To Knit or Not to Knit - that is the question.

I think the answer is leaning more and more towards - NOT!

I don't like to perceive myself as a quitter, so after my first attempts at knitting were less than satisfying, I decide to give it another try. I bought another set of circular needles and a package of double points. I bought 2 baby hat patterns (bought them - not free from the internet - but an actual financial investment!) I read through the patterns and convinced myself that I could do it - and, of course, I can.

One problem. So far, I HATE it. With crochet I get immediate (or almost immediate) gratification. A baby hat is small! I can crochet a baby hat in no time. I can crochet several adult sized hats in a day. A crocheted baby sweater can be finished in a few evenings. Knitting is not so fast.

I spent several evenings and have a pathetic little uneven hat brim to show for it. I'm bored!!!

Now I'm not an easy quitter, and I'm very very cheap - so quitting after I've made a financial investment would be a horrible defeat, but I'm finding it very difficult to find the motivation to continue trying.

If any of you knitters have any advice, I'm all ears. Otherwise it might be time to admit that this Worm was meant to stick to the hook.

For Rory

This Barbie blanket is for the daughter of an on-line friend who is in the army and on her way to Iraq.

I make gifts all the time for the newborn babies of deployed Marines and Soldiers. I've never met this little girl - or her mom for that matter - but they're not strangers. I remember when this little girl was born. I've enjoyed hearing stories about her.

So while her mom is serving abroad, I hope she'll enjoy this blanket. I hope that when she snuggles up with it, it will feel like a hug from her mom.

The fleece blanket is edged with Soft Pink and Orchid Caron Simply Soft. I trimmed the blanket with a a round of SC, then used the pattern from the Bernat's Sweet Baby Blanket to give it a pretty ruffled-shell edging.

Long Time no Blog

Seems like a while since I've "blogged". I'm not sure if that means that there is nothing to blog about or too much going on to blog - or maybe some odd combination of the two.

Nothing exciting to report - things have been a bit crazy. I was sick last week. Missed two days of work and then had lingering "feel lousy". I'm better now, but I seem to be unable to find a remedy for the chronic headache that I've been dealing with for what feels like weeks - it's making me feel a bit depressed - a bit sick and tired of feeling sick and tired.

Life is good though. My husband loves me unconditionally and keeps me grounded. My friends have been very supportive. A dear friend who was dealing with a serious medical scare got some great news. My wonderful nephew just turned 9 years old.

I'm working on crocheting a blanket to send to the daughter of a friend who is serving in Iraq. I haven't crocheted much this week, so it's taking a bit longer than I might have planned, but I should get that out this week. Yesterday I purchased some needles and a cute pattern for knit baby hats. When I finish this blanket, I'm going to give knitting another try. We'll see how that goes.

While life has given me things to feel sad, scared, or angry about, it more often gives me things to laugh about - and laughter, they say, is the best medicine.

Basket Weave Edging

I had so much fun making my last basket weave blanket, that I decided to try and make a basket weave edging with my Edgerydoo.

This was much faster to complete than a full basket weave blanket. I made it on another road-trip. It was a fast way to create the basket weave pattern around a soft fleece blanket.

The colors on this one are a bit much, but that bright green fleece sort of begs for something dramatic.

I'll need to make a matching hat, and then the set will be sent to Marine Corps Kids.