Crochet is the devil!! ...and other things :)

Let me start off by saying that I really do not like to crochet. I admit that it has it's place, and for those who love it, good for you. Personally though, I can't stand it! It's not that I don't know how... I just don't enjoy it.

That being said.. I think crochet flowers are tooo cute! So when I was making my second hat for apple green photography(I'll get to the first one in a bit) I knew that I wanted to add a crochet flower on that hat!

SO I broke out my crochet hook... reviewed some of the basics on youtube, double crochet, slip, half double crochet, etc... ugh... I like keeping it simple with a "knit" and "purl" lol. Anyways, after a couple hours of fumbling around with different patterns, I finally made a crochet flower that I thought was worthy of the hat and have finished it!

(poor Izzy had to model this hat for me...lol)

I also made a crochet headband for Faith to wear at our family portraits today :D

(looks better on, of coarse, lol


And so that is that.

Now then, on to the "other things!"
Since starting this blog there have been many many posts that I've wanted to make, the problem is... If I have to choose between knitting or blogging during the limited amount of time Faith has been giving me... I usually choose knitting...although there have been times that I've also chosen to sit in a catatonic state from shear exhaustion. So needless to say, I haven't been blogging as much as I'd like.

So I'm going to do a quick(fingers crossed) summary of missed posts for this past month.
First off! On the way to visit my BIL & SIL I finished knitting up a CUTE Stretchy bag for my SIL, and here's the final product:

It's actually not really that stretchy because of the cotton yarn that I used... but I like it alot, and I hope that she does too :)

I also finished the first hat for apple green photography(if you haven't checked out her page yet, she is AMAZING )(My husband hates having his picture taken, but he said that she was the first photographer that he was comfortable with, and wouldn't mind getting pictures taken again, any time :D)
Aand this is the best picture that I managed to get with the hat on Faith:

It was my first time knitting a brimmed hat, and the brim gave me trouble, but I'm happy with it over all, so all is good.

Also I got some awesome new Knitpicks yarn in recently!!!

The khaki is a merino wool that I'm going to use to knit up my first sweater.. I'm going to be making a birthday/Christmas present to send over to my husband in Iraq... he may not really be able to wear it over their, but I figure it'll be nice to have a homemade something over their... and he'll probably be able to wear it during R&R.
The 3 colorful ones I'm going to use to knit up some leg warmers for Faith!! 2 of them are the Felici self striping yarn!!!! AAAH Soo darn cute! I can't wait to knit those up!! ( I almost don't want to knit the other things I have to knit first...boo... but she can't wear them now anyway, it's too hot! lol)


And well.. as you saw above... my husband is going to be in Iraq for Christmas... he's not their yet, but he leaves very soon... it's our first deployment... and I don't really know how I feel about it... I mean.. I survived the 5 months of barely talking to him when he went to OSUT last year... and my living situation at the time was next to awful... this time I'll be living with just me and the kids, and I'll be talking to him more often... and I'll be around other people who are army wives(none of the "stop moping it can't really be that bad!" from women who complain that there husbands missed dinner 3 nights in a row because of work!! ...Not that I was constantly moping, but I wasn't miss happy-go-lucky 24/7, which I guess bothered some people)


Anyways, so that's my updates for now.. I guess there's not as much as I thought... stay tuned for more.. maybe I'll post a blog soon about the evolution of my knitting, haha.

Soaked

So as you may have read while in the hospital with Faith I took my free time(when I wasn't shaking like a bowl full of jello) and spent it knitting her a soaker. You may also remember that I snapped my size 2 1/2 40" circular needles :( Well, I lucked out alittle and was able to get some size 3 DPNs from walmart a couple days after that. You have no idea how happy I was.... and alittle scared.. See I have purposely stayed away from DPNs since I started knitting, as soon as I could I looked up alternatives to sock knitting, and that's actually when I stumbled upon knitpicks.com, my now favorite go-to knitting site. KnitPicks circular needles have a very thin VERY flexible connecting tube which allows users to knit in the round using what's called the "Magic Loop Method" While the name may seem silly the method is amazing. I can knit something as small as say, finger holes for gloves using this method! Easily


Anyways, I was out of luck with my needles, the smallest size needle that comes in my interchangeable set is a size 4.. I needed atleast a size 3, so I was stuck with the DPN's... and really it wasn't too terrible


It's a learning curve for sure, and I guess they're useful to have around(easier to make I-cords with) but my biggest problem was that rather than stopping once halfway through a round, I had to stop 3 times...and I can get distracted easily once I get to the end of a "row" lol I still much prefer the magic loop method of knitting, and I'm taking this opportunity to order size 2's this time.

Anyway, the biggest thing is that I was able to finish the soaker, and the leg holes didn't turn out too much bigger than I wanted them to either.


I was supposed to do a kitchener stitch to join the crotch together...but I HATE the kitchener stitch, so I used a 3 needle bind off instead, and am quit pleased with it... it's a little thicker & more noticeable than a kitchener would have been, but it's a seam.. it's fine if it's a little noticeable!