Happy Hooking

Now how's that for a post title??? But come on, it's meeeeee - Ms. Booooooring........I'm talking about crochet here!!

I've had this yarn for a while (picked it up at Michaels when it was as such a great price, I couldn't pass it up). Very, very soft, pretty pastel colors and I always like to the have a couple of baby blankets handy (while I can't seem to conquer my procrastinating ways, I try to work around them as much as I can - having items "on hand" helps a lot).

Mostly I'm a granny-square fan. Quick and easy and while a pain to put together, even that can be fun once you get into it....... But let's face it, sometimes you just want to do something different.....enter Leisure Arts crochet leaflets. I have one that I've had for years. I take it out every few years, admire the various crochet squares (there's 64 of them in this leaflet), look at the written directions, sigh and then put it back on the bookshelf. I am a complete idiot when it comes to reading instructions/directions.....well, I'm a complete idiot when it comes to reading written CROCHET instructions/directions. But one night, I had had enough!!! I would NOT let a few weird abbreviations and symbols block my path in learning a new pattern - I was made of stronger stuff and I would prevail!!!! After getting fired up, telling my family to go to bed (well, it was nearly bedtime anyway) and making the cats promise to leave me alone (they tend to sit/lie on ANY type of paper IF they think you'll need it...), I grabbed my crochet hook, some oh-so pretty yarn (figured the pastel colors would help to take the edge off the whole "trying to follow written directions" tension that was already mounting) and I......STARTED.

After a few stops and starts and yesssssss, I did have to rip out stitches on more than one occasion and there may have been a bit of "colorful" vocabulary being muttered - but I finished a square and then another one and then another one until I had completed 6 - a good start to a new baby blanket!!

That was a couple of months ago but the taste of Victory was so sweet, I decided I wanted MORE - so I grabbed the handy-dandy Leisure Arts Leaflet (now considered a long-lost friend) and at midnight of a very long and busy day, decided it was time to learn another pattern AND try to figure out "multiples" (which I did out-loud with lots of muttering and sarcasm, apparently I was louder than I thought -- Creepella suggested I go to bed and "give it a rest Mom....."). But NO!! It was imperative that I learn this new pattern (including the multiples part) and that I learn it now!! I was not to be denied in my quest for new patterns and stitches - I was forging a new path of Crochet.....I was unstoppable. Well, I was unstoppable until about 2:00am - Star Trek was over, my hands were freezing and my eyes kept closing.

.......but I knew I had won, I had nearly 3 inches of a NEWLY-learned pattern crocheted - I was victorious!!