Yarnification

Thanks for the comments on the hiking photos :) I still haven’t finished writing up my account of the trip, so it may turn up at some odd time in the next couple of weeks. I’ve got a lot on my plate right now, but I still need to take little mental health breaks here and there throughout the day so I read blogs and write a little and read message boards during that time. I tried cutting myself off for a couple of days and I was getting nothing done by the time the day was half over; I’d just feel all frazzled. So I’m using my timer again, setting it for half hour of work, then ten minutes or so of play.

I’ve seen this in a few people’s blogs and decided I needed to make one because it’s just too cute. (And while visiting the blog whose author wrote the pattern, I found someone else to add to my bloglines list!)

Photo (someday I will learn not to photograph dark items against a dark background, but apparently today is not that day):

It’s done in Bernat Handicrafter, warm brown, used up most of one ball. The pattern is here: Winged Hair Kerchief, and I think you really ought to make yourself one because it’s super cute. I’m thinking I may make one out of thread; I figure I’d be able to use the same pattern but just keep going until it’s the right size. I have most of a ball of green thread that I think would look pretty done in this pattern.

Is it just me, or does hearing the word kerchief make you automatically want to reply “Bless you”?

I may make a flowerdy thing and attach it on; I like what she did with the one in photo with the pattern. If I ever quite get the hang of tatting, I think a group of little tatted flowers would look good on there. (If, that is. I’m close to having the hang of tatting, but just when I’m moving right along and think I’ve really got it this time, I start screwing up again. But I’m still working at it…)

This was the first time I’d ever attempted bullion stitches, and you should’ve heard the cussing until I got the hang of it! I think I was wrapping the yarn too tightly the first bazillion or so times I tried it because the hook would go partway through and then get stuck, and at that point I’d have to give up and try over because once it got stuck, even if I eventually got it through there’d be a big mess. (Whew. Longest sentence ever.) Anyway, I caught on eventually, and by the end of the part with the bullion stitches, I was only screwing it up about once out of every three times. Are they supposed to be that hard, or am I just a doofus?

I’m also still working on the Prairie Star doily. It’s coming along, but I haven’t been working as steadily at it as I was. Just needed a bit of a break from it after all that frustration and frogging, though I’m back on track now and am probably within two or three rounds of the end. (Woohoo!)

I also still need to block the Pineapple Squares Thing. Don brought in the giant slab o’ cardboard from the garage, and it is now taking up a big chunk of real estate in the mud room. I need to cover it with waxed paper before I can use it, and it’s so big that I’m thinking I may just wait to do any blocking until the Prairie Star is done and block them both at once.

I do not know where I’m going to store this cardboard behemoth when I’m not using it (right now it’s blocking off the countertop island thing in the mud room and all the little cupboards underneath it), but it’s definitely nice and big! Unless I lose my mind and decide to make a bedspread out of thread or something like that, I can’t think of anything I wouldn’t be able to block on it.