Whoa, what?! It's 7th Feb 2015 already??!! But, but...

I've been busy. Busier than usual:) Between the sudden increase in grandchildren from one young lad to a total of four (two boys and two girls), working on building inventory for my 'egg money' sales at the car boot fair (simple beaded strung bracelets, dang things go like hot cakes over here!) to sewing with the 11yo and beading with the 7yo girls next door to my REAL project (more on that in a sec), I've been B U S Y!

Yes, all that on top of the daily housekeeping and maintaining (a former life-long bachelor) the husband in the manner he's become very quickly accustomed to (imagine, he wants food at regular intervals AND clean laundry and is STILL telling me how great this is! I love it:), AND three broken toes...yeppers, I broke the big and next two toes on my right foot a bit over a month ago. Ahhhhhh, yesterday was my first day back in shoes and that was fab!

Father Christmas was incredibly good to me at Christmas and brought me 99.9% of the things on my Dear Father Christmas list. Laugh if you want but that steam mop with 5 extra mop pads, and the separate hand held steam cleaner made me cry with joy. Oh wow, I knew I'd missed my steam mop left behind in the US when I came to Scotland but WOW WOW WOW it's sooooooo good to have FINALLY convinced Mr 'I'm Scottish and Don't See The Need For a Steam Mop' that yes, actually we do need that steam mop. He's known as Mr 'We Don't Need That', no matter what 'that' is.

But lol, he is SOLD, baby, sold! He was really shocked to see the dirt on the mop pad after the first use. Especially because I'd done a hands and knees clean of the kitchen floor (oh. my. gods. My knees still ache!) before doing the first pass with the steam mop. Shocked and surprised enough to say nothing but 'How long 'till that gets here?' when I mentioned the hand held steamer - and OH MY STARS, once he saw how great a job that gadget does on the oven and microwave, he cleans up after himself now!

Which is nice because I'm obsessed. Completely. Utterly.

My obsession?

I FINALLY learned how to crochet in the round (Google 'Cherry Heart crochet blog'. She's a genius!). Which led to making my first real crocheted blanket. Which about ten blocks in led to the AmazonUK purchase of Crochet For Dummies. Which pushed the obsession into addiction range in spite (despite?) of the not-as-helpful-as-they'd-like-to-think layout of the book. Thanks to the book, by block 150 I was smokin' hot at crocheting single crochet blocks with the most square corners you've ever seen! Looking through the rest of the book (by Chapter 4 I was cookin' with gas, honey!) I knew the truth - I was completely, utterly, totally addicted to crochet.

It took me four months to crochet those 150 blocks because, you know, really, Life goes on even with a benign addiction like crochet. I got a lot of other things done in those four months besides crochet but every night in front of the telly there I was muttering to myself, making those square corners more square with every new block. And then after catching myself losing count of rounds even though I used a stitch marker, I'd stop the blocks and shift to another chapter of Crocheting For Dummies.

Which also led to simultaneous blooming interest in the two main forms of thread crochet. So Father Christmas' elf (my husband) was handed quite the list - Boxing Day at my house was spent sorting all the amazing pressies - balls of yarn and wool (yarn being acrylic and wool being, well, wool), crochet hooks of all sizes in steel and aluminium including WOOT Tunisian hooks! Little baglets of multi-colour stitch markers (TWO TYPES!!), booklets on how-to make stitches including cables and Tunisian, thread primers on filet and doilies and bedspreads and beach cover-ups, pattern booklets for hats and gloves and mittens and scarves and jumpers and leg warmers and afghans and...

SOCKS! Yes, yes, yes, YES! Now that I can FINALLY crochet in the round, my TRUE crochet obsession is soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo close to being more than a mere dream - it's about to become reality!

BUT.

But I cannot get ahead of myself! I'm finished crocheting the big blanket that will defy the his-hers blanket hogging that happens here at our house every night, and am awaiting delivery of the flannelette (Brit-speak for flannel, like PJs and sheets back in the US) backing I've ordered. Because this piece of crochet magnificence is now going to be quilted down to a flannelette backing to increase stability and hopefully ensure automatic blocking after the 40C machine washing this will get.

I call it Falling Leaves. I'll post a pic in a future blog post, until then think rustic 6"x6" grannies all in single crochet (for warmth) with a green centre and orange, red, oatmeal, tan/rust, chocolate brown rows around that green. I joined using the single crochet join so each block is framed.

Meanwhile (come on Postie!) I'm about to start the one thing EVERY real crocheter MUST crochet before she (ok, yeah, I know, guys crochet too, lalalalalalalalalala with hands over ears, and?!) can proudly proclaim herself A REAL CROCHETER! And what is that? Oh, if you're asking, clearly you don't crochet...

I'm using the accidental and non-returnable purchase (how was I supposed to know those two colours would be so, erm, vibrant, so, well, LOUD in real life!) of several (oh hey, lookie there, just enough!) gosh-awful balls of orange and green to make (oh, come on, you crochet, and you know what I'm about to say here...) a...

INCREDIBLY HIDEOUS RIPPLE AFGHAN!

It's a rule. You simply cannot say you crochet until you've made one. A shockingly ugly ripple afghan. It's a rule. Every crochet who wants to hold his/her crochet hook up with pride at the next Crochet Guild meeting knows this rule.

'Before a novice crochet newcomer can move into true Crocheter status, he/she must complete one bug-ugly ripple afghan. Bonus points for ferreting out the most super ugly cheap yarn available on the Internet!'

Because nothing any crocheter has ever done with his/her ripple afghan has ever saved it from being the most 'Incredibly ugly-hideous-OMFG I can't believe you made that on purpose!' crocheted item.

Be honest. Really, really, really honest - ripple afghans are U G L Y and nothing, not even doing one in beautiful colours or (best of all if you for some insane reason find ripple afghans appealing) a single colour changes that basic truth of crochet - ripple afghans are ugly. It's also a rule. End of.

So, go whole hog with yours, and no, you can't steal my orange and green idea. Besides, I'm pretty sure I bought all of this particularly eyeball twistingly hideous colour set ever milled, so you're out of luck there anyway.

I'm going all out on this baby! Green and orange, and boy howdy are those green and orange balls of cheap acrylic yarn GREEN AND ORANGE or what?! I'll offend your vision with a posted snap of that, too. Soon. And as soon as that photo is taken, that bad boy goes in the boot of the car! I know already I will not want that nasty thing in my house:)

Then it's a hat, a Tunisian hand towel, and a jumper. AND then, only then, can I go on to make socks.

Expect to see my first socks around, oh, say, Feb 2016!