there was no time for crocheting this week - i'm taking an intensive ceramic tile making class at the steelyard. my goal is to create something unique and interesting to cover up the hideous lighthouse mural which currently graces the walls of our kitchen. the shapes of the tiles are taken from a drawing that i did, then cut up, then pasted back together, then tesselated. i can't wait to glaze these pieces and puzzle them together on the wall!

i took a personal day from work today. i haven't taken any time off this summer. my friends from new york are coming up for the weekend. if the weather cooperates, we'll have sailing and wine tasting and other rhode island summer activities.
right now it's raining outside, and that is making me really want to drink tea and crochet instead of cleaning. but i'm being good, sort of. instead of crocheting i'm blogging about crocheting. which is not actually crocheting, but not cleaning the house either.
i decided last night that i need a brown pullover with a low scoop v neck for back to school. it doesn't matter that i don't go to school. it's unfair that once you graduate from college you're no longer allowed to have back to school shopping. because really that's one of the best times of year. so my co-worker and i have decided that our offical work first day of school is monday, september 11th. we're going to wear new outfits and we'll probably take pictures of ourselves. but other than that it will be a normal work day (because it's not like we suddenly want to learn geometry again or anything!) we've been looking forward to back to school for the entire summer. our part time high school student thinks we're crazy, because the last thing she wants in the world is to go back to school in september!
so my back to school project is this sweater. which it will of course be too hot outside to wear, but whatever. that's one of the great things about the first day of school!

i shocked myself (and my mom) by knitting throughout my entire trip to texas. on my way out the door to go to the airport i shoved one of my unfinished sock projects into my bag and even though i also brought two crochet projects (you can never pack too many projects!) i didn't pick either of them up once.
this strange behaviour provoked me to go through my unfinished projects. maybe if i post them on here i will actually finish a few things before i start some new ones. (although probably not). stay tuned for that. for now i've only posted a picture of ian's graduation necktie, which is one of the things i didn't crochet in dallas.
after a few days in a strange, hot city, i'm happy to be home and hanging out with my yarn stash for a little while. it has some new additions; i stopped at the thrift store earlier today (i'm addicted!) today's bounty was amazing, another large 100g ball of brown wool, four balls of swiss white sock yarn (which i think i will put aside for when i know how to knit lacy kneesocks) and five bags of tapestry wool assorted by color (red/pink/purple, orange/yellow, green, blue, white/brown/black). it will be really great for reinforcing sock heels or using bits and pieces for embroidering onto my sweaters. i'm also thinking it would be neat to mix all of the colors together in one big project, but that idea needs some more thought before i can go at it. plus, there are a million things ahead of that in line to be crocheted!

i can't tell you yet what i have been working on most recently, but i can show you pictures of some other things that i've been doing. the weather was perfect last weekend. it was sunny but cool (for august in rhode island). i sat on the deck where i played with lily, who i was dogsitting, and darned some of the boy's sweaters. i'm not sure how he gets the huge elbow holes, but i know that he likes them there. and that is why i get great satisfaction out of mending them.
i have already posted what might seem like a million pictures of the icelandic baby sweater, but here is another. it is finially finished, and i mean really finished, like including the buttons finished. marianne found me these little flowers which are perfect. the baby shower is this weekend. it still needs to be put in a box and wrapped in paper and ribbon to be presented.
i also made a hat. i really wanted it to be onion shaped, but it ended up being regular hat shaped but with a large nipple on top. i'm not kidding. i was accused of crocheting a pasty many times in the process of making it.
it's crocheted out of brown worsted wool that my neighbor katherine gave me last summer. she had intended to make a reindeer sweater out of it a long time ago (i have no idea what that is, but i'm sure if i found it in the thrift store i would buy it!) but i'm glad that she didn't ever make said reindeer sweater because i have made a sweater, a skirt, and now this hat out of it (and there are still four huge skeins left!). the brown is striped with some wool that i got from theresa from stitch and bitch. she dyed the wool herself and spun it into this gorgeous yarn.
tomorrow i leave for a short business trip adventure to the lone star state. i'm not packed yet, but even more importantly i haven't figured out my in flight crochet project. so much yarn is waiting to be played with, but nothing is at the point where i know i can spend the next two days working on it. eek!

short and sweet is finished! it is made out of lily cotton that i found really cheap at building 19. the buttons are from the button collection of someone down the street who had a yard sale. my short and sweet existed as a vest for a short period of time while i contemplated how exactly i wanted it to be. i'm happy with it now as a short sleeved cardigan with mismatched red buttons.
the fun part of crocheting is dreaming about what's next! in the meantime, i'm working on the crocheted necktie that i'm giving ian for his graduation. it was in june, but i'm sure he doesn't care that the present isn't finished yet. despite all of the hours that i have put into it, the tie hasn't come very far. i had an entire day of swatching to figure out how the pattern and colors would work which amounted in very little physical progress, but lots of mental progress.

lazy sunday crochet to do list:

-photograph short and sweet
-photograph crochetme.com fall submission sweater
-photograph finished baby sweater (complete with buttons!)
-finish writing crochetme.com fall submission pattern
-work on ian's graduation present tie (this will be a good lightweight travelling project to bring to dallas next week!)
-convert sweater pattern from mom's "vintage knits" book into dimmensions which i will instead crochet
-tag and organize the crochet stitch swatches i was making on the bus last week in preperation for the "vintage knits" sweater
-put away some yarn!
-go sailing! (okay, admittedly not related to crocheting but very important on this gorgeous, windy day)

my "short and sweet" from debbie stoller's "happy hooker" crochet book is finished! well, almost finished. it still needs buttons. yes, i made it longer than the pattern called for and added buttonholes! so it's more like a low v-neck sweater than a bolero because i'm sick of boleros. i haven't taken a picture of it finished yet (or actually sewn on the buttons to be able to take a picture of it finished) but i have been carrying around this movie from netflix for weeks and it seems like a good occasion to pop it in and make myself do the buttons for both the short and sweet and the baby sweater. . .and then if i'm really productive i'll finish writing the pattern for my fall crochet me submission! (hey, it's possible!)
hey, that might just have been my longest run on sentence ever!