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The Snowflakes in July CAL is over and I for one had a blast. I got to talk about one of my favorite projects, snowflakes, with a lot of different people and we had some wonderful conversations. I loved to see the pictures of snowflakes that everyone was able to make, that has to be my favorite part of all. And they're still coming in! Don't forget, Snowflake Mondays are still going strong, so if you missed out on the CAL the calendar stays the same as far as snowflakes are concerned. Mondays are for snowflakes!

These are the flakes that I made:





There are individual photos as well in my Gallery, following the two photos I've linked here.

In doily news, Vera made this gorgeous doily, Hazelnut, from Coffee n' Creme Doilies. I instantly fell in love with it and rushed off to order the book before I looked at anything else. My copy arrived today (yay!) and I think I will be starting French Vanilla in the next day or so. I'd been planning on doing something oval for our dining room table but this one is speaking to me. I don't know if I can resist and stick to my oval plans. (If you read through the entry in Vera's blog that I linked, you can see the snowflakes that Vera made for the CAL.)

And finally, it's nearly moving day. Other than a final post at this URL stating that this blog has moved, this is the last post here at http://yarngirl.blogspot.com. All future posts will be at http://withahook.com so please change your bookmarks. I'll be switching the Bloglines subscription stuff so I think that'll technically stay the same if you read my blog that way (haven't really looked yet but think it's possible). I've moved some posts over to the new site but never could get the hang of importing my old posts from Blogger and so here they (apparently) must stay. Such is life. I'll still be migrating things over for some time to come, but I like the new template and formatting much better and am happy with how the blog works. I especially LOVE having all my stuff on the same domain/site.

Denise?

Denise Augostine's site is gone again. *sigh* Please say it ain't so!

I'm thankful I printed out the patterns I loved, but I hope she comes back soon.


The snowflakes continue, four have been done so far. Not nearly as many as I thought I would have done by now, but I did do a couple larger than usual ones too. There is a lot of great snowflake conversation going on over at Crochetville related to this CAL. I'm having fun!

Pineapple Passion

The doily has arrived in California!




Closeup of center section

This is Pineapple Passion, from the Absolutely Gorgeous Doilies book from Leisure Arts, featuring beautiful patterns by Patricia Kristoffersen. My favorite new stitch? The split double treble crochet stitch. Not nearly as hard to do as to say, but it did have me sweating for a little while. The doily is 14" in diameter, much bigger than the listed 12½" on the pattern. Go figure. Once I couldn't get even close to gauge, now I'm somehow managing to shoot past it! Bigger than planned for is better than way too big and definitely better than too small any day. I used DMC Traditions in 'Neutral' again, I think I have five or six balls of this now as it seems to be the doily color of choice these days. That being said, next week after Snowflakes in July is over I will finish a blue doily. Whatever was I thinking? ;o)

(In a perfect world my camera could have humored me and taken a better picture before I mailed off the doily. Or better yet, alarms and whistles should have warned me so I could have taken a few more before racing off to the post office. Lesson learned, if it takes an extra day to get it in the mail, so be it.)

Doilies... er... SNOWFLAKES IN JULY!!!

I'll have you know I only have 2½ rounds to go on the Summer Splendor doily before it's finished. So close! It's for my mother, she has no idea it's coming and I have no deadline. Which, you know, is great because some nitwit I declared this week the Snowflakes in July week. My idea was that we'd all work on snowflakes together, all week long, every single day nothing but snowflakes. 39 people including myself stepped up and said this was a brilliant plan and are eagerly stitching at snowflakes at this very moment.

Hunh.

I'd really like to finish this doily though.

So on I go to snowflakes!! Unfortunately this morning I was suffering the affects of a minor stomach bug and could do little more but move Show-And-Tell posts from one section to another at Crochetville and/or stare blankly at the television. We'll most likely watch a movie later this evening and then I'll let my hook fly and whip up a flake to get the ball rolling here in Jasper.

I finally got my Herrschners order today, can you believe it? I'd ordered the Blue Ribbon Crochet book along with a snowflake doily pattern, a needle Chibi and some thread hook cushions. I linked Amazon though because I see the book is much cheaper there than at Herrschners. Somebody might as well save a buck and get it there faster than I did. I wanted it because of the doily pattern featured on the cover, I thought that was just beautiful. There are some equally impressive doilies inside, along with some gorgeous afghans and clothing. A nice book to add to any collection in my opinion.

Doilies in the Family

Even though I tend to be the one sending doilies to various family members across the country, yesterday we received two very precious doilies in the mail from Rick's sister.





They both were made in or prior to the 1920's by their grandmother. They have held up pretty well in the 75+ years since their creation, they need some careful cleaning and then we intend to frame them. The first is 14x10 inches in size and the second 18x11½ inches. I had a heck of a time taking pictures of them, my camera will not show the stitches clearly. The first doily looks like size 20 thread, while the second is possibly size 40 or above. I'd need to compare it in order to know for sure and size 40 is something I just don't have. VERY tiny stitches.

I did finish the Pineapple Passion doily yesterday, which by coincidence is going to Rick's sister. I won't post the photo until she receives it, I want her to be surprised and I've given her the links to my blog and Gallery. The camera also didn't do a very good job taking pictures of the doily - sigh. It's already on the way to California I can't do a thing about new pictures now. It may arrive tomorrow but I suspect Monday is more likely.

2 - 2, yep TWO

Lately everything seems to come in twos around here.

• Two websites (that I'm currently working on building)


• Two blogs (1+1=2)


• Two doilies (the gift that keeps on giving)


• Two cups of coffee (nothing wrong with that)


• Two pints of Mint Chip Häagen Dazs (but not eaten at once, that would be bad)


• Two inches of rain (from an incredible thunderstorm yesterday evening)


• Two years old tomorrow (Maisie, the beagle)


• Two times today I've had to restart my computer (it likes to crash, what can I say?)


• Two times today I've had to set the time on the clocks (the power keeps going out because of lots of storms)

I'm sure there are even more twos if I take the time to think about it.

I was certain last night I was going to have finished a doily today. Since I stated that in two emails (another two!) and a conversation with Rick, of course I hardly had time to touch it at all. Maybe tomorrow. We'll be watching a movie in just a few minutes so I'll get two hours (!!) of quality stitching time in then for sure.

Has anyone else grown older while waiting for an order to come from Herrschners? The order I placed on the 11th still hasn't arrived though the tracking shows it has been in the "Jasper area" for two (cut it out!) days now. What's up with that?

63 and done!

It's done, finished, complete! I can hardly believe it myself. For a whole year I didn't touch it other than to move the stack of squares from one spot to another. For a while there I was quite certain I'd never finish it and maybe should just stitch it together for a small lapghan.



The pattern, of course, is from Leisure Arts, 63 Easy-to-Crochet Pattern Stitches Combine to Make a Heirloom Afghan, #LA555. I used Red Heart Super Saver Rose Pink and Aran, and TLC Expressions Light Thyme yarns for this afghan. I started in on April 13, 2004 and finished it today. I'm certain I didn't think it would take well over a year to completion when I stitched up the first square.

A special thank you goes to Donna for starting the 63 Squares CAL in the first place, I never would have made this afghan if she hadn't made the decision to host the CAL. Another special thank you goes to Holly for starting the UFO or Frog CAL at Crochetville, it bascially kicked me in the butt and made me pick it back up again. I quite possibly would never have finished it if she hadn't made that post. Thank you too, all of you who have left a comment in the last couple of weeks cheering me on. You guys really kept me going, and I needed it!