Afghan 29 – Christmas Trees

I have been unable to post for far too long. Mostly it’s because I haven’t actually finished an afghan in quite a while. I do have a few that are just so close to being done. I promise that I really have been busy! It wasn’t ALL due to me being lazy. (A lot of it was.)

Until the first week of July, my family spent most of our time preparing for the 4-H fair. This year both of my kids took market lambs. My daughter had a whether and decided to try a ewe this year. Their names were Betsey and Johnson. Both of my son’s lambs were whethers. Their names were Troy and Abed. It makes us super happy when people get those references. Overall they placed 5th, 14th, 17th, and 18th out of 20 lambs. To be honest, I was pretty glad to see Willow did not do as well as she had done last year. You learn more when you don’t win. All of the kids worked really hard, and I’m proud of all of them.

Willow did say that she will never get another ewe. Betsey trampled her a time or two and was much more difficult to work with than the other lambs. Both of the kids said they don’t want to take lambs next year. Willow changes her mind every few minutes about which animal she does want to take. The only thing we refuse is hogs. Jarrett says he doesn’t want to show any animal. He wants to take a science project. That’s perfectly fine, too. Although he was happy to do work in the barn, he never has been one to want to be in front of a crowd. I thought he was going to be sick in the show ring. He even told the judge he was not going to show lambs again. That made the judge smile!

We got both of the kids some good boots for the show ring this year. Willow had been wanting a pair of Justin Gypsies for a long time. We made her wait, because her feet grow so fast. She picked out a really cute pair. She fell in love with them. She had to keep them in her lap for the car ride home. Even when she fell asleep in the car, she kept her arms around the box!

I bought my husband a new lawn mower for our anniversary. (Yes, we’re country.) On July 4, he decided to let Willow cut the grass in the field. She loves cutting the grass! The only problem is that this lawn mower shuts off if the driver gets off the seat. She is so light that it shuts off every now and then if she hits a bump or anything.

The first day at the fair was Jarrett’s ninth birthday. Due to the timing of his birthday, the only celebration was that we got him an ice cream cake to share at the fair campground. (We have plans to go to an amusement park later when the crowds won’t be as bad.) He said that since it was he ninth birthday, it should have a ninth Doctor theme. He was so happy with it!

Have a FANTASTIC birthday

One of the big events at the fair was monster trucks. Jarrett enjoys the trucks. He likes the idea of the size of the trucks. Unfortunately, he does not like the noise. Luckily, we were able to see one of the trucks parked on a day before the show. He had me take his picture with it. We decided that maybe we’ll watch monster trucks on TV sometime with the volume low.

All of the 4-H kids are allowed to take two projects each year. Jarrett’s second project was Safe Use of Guns. He had a blast working on it! He won second place. He does plan on continuing with something in the shooting sports next year. Willow’s second project was Pocket Pets. She took the sugar gliders for that. While we were there, the baby we’ve been waiting for came out of its mom’s pouch! (This evening while I was typing this, Josh brought it out to show me that it has just opened its eyes.)

These are things that have helped to keep me from crocheting and posting. Finally I will actually show you my afghan I finished. Christmas Trees is done in green, white, and red in the book. I tried to make it a little less Christmassy by changing the colors. I used Red Heart’s Paddy Green and Coffee and I Love This Yarn’s Pale Denim. I thought this would make it appropriate for a cabin-style decorating year round. Of course, everyone who has seen a piece of it instantly saw Christmas trees.

Since it was made from 54 squares, it was a lot easier to carry around to work on it since I was working with three strands of yarn at one time.

It’s not quite the Christmas look that they intended, but it does still make everyone think of the holiday. It will be good for napping on the couch during Christmas break.

Afghan 12 – Summer Favorite

I absolutely love the way this afghan turned out!

The book’s idea of this afghan did not impress me.

If you like decorating with watermelons, I’m sure this would be great! I just don’t personally know anyone who does, so this wouldn’t really work in any other style. I knew I wanted a black background and bright colors for this. I was happy to find the I Love This Yarn! Neons. I hadn’t planned on using so many colors, but it was more fun collecting different colors to get the amount of yarn I needed than to buy the right amount of three different colors.

As soon as I made the first motif for this afghan, I knew I would love it! It just kept getting better as I added to it.

I intended to have the center color going outward as I moved along. It was going to end up with the whole afghan in a spiral look. It didn’t quite turn out like that. Due to the blocking of the afghan, you really can’t tell I was going for a spiral look. The fact that I tried that gave it a random layout look. I have never been able to make a pattern look random. This worked out pretty well.

The finished afghan has several mistakes. Saturday morning I woke up at 7 a.m. to go to work. When I got home around 8 I started working on this afghan. My husband said he thought I could finish it before I went to bed. (I was about half way through it at this point.) As everyone else in my family went to bed I stayed up sure I could finish it soon, because he had faith in me. I never even felt tired, I was so into my work. My husband’s alarm went off at 5 a.m. the next day. As he came to the living room bleary-eyed I sat smiling while I worked away. It was time to wake up our daughter and take her lambs to the fair. I was still working on the fill in motifs. I packed up my yarn, and off we went!

We arrived at the fair barn with the lambs weighing in at 131 lbs. and 132 lbs. We had been worried, because one of them had hit the weight limit (140 lbs.) a couple of times and we had to get him to lose a little so he wouldn’t go over the limit. It all worked out fine. After they were settled into their fair home, I sat down and worked on my afghan while we waited to feed and water them for the evening. I finished it in there.

Two days later, we had to be at the fair super early for the lamb show. We were so nervous. This is Willow’s first year being old enough to show at the fair. It turns out that, like other shiny objects, Willow doesn’t like to share trophies. We were so proud when she won 1st and 2nd place in her class. We were blown away when she won Grand Champion and Reserve Champion!

She’s not the only one in the family who won 1st and 2nd place, either. Since I finished what is now my favorite of my afghans I’ve made, I decided to enter it in the fair. I figured I wouldn’t do well with the mistakes, but I just think it looks like a piece of art. I was allowed to enter two afghans, so I entered my Stained Glass Beauty. SGB won 1st place. SF won 2nd place.

Now we’re just looking forward to Saturday with the livestock auction, and I get to bring home my winners!