Come Say Hi

Hello again, everyone. I had all sorts of witty titles thought up for this post, like “I lost 10 pounds this weekend!” or “WIP for 9 months finally a FO!” But really, (really, everybody) just come say hi.

Meet Charlie. Charlie is the newest addition to the TooManyHooks family – isn’t he cute? He was born weighing more than 9 pounds, and measuring 22 inches long. That puts him in the 97th percentile for both height and weight (he’s a big boy) and he’s as healthy as a horse. He also makes a sound rather like a whinny when he’s upset, so he’s quite the little equine. Max thinks he’s terribly interesting, (which is good) and tries to share his hardest toys with him (which is both good and not so good). I have more stuff to say on the crafy front, but I’ll save it for later.

You’re Welcome.

I’ve posted directions for the lovely star baby afghan I made. Click on the thumbnail to go there!

Hurrah! I’m glad that’s done with…enjoy, everybody.

Better Days?

I didn’t have the best morning today. You know, just bleaugh. After various false alarms, this baby seems to have lost all interest in being born at all. Greg and I have resigned ourselves to the fact that this pregnancy will never end, and have tried to just get on with things. Seemingly in direct opposition to what I just said, I do have a mostly finished object to show:

Isn’t it cute? Greg has teased a little bit over me making something we won’t need (in theory) for about three years at least, but it was fun to make and counts as a stashbust project since it used most of a skein of my Softee Baby. The pattern claims that the project needed two, but I didn’t even finish one. Of course, I didn’t do the booties (most 12-month-olds wear shoes) which could have pushed it into a second skein…maybe…but still. To be completely finished it still needs to be beribboned, be-appliqued, and be-buttoned (the pattern recommends a hook, but that seems like unnecessary ridiculousness for a crocheted item. A crocheted baby item.) but all of the crocheting is done, which is all I want to do right now. (I’ve got some time before I need to wrap it up, haha.) Anyway, this is the Tulip Toes pattern from Beautiful Baby Boutique, a collection of patterns by the talented Rebecca Leigh. (Tulip Toes is actually the purple dress on the cover. Quite cute.) I edited the sleeves so that they were edged with the same chain-loops as the hem, and…now I don’t have a project to work on. Bother.

Poking forlornly about the web this morning in search of entertainment, ideas, or inspiration, I came across the following images.

Wow. Isn’t it gorgeous? Such beautiful, vivid colors and bold shapes. I’ve got something percolating now – can anyone recommend a good peacock bronze yarn? I’m definitely going to have to order some color cards and see about combinations.

Then this afternoon, I decided to check on the status of my Amazon order (they said to expect delivery by the 18th, but hey. Now that you can track packages online, you can check on it more often than you get your mail.) I hadn’t checked it since I placed the order last week, so I figured there should at least be some interesting info there to kill some time (you know, maybe it made it to Dallas or something). This is what I read:

Date: August 14, 2006 Time: 12:00:00 AM Event Details: Delivery attempted – recipient not home

What? You mean that at 12 am on a Monday, the mailman was at my house, trying to deliver a package? And we didn’t even hear him knocking at the door? Please forgive me if I doubt and label that as unlikely. Still, I went to check the mail with a leeetle bit more anticipation than usual – and there was my package! Thanks, United States Postal System! Although this must not have been our regular mailman: he didn’t even bother knocking, just dumped the package on the porch and moved on. Tsk, tsk. Anyway, yay for packages! Here’s what was inside:

Hurray! I’ve been wanting these two books for months, and I finally ordered them last week. I’m really looking forward to trying some of the ‘basic’ things, like gloves or mittens, and it should provide an excellent resource as I begin trying to design. You want to know what’s super sneaky? The schematics for sweater sizing should work just as well for crocheted garments as knitted. Hahahahaha. Maybe now I can get around to resizing Genevieve. Or, you know, not. Whatever.