Would you believe....?

Would you believe that in my thirty something years of crocheting (learned when I was 6) that I've never done a ripple afghan?

I finally made one. Found the pattern on the internet several years ago and printed it out. This was before I started to save the links to patterns in the footer of my printouts, so I'm not sure where I got this one. As soon as I find the original website that I got it from I'll properly credit the designer for it.

Here are some pictures

It only took me about a week or so to make this afghan. I started a week ago thursday, finished the crocheting on friday morning, and did the tail weaving last night/this morning. (darn insomnia! was up till 3am)

I thought the pattern was pretty nice, I followed the pattern exactly how the designer wrote it out (I probably did more rows than she suggested). My only problem is that I think it's too narrow. Once I figure out how many extra chains to do to make it bigger, I'll probably do another one with this pattern. It was pretty fun to do.

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I've probably mentioned once or twice how impressed I was with the Rainbow Bridge when TinyMonsters died in March. The box that they put his cremains in is really very pretty. Morbid as it may seem, I thought I'd show you why I'm so impressed with the Rainbow Bridge that's here in Omaha. (sorry if anyone thinks it's morbid)

I resized the picture so it's not as huge as it was, so you might not be able to read Tiny's name on the nameplate, but you can at least see the detail in the wood. It looks so much better than I thought it was going to. I had an image in my head that it was going to be pine wood and shaped like a cigar box or something. Never expected it to look this good.

Edited to add: For some reason, Photobucket doesnt always show the resized pictures after I've resized them...not sure if my browser's cache is wonky or if the resize didnt take or something. Sorry if any of the pictures are massive, I swear I resized them!

I cant believe I figured it out...sorta...

I was just playing around with my desktop computer that I've had a couple of years. It has some features on it that I've never used before. Well, tonight, I got curious to see how they worked. Specifically the video capture program.

I have an ancient video camera. I've had it about 10 or 11yrs. It uses those little mini video tapes.

I had some video of TinyMonsters, my dog that passed away in March, so I decided to see if I could transfer it from the videotape onto my computer.

Would you believe that I did it without even using any written directions? I not only got it copied to my computer, I also burned it to DVD!

My mom was thrilled. She misses Tiny and thought it was cool to be able to see him again. Hopefully I have more tape of him!

I just sat for an hour watching a videotape that my late Uncle Donny had recorded when he took my aunt and my cousins on a vacation to Pennsylvania. I was watching it because I was transferring it to the computer.

For some reason the picture I transferred is all black. (huh?!?) I've got audio, but no video. Weird thing is, the Preview screen I had up while transferring the tape had picture. I dont get it. I guess I have to fiddle with it for a bit.

If I manage to get it successfully transferred, I'm going to put it on a dvd and give it to my aunt. Not sure she'll want to watch it, it's got both of her parents on it (they've both passed away) and it has my uncle's voice on it. If she doesnt watch it right away, at least I've preserved the video. My uncle would have thought this was so cool. He passed away just before DVD technology became popular. He would have loved this stuff...I think he was more into gadgets and technology than me or my dad are.

If this doesnt work with my computer, I might attempt to record the video onto my Tivo and transfer it to DVD with the Tivo's built in dvd burner. (again, my uncle would have loved this stuff)

Yoric needs modeling lessons...

I made another hat...the picture kind of sucks, but you can at least get an idea of what it looks like. It's the same pattern that I used for the other hat. I didnt put any embellishments on it. I started to, but it looked stupid, so I just decided to leave the hat plain.

This hat is also going to my cousin's daughter.

Alas...poor Yoric doesnt make a good model, does he?

After about two and a half months of just sitting around, crocheting and then frogging everything I make, I've actually managed to finish something. I've been in such a crochet slump, and my eye being all wonky hasnt helped me much. At last I've finished something.

You'll have to forgive my model, Yoric, he wasnt really thrilled at having to do a photoshoot tonight.

I got the pattern for the hat at this site http://webpages.charter.net/basheera/rosehat.html

I didnt like the flower on the original pattern, so I came up with my own. I also changed the size of the hook. (I used an H) because my wonky eye didnt like the smaller hook.

Maybe now that I've actually finished something, I'll be able to decide on an afghan pattern now. It's been a while since I made an afghan.

I'll be giving the red hat to my cousin's daughter. My aunt Jan asked me to make some hats for her grandaughter (she likes to play dress up and LOVES hats) I'll probably make up a couple more for her.

edited to add: I tried to resize the pictures in Photobucket...they're showing up resized there, but in my blog, they're ginormous. Either my browser's cache is not refreshing, or the Blogger Gremlins are screwing around with things...

Now I've done it...

I guess I can consider myself a crocheter AND a knitter now.

Since I hurt my eye in late august (right after I learned to knit) I hadnt really wanted to pick up any crochet hooks or knitting needles. About a week or two ago, my eye had finally improved (or I got used to it) to the point where I could crochet comfortably. I bought some red yarn to make a new afghan, and then couldnt decide what to crochet. I guess even after having a near two month vacation from crocheting, I was still in a crochet slump. So over the weekend, bored as heck, I picked up the knitting needles and one of my larger skeins of scrap yarn. I dont like doing a regular cast on, so I chained 40 stitches on my afghan hook, did the Tunisian crochet cast-on, and then transferred that to my knitting needles and started to knit from there.

So far I've been knitting for 5 days straight. I even knitted in public yesterday when I took my dad to the eye doctor! (first time I've ever knitted in public)

It's kind of weird. I've been carrying around my first real knitting project everywhere I go. It's a scarf, being done in a green yarn (Red Heart, Medium Thyme...I think). I'm a little less then half finished with it. (started saturday evening)

I apparently knit just a teeny bit slower than I crochet (which is fairly quickly!)

So far I really am only doing one stitch (as far as I know) and I'm not doing anything terribly exciting. It is kind of neat to be able to do another yarn craft.

I have been crocheting some too. I started a rectangle granny afghan...with the red yarn I bought last week. It's probably going to end up being a xmas afghan. I have some nice green yarn that looks good with it.

Some moron with a can of spray paint has tagged a trailer that is in the field behind my house. The field is owned by the construction company that built our house. They're not planning on builing on it anytime soon, but they've been keeping that trailer back there. I cant see the trailer from my house, but when you leave our neighborhood, it's very obvious. This is the second time time the trailer has been tagged. It's ugly, and I cant quite tell what it says. Hopefully it wont sit there for 5 months before they paint over it like the last time.