Taco flavored kisses! and my new discraftion explained

I did it.
I made the fabled Star Afghan.
...and you can even tell what it is!

I gave Taco his blanket, he seems to really love it. It's just the perfect size for his little dog bed. Grumpy old man <3 Sheydine (two friends celeb couples name) seemed very impressed that I achieved my goal.

About 6 Months ago I taught Nadine how to knit/pearl (she learned pearl after only 2 demonstrations.. in a car as she dropped me off from work) - she's now my guru, I go to her for my questions about knitting/crocheting. That kids, is how it's done. Take a lesson from me, and make yourself a teacher. Find a friend that needs a hobby, show them some stitches and let them blossom. :P But really, I'm jealous, and moral of the story I'm proud she was impressed.





Discraftion: A discraftion is a distraction from a crafting project that was recently started/almost done. (Yes, I am making this up. If it already exists, I'm not surprised, there's only so many clever ways to string together 'distraction' and 'craft')

I will soon be working from home, midnights, on a very slow shift. To do so, I had to make my beautiful macbook do something unthinkable - run windows. I bought an external hard drive (her name is Bea Ste. Maude - pronounced Bee-ah Saint Maude, but is cleverly meaning 'beast mode' - a name my boyfriend requested), she's a whole TB for me to play with. Once I get this all working though - I will be back at it.

Also, a bum fight I saw on St. Patrick's Day

Living With Lions

I've been trying so hard to teach myself to crochet. I want to make a star-shaped baby blanket so badly that I've taught myself a foreign language - the language of a crochet pattern. Talk about confusing! It looked like someone pounded on the keyboard into a random sequence of letters and numbers.

I started by using Google and typing in random phrases like "beginners crochet" and "crochet tutorial", you would be amazed at the help there is out there. I was able to go from never having crocheted a stitch in my life to able to make the blanket in a few night (with dedication, of course.)

I couldn't have even begun to understand the pattern as easily as I did without the Knit Witch - she is awesome. I originally found her on Youtube (her youtube can be found here) and then stumbled my way onto her homepage where you can find lessons, patters, yarn bowls (how neat are they?!) and more.

So far I have completed a dog sized blanket in offensively yellow colours from Red Heart. My tension is still off - the points are too long, and too wide and don't sit properly. The star has to be stretched so it doesn't wrinkle. My little Taco buddy won't care though, he'll love the new addition to his little Taco bed.

I had quite a few rounds done on my first attempt at the baby blanket when I decided to throw a hissy fit about my tension and rip it out. I now can't bring myself to restart. I promised myself I would tomorrow. I will also try to get a picture of the doggie blanket.

I leave you with this awesome band: Living with Lions

I'm so impractically n00b.

I'm going to get really good at knitting, and even better at crocheting.

I'm going to make neat stuff.

It's going to take a while to get to that point, because I have no talent or experience... but I am determined. This blog is going to be my progression from failed projects (HOW?! blankets are NOT supposed to double as a hat/bowl) to things people might one day love.

Grab a helmet, a shovel and dig in.
It will be an entertaining one to say the least.