a day in my life

If you were ever curious about what my days consist of, this will not be a very good example.  I picked what I thought would be an average day to do this, not realizing that it wouldn’t be an “ordinary” day at all…

I get out of bed at 7:00.  To me, that’s early, and I need tea to wake up properly.

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The dog is usually laying on my feet when I wake up:

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After I quickly get ready, my ride to work is usually about 13 minutes, unless this happens:

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And in Columbia, SC, that’s a common occurrance.  Especially near my house, which is close to a major train yard.  The worst is when they stop on the tracks — I always feel guilty when I’m late to work because of that.

I can’t really show pictures of what I do at work for confidentiality reasons, but I’m an LPC-I (a licensed counseling intern, which after 2 years will become a full LPC license) working at a clubhouse style day program that focuses on psychosocial rehabilitation for adults with serious mental illnesses.  It’s a hard job sometimes with the overwhelming amout of things to do (we’re currently understaffed) but it’s also rewarding in its own ways.

Most days when I get home it’s just me and the dog because my fiance works late, so I’m trying to spend that time productively by taking care of myself physically (I’m starting to jog) and mentally (using coping skills).  This is my corner of the living room:

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I like to watch movies or TV shows or listen to audiobooks while I knit & crochet, or sometimes I’ll sit here and read or take a nap.

This day was special — in the evening Chris made homemade biscuits and whipped cream and we had strawberry shortcake with strawberries straight from a local farm that my mom gave us:

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This was essentially my dinner, and we ate while catching up on one of our favorite TV shows:

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A few rows of blanket knitting were accomplished, as well:

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And the day continued to get more unusual… Roofers had been working on the back half of our roof the previou week — just some routine maintenance — but they dropped a pallet of shingles through the ceiling in our back room (where we keep the fridge, washer, dryer, 3 bookcases full of books, my sewing machine, a big wooden desk, & Zero’s kennel).  Strips of ceiling and insulation are hanging down a bit from the split the shingles made when they fell, and while I was knitting happily, Chris informed me that the storm outside was causing water to leak into that same back room.  He poked holes in the ceiling in a few places so that he could catch the water in buckets rather than it just rolling down the walls onto the floor, and we moved all of our books and bookcases into the dining rooom:

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We’ve called the landlord multiple times about the leaking water but he didn’t pick up and hasn’t responded to our messages (he already knew about the hole in the ceiling and is sending someone in a few days, but we need it to be quick now with the water damage added on — it’s super humid back there and smells awful).  I’m getting pretty mad about it, to be honest.  In the meantime I’m just taking lots of extra allergy medicine so that hopefully the mildew and mold from the water damage won’t get to me too much.

So, that was a not-so-average day in my life! Hope it didn’t bore you to tears — I know I’m not that exciting but sometimes I really like it that way.  🙂

Thanks for stopping  by, hope to see you soon!

bought lots of yarn…

KnitPicks had (and may still have) a promo code that gave you a free ball of Chroma with a $25 purchase, so I took advantage of that (I’ve never tried Chroma, have you?).  I bought yarn to crochet the Coming Up Roses Hat, and whatever’s left I’ll use to knit a Totoro Hat.  Dunno what I’ll do with the Chroma yet; depends on how soft it is, etc.  Here are the colors of Comfy Worsted and Comfy Worsted Heather Special Reserve that I purchased:

imageimageI got more than I needed but I wanted to play with the colors in person before choosing the pinks in particular.  This is the Chroma colorway I got for free (called Sugar Cookie):

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That’s all I’ve got for today.  I haven’t done much for the past few days (as far as yarncrafts go) but I’ve got an idea for a future crochet blanket that I already have yarn for and a few other things, as well!  I’m gonna have so many WIPs…  How many do you usually have?

Thanks for stopping by, see you soon!

as-we-go stripey blanket crochet-a-long 2 year anniversary!

It’s been 2 years since we started the As-We-Go Stripey Blanket Crochet-A-Long!  Doesn’t seem like that long to me!

as we go stripey blanketClick the link above to be taken to the free pattern, where you can view it online or download it as a PDF (there’s a photo tutorial version and also a shorter version for printing)!

And I owe a huge thanks to everyone who’s made the blanket (I was really surprised by the number of blankets out there, and definitely honored!) as well as to Julie, the author of the blog Little Woolie, for the pattern inspiration!  Check out her blog for so much lovely stuff!

Thanks so much for stopping by!  Feel free to browse around to see the crochet and knitting tutorials and patterns available here on Not Your Average Crochet — everything’s in the drop-down menu!

Here’s a final photo of my dog on the blanket:

as we go stripey blanket crochet a long

citadel hat: ta-da!

It’s finished!  Using yarn from Welthase and the pattern here, this didn’t take too long to finish (at least, for knitting)!

Citadel knitted hat

The lining is slightly smaller than the outer shell but that’s my fault — I think I skipped a few rows in the decreases, or maybe the different yarn just knitted a tighter gauge.  I did use the Navajo 3-Ply technique for the lining instead of just using the recommended 2 strands of the lace weight yarn, and I’m glad I did because with 2 strands it defnitely would have been too small.

citadel hat liningI really love this hat — I think I’m going to make another sometime!  Maybe next time with a completely solid and lighter colored outside, and a brighter pop of color inside.

Well, that’s all for today, thanks for stopping by!

 

citadel hat progress

I’ve been working on the Citadel hat and I’m using the yarn from the frogged Angel scarf for the lining.  Originally I’d planned the reddish coral yarn from here to be the lining but I decided I loved it so much I wanted to save it for something you’d see a bit more.  Well, the provisional cast-on has been removed and here’s what I’ve got:

citadel hat color join

I’m using the Navajo 3-Ply Technique to triple the thickness of the yarn, even though the pattern says you only need to hold 2 strands of the lace weight yarn together…  3 is working well!

The silky yarn will be better against hair than the wooly one would be, anyway, so maybe this is best.

There was an issue with the join that I wanted to ask you about: when you do a provisional cast on and start knitting the other way, do you prefer the last row of the old color or the first row of the new color to be twisted?  See what I mean here, my last row of the dark grey is twisted:

citadel hat color join closeup

Well, I’ll update soon hopefully.  I’m really liking this hat (although I don’t know when it will ever be cold enough to use it in South Carolina)!

Thanks for stopping by, see you soon!