Kria 2 finished!

 

I finished my second Kria shawl just a few minutes ago. There's a YouTube tutorial for this shawl, which may be helpful to some.

I'll probably wait until the weekend to block it. This one is for our school's annual Mean Green Goes Pink night, which is a fundraiser for the Beverly K. Roberts Foundation. This is a local charity that benefits local cancer patients.

I'm thinking of putting it in a basket with a cozy mystery and a selection of hot chocolate, something I could go for!

Now I have to decide which yarn I want to work with next!

Progress

 

I spent a good portion of the afternoon crocheting, and I made pretty good progress. I'm into the lighter pink portion of the yarn. The pink will fade into white and then grey. This Kria shawl is working up so quickly!

Kria #2

 

I couldn't help myself! I had a cake of YarnArt Flowers Alpaca by my chair, and it was calling to me. What's a girl to do? I picked up my crochet hook and started another Kria shawl. I did take it out after a few rows. The yarn calls for a 3.5mm hook. The fabric seemed too stiff to me, so I started over with a 4.0mm hook. 

This is a sport weight yarn, so it's working up very quickly. I wonder how quickly I'll finish this one?

It took a while...

 

Apparently, I didn't take note of when I started crocheting my Kria shawl. I think it took me about a month to make, but with all the activity around here, it may have been longer. This is a great pick up and put down project. It can be as small or as large as you like. I used one ball of Scheepjes Whirl Blueberry Bambam. Once the pattern is set up, it's a simple two row repeat.

On to finishing another project!

A little bit of everything

Today was the perfect day to do a little bit of everything. The temperature was in the upper 70s with low humidity. So, I worked in the yard a little, did some laundry, and finished a little housework. I even managed to drive to Carol's house with some of the things she had brought over for the wedding.

Mom and I watch about an hour of news each morning, and I've taken to crocheting during that hour. I know it's hard to tell from the picture, but more of the blue in the yarn is finally showing. Blue makes me so happy!

It's been a while since I've worked on my Star of Bethlehem doily. I'm nearly finished with this round!

This afternoon I worked on my Hitchhiker shawl and finished another pattern repeat. All in all, I had a very productive day!

Getting back to normal

We're starting to get back into a normal routine after the wedding. I took Carol's dress to the dry cleaners today. Other than that, we stayed around the house and worked on small tasks.

I did take a little time for crafting. My Kria shawl is coming along nicely. Others who are working on it have finished very quickly. Mine is taking an awfully long time!

I also worked on my Hitchhiker shawl. I have 32 of 41 pattern repeats finished. I love the color!

Wedding pics

Today, Mom and I did a little cleaning in the house, and a tiny bit of knitting. Mostly, we relaxed. I don't have a lot of wedding pics yet, but I'm happy to share what I have. 

My husband Dave performed the ceremony. Jon's sons and daughters were the attendants.

Typical Carol and Jon, it was a fun wedding.

They were obviously having a wonderful time!

My beautiful daughter and granddaughter Eva had huge grins all night long!

We lived in a trailer for twelve years until we built our house. The cement pad that was under the trailer served as the dance floor and karaoke venue. Someone managed to get a picture of my four daughters and me taking our turn. We sang "Rum and Coca Cola" as performed by the Andrews sisters. The girls sounded wonderful! I did not! What mattered was that we had fun.

I went to bed around midnight. Dave stayed up until 1:30. The last of the party-goers, including the bride and groom left by 3. It's a good thing we live in the country!

Update: here are a few more pics posted by friends.

This is the entrance to the garden in the front yard.

Carol couldn't help peeking over the railing to see who was in the house.

I love this picture! They couldn't wait to start dancing!

It's been a while

I know it's been a long time since I last posted. It turns out that having a wedding in your back yard can be a lot of unexpected work!

Carol and Jon's wedding was beautiful! It was a hot, muggy day, but no one seemed to mind. Friends and relatives chipped in to make the day go smoothly. I stayed up way past my bedtime, and the party went on without me. There were yard games, a fire pit with a s'mores station, dancing, karaoke, and Dave even set up a cooling station for guests who were feeling the heat. 

We started cleanup at about 8 this morning, and it's a good thing we did.

It started raining around 11, with an absolute downpour that lasted for what seemed like hours.

We are so thankful that the rain came today and not yesterday. It seems we've had our fair share of rain lately, and it was one thing that caused Carol some stress. A little over a week ago, she came over to help in the yard. Work was put on hold because of rain, so Carol decided to set up her tv for karaoke. The rain kept interfering with the Internet signal, so she couldn't get updates to install. She decided enough was enough and decided to go home.

When she went outside, she called to us that there was a rainbow. We all love rainbows, and get very excited to see them. Joanne and her kids, and Dave and I ran out in the light rain to see the rainbow. By the time we made it to Carol's car, it was a double rainbow... a full double rainbow! Carol's spirits were lifted! About five minutes after she left, she called to tell me that when she started her car the perfect song came on... "I can see clearly now, the rain is gone. I can see all obstacles in my way. Gone are the dark clouds that had me down. It's gonna be a bright, bright sunshiny day!" Carol and I knew that her wedding was going to be perfect!