It's Fugly and it's Finished!

I HAVE FINISHED MY FUGLY BLANKET AND I LOVE IT!

This took me four months to hook up and it was a real learning experience. It was really fun to just grab a ball out of my scrap bin and add it onto the growing blanket. I methodically weighed each scrap and ball on my handy scale and recorded that on note cards to enter onto my project page on Ravelry. My yardage ended up being 2620.1 yards although that is a bit of a guestimate since most of my scraps did not have ball bands, but I think most cotton yarns have similar weights and yardage per gram - so I am pretty comfy with my guestimate. (You can read the list with all the weights and stuff on my project page on Ravelry.)

Sometimes I would try and place colors next to each other - and sometimes I would "need to work with pink" and would just add pink yarn where ever it landed. I started out thinking I would just use up my scrap bin, but I ended up running out pretty quick, so I found myself crocheting wash cloths on my lunch hour and then going home that night and hooking the rest of the ball onto the blanket!

Emma enjoyed me placing a blanket out on the grass for her and she had some nice rolling around on it. Any time I lay out a knitting/crochet project she has to come over and lay down on it. It's funny. I appreciate her being so kind to my knitwear though. She only ran off with one hat and no damage was done. And she's just the cutest little model!

I did a test run for possible future picnic's and the size is really good. I can sit here and have a nosh with Emma no problem. I think my hubby could even squeeze in! Nice! :)

Here's a shot of the denim blue border in single crochet. I think I did 6 rounds but it might just be five. I have a hard time counting rows still and I didn't track this as I went. I just added rows until it told me it was done. The corners have three single crochet into the corner stitch for the turns. I think a darker border would probably look better (in hindsight) but this color is more pet hair forgiving - so I call it a win.

There is also a little bit of pucker from my border - but not enough to really bug me. I suspect going from Extended Single Crochet to Single Crochet may have been part of the problem here - but I like the slightly denser fabric around the edge of the blanket.

I did crochet blocks of color together in areas which left ridges all over the back. I decided they bothered me too much and went back and sewed them all down. Not very pretty - but like I said. LEARNING EXPERIENCE. Also - It's called a fugly blanket - so yeah. No pressure to look pretty.

The size is perfect. I can wrap it around my shoulders and it just reaches my feet. Since it's all scrap cotton I can wash and dry the crap out of it. If I stain it I can bleach it. And it sleeps like a dream. I finished sewing in my last stray end last night and within 30 minutes after I did that I was sound asleep under it in bed. Just love it.

Fugly Update

I thought I would update on my Fugly blanket this week. I spent a couple hours last night weaving in the ends and tacking down the fugly seams I created when I crocheted chunks together. Today I pulled my blanket our and measured it and took a few pictures. It's currently 56 inches by 52 inches (142 cm x 132cm). I feel like if I make it too much larger it will hit "blanket" or "afghan" level rather than throw. I wonder if there is a real division in the those or if that is just my feelings? Anyway - I don't want a HUGE blanket. I want a mini blanket for throwing over my shoulders in bed at night or wearing on my lap while I knit. My internal voice told me I was there.

My next challenge is picking out the color I want to edge it in. I THINK I have it figured out now, but honestly I have changed my mind three times this morning already, so.... Yeah.

My only requirement is that it be in my stash. I have a whole bin of cotton - so that's really not an issue I don't think. This whole blanket is an experiment and since I have declared it FUGLY from day one there really is nothing I can do to it to make it worse. That really takes the pressure off.

In other news, my weekly weight in was pretty successful considering how much I consumed over the 4th of July holiday! I gained about half a pound this week and I was pretty happy with that since I was sure it would be much worse.

Another blessing is our heat wave finally broke. We hit 102F (38.88C) yesterday and it was over a week of temperatures like that. Last night we had storms roll in and today we are a bit cooler - so yay for that!

Is anyone doing the Stephen West KAL that starts next Friday? Lord help me - I signed up for it! I don't work with small needles  - like ever - and I am thinking if I am lucky I will be knitting this up on a size 4, but the yarn states size 1-3 needles so I may end up smaller than I think. Uffda. What have I gotten myself into?!?! My other concern is that this KAL will only be halfway over when the Olympic Games starts and I have a project geared up for that as well! So.... Yeah. We will have to see how this goes!

KAL progress, Fugly Blanket update

So I started a KAL yesterday and I am loving it so far. It's a very basic shawl pattern that will end with an edging I have never attempted before and I am a little nervous about. Vickie Howell is leading us in her usual wonderful fashion though, so I am fairly confident I will get er done. I didn't get lots of time to work on it on Day 1, but here is my first days work.

The flash on my camera bleached the color out of the yarn, but you can see it's taking shape. Love working with this yarn and love the color so much! I took it with me to work today and knit on my lunch hour. Would have loved to just knit the day away.

And here is my Fugly Blanket. I am almost out of scraps and will soon have to dig into my stash of cotton yarn and start working whole skeins. Maybe I will make myself take only balls with labels torn off so I can have a really clean stash bin. I have this laying across my Queen sized bed and it covers most of the width of the bed and about two fifths the length. Not sure if I am going for a square or a rectangle. Guess I will know when I get there.

Because I am working on this KAL shawl I will have to put my crochet hook down for the next week until the KAL if finished. It saddens me but conversely I think my wrists can use the break.

Vacation! WOOT WOOT!

Emma and Izzi relax on their pet bed.

I typically take three weeks off a year. The first week in April for my Anniversary, a week in August for my husbands Birthday, and a week in November for my birthday. Which means I AM ON VACATION! Heck yeah! Sadly my hubby cannot join me on vacation - since he does not get paid time off in his job, but that doesn't mean we aren't going to have some fun this week.

I injured my wrist a bit from all the work I was doing on my "Fugly Blanket" (Apparently I cannot crochet for hours a day every day for weeks on end and not have my wrist protest! Lesson learned!) So I have not worked on any knitting or crochet for a few days now. It was really depressing as I really wanted to crank out more yards of scrap on my blanket! But I have been keeping myself busy enough that I haven't had time to be too sad.

Saturday after weight-in and work outs, we drove down to an outlet mall in Southern Minnesota and did a little shopping. I had a sales lady be so aggressive with me at one of the stores that I put my credit card back in my purse and walked away from my shirt (a shirt that I had taken the time to try on and make sure I really wanted) and left the store without purchasing it. I don't know why people have to be SO aggressive with the sales promotions, suggestive selling, etc.... It was insane.

The rest of our shopping there was pretty uneventful. We talked to a woman in one shop about knitting which was fun. And I purchased a little summer dress and a really cute vest at a store that I thought was way to young for me to shop at until I shopped at it. (Apparently dropping out of plus sized opens a lot of shopping doors!) And then we stopped at Bath & Bodyworks and got some shower gel and hand soap.

We also ran to Cabella's to look at their shoe selection for men. No purchases there. I had a few choice words to say about the Mini-donuts being sold at the entrance of the shop though. The smell was INSANE and I WANTED them. But I held strong and did not cave in. Go me! Go will power! I haven't talked a whole lot about my weight loss in here lately - but I am on the cusp of a 50 pound loss. I have been slowly slowly losing this weight and I feel like I really need to step it up. I am still overweight and still have too much weight on my joints. And the stronger and healthier I get the more I want to do and the better I feel - physically and mentally. The extra weight I carried for so long was really being carried in my heart and soul as well as my body. So I am feeling the weight coming off in every sense of the word!

To that end we went for a bike ride yesterday. I have a really nice bike that my hubby purchased for me when I graduated college. I have barely ridden it in the years I have owned it and have been a little fearful of it in honesty. I road bike A LOT in the first 20 years of my life. I would bike out to see my boyfriend when I was a teenager and he lived 15 miles away and over a lot of country roads. I didn't get my license to drive until I was 18, so I had to bike to get around. Anyway, yesterday we took out bikes out to a really nice bike trail in Cannon Falls, MN. It is a railroad track that they paved and it's a really smooth and easy ride, and it was a wonderful reintroduction into riding my bike. It was so easy in fact, that we put on 20 MILES! We road 10 miles down to the station in Welch, and then road into town and stopped at the ice cream shop and we split a Strawberry Smoothie. Which tasted like heaven! We sat out on the steps and watched the world go by while we took turns eating the smoothie. It was wonderful. Then back on the bikes and 10 miles back to Canon Falls where we parked our car. It was just the most perfect day. :)

We were both pretty quiet on the ride back home as we were both pretty tired. Today I am feeling it. My butt hurts and I feel a little wind and sun burn (because of course we never thought of sun screen!) and all my muscles have that lovely ache in them that speaks toward some really good use.

And now it's Monday morning and I am NOT at work and life is so very very good! YAY VACATION!

Lazy Girl

I have lots of stuff I need to get done lately. I have lists and lists of projects to get done. So much so that I found myself a little overwhelmed by it and found myself crawling into bed this Sunday and having a lazy day while I hid from all responsibility. I Generally try to be a grown up and just get stuff done - but every once in awhile a day off from everything is in order!

My dog spent a lot of time outside with my hubby while he worked on projects, and I propped myself up with pillows and worked on my Fugly Blanket. My cat Izzi curled up in the blanket at the end of the bed and spent most of the day just hanging out with me.  This is unusual since she is more my Husbands cat - but I enjoyed her company!

I had to poke her head a little to get her to stretch and say hi. She curled right back up and went back to sleep. I even dozed a little. With crochet in hand my head bobbed and the next thing I knew it was 10 minutes later. I felt like a really old woman who nodded off after tea! (But in a good way!)

Another shot a couple hours later. Yup - I spent all day in bed! It was awesome. You can see the yellow and white I was working on earlier at the bottom of the blanket. I have moved on to Hot Pink!

And you can see Netflix in the background. I am watching Stephen Fry in America. Really interesting! Although (of course) I wanted him to like Wisconsin and Minnesota more. About Wisconsin (The state I was born in and lived in for 30 years) he complained that Americans eat terrible cheese and that he couldn't believe that the water bottle he left in his car over night froze solid! (This was really funny to me.) And as for MN, he did travel on a road near where I live and it was nice to see familiar landmarks, but he pretty much talked about our Hmong community and then went ice fishing with a rich guy. (Most Minnesotans do not bring a fish camera with to see the fish in the water bite on their line.) I was laughing about this because the time I went ice fishing (once mind you and it was in the 80's) we had no power auger and it was just standing out on a frozen lake freezing our nubs off. In the show they drive up to their spot on snow mobiles geared up in expensive winter gear. It was funny. So of course I felt like we weren't represented very well, but it was still interesting.

It was a really fun day and I needed the relaxing, but now I need to get back to my various lists and get some projects done! Back to Reality!

Fugly Blanket Progress Report

I have had a challenging week this week. Insomnia Monday. Leave work early Tuesday after throwing up my lunch. Yeah. So I have spent a bit of time lounging in bed and working on my Fugly Blanket. I find it amazing how easy it is to lay in bed and watch several episodes of Biggest Loser (I am watching Season 3 on Netflix) while hooking away on my Fugly. Bonus that it is now big enough that I can throw it over me for a little warmth while I hook. I love the weight of this blanket and it makes me think I will want to crochet more blankets in the future. I am realizing too that this blanket would have been a lot more attractive if I had just done stripes rather than this crazed patch work thing I got going on. **shrugs** C'est la vie!

I stretched it out on my dining room table this morning and took a few snap shots of it. Terrible light but I think it captures the eye searing color combinations pretty well.  I have a fondness for multi colored wash cloth yarn. Knitting a plain color I found really dull unless I was following a pattern or something. Still. Yawn. I prefer bold and loud. That does make anything I Frankenstein together out of the scraps a bit loud and obnoxious.

Still, I am really having fun throwing stuff at this and watching it grow. Rather like being fascinated by a fungus or mold I suspect. Yeah. It's like a giant mushroom you find growing under a tree in the yard and you just keep watching it grow in kind of horrified fascination - wondering how big that thing will get and if it's toxic or maybe a rare culinary wonder?