Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Not much knitting has been done

...but I have been painting and crocheting quite a bit. Let me explain. Before the holidays, I was on a painting binge. Painting is great therapy for me. Not quite as much therapy as knitting, but there is such satisfaction for me in completely transforming a room with just two coats of paint. So, between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I painted my living room, family room, eating area, front hall and dining room. What's left? Just the kitchen, as I painted the entire upstairs this summer.

And then one night, while relaxing in my knitting chair I started looking around at the furniture. It was screaming out for something colorful. Like...a...new...throw! To keep things interesting, I decided to crochet one. I grabbed 7 colors of Mission Falls 1824 Wool and started a simple Tunisian double crochet afghan in random stripes. I'll do three to four strips and them sew them together. The colors are great and work perfectly with my rug and furniture. And oh, maybe three quarters of the way through the first strip, I glanced up and realized, I have no pillows on my couches! So I picked up a copy of 200 Crochet Blocks (my favorite new book!) and grabbed some more 1824 Wool and started crocheting squares, which I will make into pillowcases. I am having so much fun that I find it very difficult to pick up the modular shawl I'm knitting with Koigu Kersti. It's a beautiful shawl, but the crochet squares are so much fun, because with each square I am learning new crochet stitches, and getting even better at understanding crochet directions.

And I get faster with each square, so maybe I will get back to knitting in the next few days? We'll see.

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