what i've been working on lately

crochet capelet from this pattern

I feel kind of bad about my lack of blogging of substance lately, so I thought I'd do a bit of an update about what sort of crafty things I've been doing.  Most of it involves crochet.  I figured I'd be a little burnt out on it after making 365 granny squares.  Apparently not!

The capelet above looks so great in the pattern, but I have to wonder if I'll ever wear it.  The pattern calls for a J (6mm) hook, but my gauge swatch made it clear that I needed to scale it back to an H (5mm) hook.  Even then it is coming out a little bigger than I would like.  Someone commented to me that it looks super complex, but really it isn't at all.  If you can get past the yoke part that involves a billion single crochet stitches, it goes pretty quickly with some chain stitches and clusters.  I'm over halfway done after a couple of days of stitching, but I ran out of yarn.  I should be back in business by tomorrow. 

blocking lacy stuff is totally necessary

A work friend gave me a big bag of yarn that her aunt who knitted left behind.  Who doesn't love free yarn?  All of it is sport weight or thinner.  The first thing I thought to try to crochet with it were collars.  This green one is the first I made, and in my usual fashion, I decided to make up my own pattern.  Why do I do that?  It would be so much easier to follow some tried and true instructions, but since I couldn't find a pattern I liked, I did this instead.  Having said that, I really love the way it turned out.

collar with a vintage button

After that I did find a super cute pattern that I used to crochet the yellow collar in the picture below.  I'm thinking of making another with a button closure instead of the ties.  Buttons make everything better.  Check out the link to see an adorable version with a scalloped edge!

"georgette" collar from this pattern

I'm on the lookout for more things to make from all of this thin yarn!

why can't the ends sew themselves in?

I had been putting off sewing in the ends of several of my granny square afghans because when I finished putting them together, it was summer, and the last thing I wanted to do was to bury myself under hot blankets for hours.  Now that it is freezing outside and in, it is the only thing I want to do.  Oddly enough, I still don't really want to spend time sewing in a hundred million scraps of yarn.  Since no one wants an afghan that would fall apart in the wash, it is kind of necessary though.  The afghan above is about halfway done, and the one below (the super gigantic Square A Day In May blanket) is totally complete.  My mom has discovered my blog and has picked out an afghan that she really wants.  Because for some reason the words we use for colors just don't synch up, I'm not 100% sure if she means the one above or the one below.  All I know for sure is that I'm never parting with the huge one!  I hope she wants the first one!

at least I finished the giant afghan!

I made the top for this quilt way more than a year ago, so when someone gifted me a big roll of quilt batting, finishing this project was the first thing that came to mind.  I'm starting to think that this particular batting wasn't meant for machine quilting because my sewing machine hates it.  Either that or I'm just not a natural born quilter or maybe I'm just impatient and need more practice.  I decided to hand tie it instead (just like the last and only other quilt I have made).  I'm finishing it using a self-binding method that I've seen in a few places around the internet (Carina explains it wonderfully here).  I'm almost done, but leaning over it to sew the edges up was killing my back so I've put it on the back burner yet again.  For a little while this time.

finally finishing this quilt...maybe!

So that's what I've been doing for the past couple of weeks. What are you working on?