It's so hard to say goodbye

Last night my wonderful, fabulous, fantanstic Texas knitting friends threw me a going away party.  I figured we'd all get together and knit like always and I'd bring a cake, but I was surprised by many sweet gifts too.  It was wonderful!  Everyone had taken time to find beautiful yarns they knew I'd like, my friend Suna even found a list of patterns that would be perfect for the yarn she gave me (and she wore purple in my honor!!) Suzanne sewed me a beautiful project bag with various purple fabrics, Aggie sewed me a sock needle holder, Susan gave me flowers, Kim even hand spun me some beautiful purple and pink fibers.  Dawn laughed and said they had to coordinate because she had almost gotten me the same colorway, and she gave me a skein of yarnorama's color of the month.  I was so touched that so many people like me enough to not only come to a party in my honor but to spend the time to make me gifts or to pick out something perfect for me.  I have such wonderful friends and I am going to miss them so much!!  I will be coming back to visit (probably for a long weekend this winter when I'm freezing my ass off in snowy MI) and I hope we can all get together when I come down. 

Keep in touch, my friends!  I will miss you all!!!!

The granny squares are taking over!

I consider myself a knitter.  I've always said I'm not that good at crochet.  Well, I have recently discovered that you don't HAVE to be very good at it to make really cute things.  I picked up a copy of last month's Knit Simple and there were a few different granny square blankets in there.  I thought, hmmmm, that doesn't look too hard.  I decided to give it a try.  WOW.  That started a whole new granny square frenzy that I don't appear to be able to end.  These things are fun.  And addicting.  

As I mentioned in my last post, I gave up FB games for Lent and have been working on charity knitting instead.  I started with the granny square pattern, then I found a rectangle pattern on ravelry and gave that a try.  Last night at "Monday Night Fibers" (the name that someone came up with for our wonderful knitting/spinning group at Dawns) Dawn showed me how to make a circle blanket out of double crochet.  So easy that I finished it in one night!  I have a bunch of yarn from Dawn that I'm going to try to get thru by next Wednesday, which is the last knitting night I'll be able to attend before I leave :-(  It is also a going away party for me.  I have such sweet friends!!

In addition to all the preemie blankets, I'm also working on 2 afghans for myself, one out of worsted weight and one out of homespun.  The homespun one is made of 6 giant granny squares (I'm almost done with the 3rd one already) and the worsted one is one giant rectangle made from a few various yarns in teals and turquoises.  OMG nothing purple, can you believe it?!?  I'm shocked, myself!  LOL. 

I feel bad that I'm crocheting so much though.  Almost guilty.  I feel like I'm cheating on my knitting.  I can almost hear it, from the bottom of my UFO pile crying softly "she doesn't love me anymore".  I do, I do, I swear I do!  In fact, I found time to do 4 more rows on my lace stole today.  Yes, I know, 4 rows isn't much, but at least I'm trying!  I was hoping to get the stole done and blocked before we leave for MI so I can use it when we get there, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen.  I thought about bringing it in the car, but I have to look down to do the decreases (VDD I can't do without looking at it) and that makes me carsick.  SO, I think I will bring my unfinished U of M socks (perfect, considering the destination!) and my mini mochi socks.  I packed most of my sock yarn already but I think I have another set I can bring with me in case I manage to finish both those pairs.  Hey, stop laughing!  It could happen.  :-)  Anyway, worse comes to worse I'm sure I can find a neat LYS to stop at on the way! 

Here's pics of some of the preemie blankets.  Dawn was nice enough to email them to me since I forgot to take photos before I gave them to her.