Eternal Sunshine of the Crochet Blanket January 21, 2008

I feel like I’ve been working on this afghan for forever! 

Actually, I began the project back in September ‘06.  I stopped that December when it got large enough to cover my lap and the weather was no longer as cool.  I used a long crochet needle and an afghan stitch to do the main body.  Since it would cover my lap it was uncomfortable to work in this PR heat.  I folded it away into a box and didn’t touch it again until the weather cooled down this last December.  It’s approximately 120 stitches x 180 stitches.  I kept going until it FELT right.  I used a multi colored baby yarn because it was so soft and the yellow, white and pink would blend so beautifully. 

It took some serious consideration to select the outer edging color.  I selected an off white.  To do the edging, I did half stitching for 4 lines, a straight stick stitch, 2 half stitch, a straight stitch and 4 more half stitch lines.  I think it came out very elegantly.  My mother was atempting to teach me the stitches for the edging as I went along.  It wasn’t easy because she’s left handed and I’m right handed.  When we crochet, we do it backwards to one another.  But, luckily, I understood the gist of the stitches and was able to do it.  I was particularly proud of my corners.

As a bit of embellishment on the outer lines, I did a scallop line with the offwhite by making 6 straight stitches in one one stitch and then counting them off for every 4 stitches along the line, more or less.  Then, since I was all out of offwhite and still felt like it needed a little more, I’m adding a final line in what is left of the baby yarn.  It’s been very slow in working.  I’m doing an alternate scallop edging to the first, with 3 chain in the middle of the 6 stitching on the scallop and on the tops of the scallops in between.  I know I’m probably not explaining it right, but if anyone wants to know how to do it, I know I could explain it more in detail.  I just don’t want to bore anyone reading this with too much technical stuff.

I’m still not done.  I’m barely through that final line along the first side of the throw.  It’s going to be a long way in working.  It uses a lot of thread and the baby yarn is very flimsy so it’s difficult to have it hold with so many chains and stitches.  But, it’s getting just the right look that I wanted.  I’m hoping to be able to gift this to my sister in law, who is also one of my best friends in the whole world.  When I finish with all the crochet part, I’m going to cross stitch onto the center her name and perhaps a cute little animal onto it to sort of match the ones that my brothers and I have.  We’ll see how that goes.  Hopefully it won’t take me another year to decide to pick it up and complete it!

Following in meme footsteps January 21, 2008

 

SO!  I jacked this meme from The Tempered Woman who totally took it from Quirky Cupcake.  And since at The Bombshell Within we like to get everyone knowing WAY more about me than they would like, I’m going to get to answering the questions.

What were you doing 10 years ago? Alright… lesse…. 10 years ago I was 11 going to turn 12 in 2 months time.  So that would put me in 7th grade.  At this time I had already spent a semester in Puerto Rico and hating every minute of it.  I knew that if I didn’t do something about it, I was going to crack and lose myself.  So I, along with the help of my Math teacher Miss Martinez, was trying to convince all my other teachers that I needed to be changed out of the bad group (orignally placed there because I was from New York and didn’t know Spanish, so they didn’t have much hope for me) to the brainy group.  Why go through that trouble?  Well, that group got treated differently and were on a ‘higher’ level.  I’d learned Spanish in 2 months and my math skills (the real standard they used to separate the kiddies) was way beyond those of even the smart kids.  Hence, I pushed and pleaded and just about bullied my way into being changed homerooms.  And it was a good thing I did because the public school system keeps the smart kids together.  A way of protecting them from all the bad eggs.  So I was with most of these kids until high school.  It was because of this crucial academic move that I was able to take advanced placement tests for College and become early admissions down the road. 

What were you doing 1 year ago?  One year ago…. I was arguing with my then long distance boyfriend.  He totally sucked with the holidays.  I didn’t get a gift and he didn’t even call to say happy new years… not even considering that I was an hour ahead of him and therefore he had 2 opportunities to send me his love.  By this point there was this little crossdressing twit from a chatroom he and I both frequented who proceeded to tell me all sorts of dirty things he had done with my boyfriend.  Stupid me believed my bf.  Damn… I’m too loyal for my own good.  Besides that, I was basically in the same place I am now with my college career.  Still hoping and wishing that this will FINALLY be my last one and that this will be all over with soon.

Five snacks you enjoy:

1. A little can of octopus with crackers, seriously!  I love that stuff! 
2. Oreo cookies, preferably not in any close proximation of consumption with #1.  Although, who am I kidding?!?!?!  Any cookie will do.
3. Fruit, I really do love pears and green apples!  I clean my mother out whenever I go home.
4. Saltines.  I dunno why.  I can’t have any around or I’ll snack away on them and there won’t be any left.  But!  They are so gosh dern good with munster cheese.
5. Almonds.  I just seriously <3 these things.

Five songs you know all the lyrics to:

1. “Fuck Her Gently” by Tenacious D.  The good and dirty version, not the crap they played on the radio.  Darn them and their editing ways!!
2. “Elephant Song Medley” from Moulin Rouge.  Too many car trips around the island has led me to know all the songs from this soundtrack actually.  To make it worse, between my best friend and I, we can divide us all the songs respectively between his being Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman.
3. “You are my Sunshine” because I used to sing this to my little brother a lot when  he was smaller… I gave him a little windup pillow from when I was a baby.  We’d turn it on and sing it together.  He’s a decade younger than me.  It was sweet and cute.
4. “This never happened to me before” by Paul McCartney.  I really and totally love this song since the first time I heard it in the movie “The LakeHouse”.  I now know the precise timing in the movie when the song plays… in the movie itself and during credits.
5. “A Rose is a Rose” by Poe.  This song is just fun and funny…… My older brother really got me into this artist.  She’s gorgeous and  I know most of her songs.  Or at least I think I do.  I’m one of those who has the song on and can spout it all off no problem.  But on my own it takes a pause or so to get to belting them out.

Five things you would do if you were a millionaire:

1. Here’s where I get to be a beauty pageant contestant and say ‘World Peace’ right?
2. Help out in the effort to stop global warming.
3. buy all the pretty round toe pumps, corsets and socks that my heart can love
4. make the house of my dreams with the absolute perfect kitchen (which looks an awful like Martha’s house on Turkey Hill)
5. Travel around the world whenever the whim hits me to learn a new language.

Five bad habits:

1. Skipping class (I REALLY have to get better on this one!)
2. Checking my blog stats compulsively
3. Sleeping though my alarm clock
4. Always using the second bite of food to try and decipher what’s in it if I wasn’t the one to make it.
5. Not trusting anyone in my household to do any of the baking right (I have been very rightfully labeled as the cookie nazi)

Five things you like doing:

1. Reading Romance novels; I won’t defend my choices to you!  I love them and I have read hundreds of them and perhaps may even have written several hundred pages of one.
2. Chatting on IRC; that’s how I met tartlet!  So yay!
3. Hitting the mall; I go way more than I should but since I don’t drink or party, there’s NOTHING else for me to do around here!
4. Baking; seriously, who doesn’t?!
5. Being creative and learning new hobbies; currently I’m learning to sew, finishing crocheting a blanket/throw, I need to cross stitch some stuff onto said blanket/throw

Five things you would never wear again:

1. That terrible crochet shrug that my aunt bought me from Brazil.  I had to wear it once to please her but royal purple is SO not my color.
2. That awful peach/pink blouse my mother gave to me because it fit me even though it was originally given to her from her own mother.  Ick… to many sparkles, I shudder.
3. Halloween outfits from 2003; where I was a pink pixie in a see through babydoll nightie just barely clearing the bottom of my rump.. it didn’t SEEM transparent until I hit the bars under black lighting and suddently the white undies I were wearing popped right out and ALL you could read was the word ‘HOTTIE’ sprawled across my bottom. 
4. Halloween outfit from 2004; where I was a bunny.  That year it was a white one and I had to wear all sorts of waist cinchers and such just to fit into it (boy!  I learned the hard way to try things on before buying) and 7 inch heels… bright pink that laced up my leg to the thigh in ribbon.. and the fronts looked like ballet shoes… on VERY high platforms
5. My green prom dress.  I dunno… It’s a glorious color but I just didn’t like the shape.

[I still have semi pics of the bunny outfit and the green prom dress which I will only share by popular demand.]

Five favorite toys:

1. Jamie, my laptop
2. Olly, my camera
3. Jolly Rancher, my ipod nano v2
4. Fatty, oh!  wouldn’t you like to know!
5. my sewing machine, which I have just realized has not been named! 

What is one totally embarassing but true fact about yourself that most people don’t know about you?  Shoot!  I think I already covered this one with my whole section on songs I know the lyrics too! 

You’ve been tagged!  Now you must fill this out on your respective page thingy that you fill with all your stream of conscious ramblings… that is, if you haven’t already.