June "FO"s

June is almost over. I finished several crafty items in June. First to be finished was my awesome bff Jen's birthday gift which I posted about earlier this month. Actually I think that was done late in May, but I gave it to her the first weekend of June, so I'm going to count it!

The next thing  I finished was my girly ghan, which I started in March or April, and which I donated to the Linus Connection of Central Texas. Super bff Jen donated a couple of quilted wall hangings to my old boss' JDRF auction a couple of years ago, and I had promised a blanket to Linus Connection, a charity very close to her heart, as a little extra "thank you". The pattern for the grannyghan is from Lion Brand Yarn's Birds' Nest Throw, but with a different sequence of colors and # of colors and different border.

Finally, this morning I wove the ends in on another crocheted blanket I started a few weeks ago. My friend and long-time co-worker (14 years working together!) Doreen lost her dad to a heart attack late in May, and when I went to his funeral her mom just looked lost and so very shrunken up and sad. She had a stroke a few years ago and is in a wheelchair much of the time, and on the side that did not suffer from the stroke, she has been hit with Parkinson's disease. She's lucid, coherent, but has pretty much shut down since his death. It was hard to see her this way, it seems like not that long ago she was quilting up a storm and competing on the Senior Olympics basketball team, but the last few years have really taken a toll. I asked Doreen what her mom's favorite color was, and was told blue, "country colors" she said. I found a few places online telling how to make a granny a rectangle instead of square, but I didn't like how it was coming out so I modified the corners until I liked how they looked. Then it seemed to still be coming out fairly square, so I added about 5-6 inches to opposite ends before adding the border so that it was the rectangle I wanted. I looked through my stash and found the perfect two complimentary skeins (they were GIANT skeins), one of a dark country blue (Caron One Pounder - colonial blue I think?) and one that is variegated in country shades of pink/blue/lavender (Bernat Bulky Super). After one time around in the blue with just single crochet, I bordered it with the multi, single crochet through the back loops. It's now washed, dried (it came out so soft from the dryer!), and gifted, and Doreen thinks her mom will really love it. It's a bit skewed hanging there, but actually came out a  perfect rectangle. You would be able to see it if I had something to hang the hanger onto a little farther away from the other hanger.

So that's June's finished objects.

As for my self-imposed "yarn embargo", the only yarn I have bought since April was to send to other people. Also, after the fright of finding an infestation in some wool, and throwing out an entire bucket of wool and alpaca and mohair, I checked all my other wool/natural fiber yarns and they were not showing signs of anything wrong. Since i knew a charity was coming around last Friday, I bagged them and donated them. All of them. Kind of like ripping off a bandaid. They will perhaps make some poor knitter's day who is on a budget and shopping at the thrift store. I feel the better for it, and no longer feel like my yarn is controlling me. I have about a half a big bucket of cotton, and quite of bit of acrylic and novelty yarns left, but about half my stash is now gone. And I'm ok, really. I'm still stashbusting and am now working to finish the Crocheted Amish Afghan I started months ago when I first learned to crochet. After that, I'm not sure what I'll tackle next... but it will likely be from stash. I still have a ways to go before I'm down to what I feel comfortable keeping "on hand". My "stash-building" days are over, and it's a good feeling.