who complained of being cold all the time, especially around their necks and shoulders.  She promised to bring a pile of homemade quilts (lap-sized) back once she was able.
I thought about it for a while and then decided that I could crochet a few shawls to go along with her quilts.  Shawls, in my mind, are better than a quilt because they target the shoulder/neck area, and aren't quite as heavy.  A scarf might do the trick, but it would have to be fairly wide to cover both neck and shoulders, so I decided to meld the two.  This is the result:

The pink and blue variegated yarn I've had for over a year and couldn't find anything in my stash to go with it, so it sat.  Then Mom gave me the dark pink when I was over the last time and it fit.  Good thing too because I'm not all that fond of the dark pink on its own.
Need to weigh it so I know how much stash I burned and then it can go to Portland with us when we go over for spring break.  YES!

Two stitches learned

The purple hat is my first attempt at crocheting a hat AND reading a pattern.  The mint green scarf is my first scarf done by pattern.  It was fun, but takes much more time than the freestyle I'm used to.