Chunky Blanket Ta Dah!

Back in January I showed this blanket to you.  

Click here to see it.  

And after spending a ridiculous amount of time trying to find, on my blog, when I first picked out this yarn, I decided I must not have posted about it.  I know I posted it on Instagram, and it was sometime last year...around Marchish.

(you do know the ish, makes it somewhat of a flexible time frame.)

I already had all of the cream yarn at home.  I'm a binge yarn buyer. 

I'm trying to change that, but it's hard. 

Purses are another binge buying thing which we are not talking about right now.

Or ever.

So,

I bought the colorful yarn and it is CHUNKY.

The blanket design was originally supposed to be two different KINDS of squares, as well as different sizes of squares.  I forgot about the kinds, and only made them all the same.  Say Lah Vee.  (American spelling-teehee)

 Even though I really liked the colors and the yarn, something wasn't connecting for me with this blanket.  My cousin, Vickie, suggested I take some of the creamy chunky yarn and make some smaller squares with it.  So I did.  That helped a lot. 

But I had already stitched some squares together and I wasn't about to take them apart!
Then I couldn't decide how to piece it all together.  I was going to add a few rows of single crochet, then a few more squares...but I didn't like it.  And I was going to add this yarn that Vickie got me for my birthday last year, but it was a different weight.

 I took out some colorful squares, and made some smaller cream squares.  And I took out some small squares and added a few more larger squares.

 

And I laid it out a hundred times in a hundred different ways.  And every time I picked it up, I would try to lay it back down the same way and I never did!

I finally started taking pictures of it with my phone so I could lay it down the same way I picked it up.

Then I put it away!  Like, put it in a bag and in the cold craft room.

 Sewing all of this together was quite the challenge.  I had to have time to lay it all out on the bed.  And I'd sit kind of cockeyed on the bed and stitch it together.  At this point it wasn't something I could pick up and do a little at a time, and it was too heavy to drag along with me.

So it sat in a bag in the cold craft room, unfinished, until my New Years Resolution to finish unfinished projects.  Which, btw, is my new years resolution every year.  Along with the poundage. 

I finally got it all out again, when I had a full day here and there this winter, and I stitched it together.  Then I had to weave in all of those ends.  

This blanket is all wool and the hand dyed red yarn fades.  I had a pink spot on my bedspread one time where the red was laying!  I still love it, but I know it will only be hand washed forever.

 

 I decided I would take a sheet and stitch it to the back of the blanket, just in case I had more red fadage on 'things'.  In my head I thought it would look nice to blanket stitch the sheet on before I put the entire border on the blanket.  

 

I was going to finish the border after I blanket stitched the sheet on.  So I cut the sheet. 

 

 And that theory about blanket stitching didn't look so good!!!  But the sheet still SEEMED plenty big. 

 

 I forgot to mention the flowers.  I was going to put flowers on top, stitch them through the blanket and the sheet layer, to kind of hold the sheet to the yarn.  And I had decided about the flowers a few months back.  When it was still summer!

So I laid the backing out, stitched the flowers on to hold the backing on so I could watch the telly and stitch the sheet to the blanket.  Guess what?  Got to the end and it did not fit very nicely.  It looked like it would fit, but when I stitched it on it just didn't look good.

So I took all of the flowers back off...

 

Got out another sheet,

and stitched it on, then after making sure the sheet fit, I stitched all of the flowers back on.....

and FINALLY!!!

 TAAA DAAAAAH!!!!!

Dixie loved it from the very beginning!

We tried to sleep with it on the bed a couple of times and it's just too warm!

But I LOVE IT!  

I DO.

I get cold in the evenings and

It's VERY warm and snuggly.

It goes well with crochet projects, hot chocolate, and old movies!

 

On to my next unfinished project!

 The honeycomb bag.

I'm glad I got this blanket finished as it's going to get into the 50's this week, way too warm to try it out!  I'm ready for warm weather and sunshine!!!!

Cindy Bee

Through Thick and Thin

58 years ago today, March 2, our parents wed.

 

 Through thick and thin, they stayed together! 
They had three children...

 Several grandchildren....

A couple of great grandchildren....

 

A couple of faux' grandchildren!

  A few in-laws (who call themselves Outlaws)

Which make up a wonderful family.....

who still gathers together....whenever they can....through thick and thin!

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY MOM & DAD!

From everyone in this crazy family!

Cindy Bee

An Evening Chat

 Peeps, I'm trying to get used to a new schedule.  A schedule that keeps me up late, and sleeping in longer in the morning.  I love it, but it's going to take some getting used to.  And I haven't quite figured out when to fit in my blogging time.  All of these years I've blogged in the mornings.  Now when I get up, I eat breakfast with my Shug, and then get busy because the sun is already up...if it's coming up at all.  I'm used to getting up hours before the sun.  And If I don't get busy right away, I get nothing done. So please give me time to adjust.  I feel like I'm running in all different directions right now.  I know that's never happened to you!

So let's just chat a bit.  

I'm by myself right now and feel chatty.

I think my evening blogging sessions shall be chat sessions.

Nothing in particular...get some tea...or hot chocolate with yummy marshmallows like I have.

Do you ever feel like you have to rescue the plants at Lowe's on the clearance shelves?

I do.

They were in these tiny little pots, being terribly neglected, and only 50 cents.

I finally got them repotted.

 

 

OK if you're a 70's child, you HAD one of these plants sprawling all over the place.  Everyone did!  I think it was called a philodendron.  I'm not good with houseplant names, I just know this takes me back to the 70s.  If it lives, I'm going to crochet a hanging planter thingy for it and put it in front of the window.  I never got the hang of macrame' but if I did I would make this plant a macrame' hanger.  It would be so happy in a macrame' hanger...with wooden beads.

 I planted these hyacinths too.  Can you smell them?

 Smeeelllllllll them.......mmmmmm......

I did go to crochet group last week....  This is some Mystery CAL (crochet-a-long) that "K" is working on.

 The rug underneath  is Debbie's.  She had a bit of a rough start.  It was getting all ruffled but it's looking nice now. I want to make one but I can't.

 I can't because I still have WIP's I'm working on...that must be finished before starting something new.  My rule.  I already broke my no chocolate for lent rule.  (Sigh-my shug bought me two packs of dark chocolate)  So anyway, not starting a rug....not starting a rug....not yet.

We decided my Happy Blanket needs something besides just big squares, so I'm crocheting four smaller squares with a border to put next to the big squares. 

My Work in Progress (wip) at home is this blanket.  I had all of the flowers on it, and the backing sewed all the way to the end, and it DID NOT FIT.  Somehow I measured the backing wrong.  So, I spent yesterday evening taking the backing completely off of it, then the flowers.  I'm sewing a larger different backing on it.  It's the yellow sheet in the photo above.  I think I'll work on it in a few minutes.

Another thing I found with this new schedule is I don't have much time to read.  I used to go to bed with my Shug, early in the evening, because we had to get up at 4:30 am.  His schedule is my schedule when you're living in one room.  Well, I couldn't get to sleep so I'd lie there reading (with a flashlight so as not to wake him up.)  I went to the library the other day with high hopes of finding some good movies and good reading material.  They had this little promotional thing going on.  You get a wrapped book, bring it home, open it, read it, fill in the card and return it to the library by a certain date.  The card gets dropped in a box for prizes.  It's a Valentines promo thing.

 Well,

I was all excited to open this....

 Blogettes seriously?  People still write these kinds of novels?  

His hot seeking hands covered her bare hips, gripped them, tugged slightingly, rocking her in a motion she didn't know yet recognized in some primal corner of her soul.....blah blah blah

I am not going to read it.  Do I fill out the card anyway?  I mean....Life is too short to read bad lit don't you think?  Should I just drop it off and not turn in the card?  I dunnno.

Ok so here is my Shug.  I asked him, when he had time (right, he's building a house!) that I needed him to build me a "lazy Kate."  It didn't have to be fancy I said.  

A lazy Kate holds your bobbins of thread that you spin on a spinning wheel, so you can ply the thread into yarn.  Hence, two ply, or three ply yarn. 

 I have one that goes with my Elizabethan Ashford spinning wheel.  Well I also have a Schacht spinning wheel and I thought I could use one lazy kate for both.  No can do.  When I went to ply my thread into yarn, I found out the bobbins for my ashford are much smaller.  So, my Ashford lazy kate isn't big enough to hold three Schacht bobbins.  Makes perfect sense to y'all right?
My Shug made me a lazy kate for my Schacht in no time!  25 cent brackets I bought at a garage sale years ago....a piece of pinewood he collected from an old house....and a rod from a sign that used to be in our yard.  Voila' a lazy kate for my bigger Schacht bobbins.  I could have just bought one but this is much more special, and cheaper.

 Now these pictures are just cute.  My little Dixie Doodle is watching a home show...fixer upper man type stuff!

 

 And my Shug and my Dixie snuggling.  

Everyone have a nice evening (ummm...guess I chatted awhile, it's 10:00 pm)  I'm going to go stitch some on the blanket and see if I can get interested in a movie.  

Cindy Bee

PS.  Jane, I cannot get onto your blog anymore.  I did send you my e-mail address as requested. 

PSS. After I posted this, I got a message from blogger telling me that blogger will no longer allow sexually explicit content after March 23!  I feel awful!  I wasn't being explicit!  I was just telling you about the book.  Oh my.