2008 Recap

Alright, the new year has been busy for me. Looking back at last year, I made more things than I had originally thought, but would love to have finished more. Looking through my flickr photostream, it looks like I started a ton of things, but only finished the ones above. Sounds like a new years resolution for 2009. Lets make it official. Finish these projects in 2009:

Some caveats: 75 blocks of Dear Jane complete, not the whole thing. Only WIPs here count.

My last years new year resolutions weren't as successful as I had hoped, but that's ok. It was a BUSY year, with a new pup and all. Definitely lots of fun, and I can't wait to see what 2009 brings!

My little angel, sort of. Not really an angel. I think it's hilarious how big her head looks in this photo.

Linky Meme

(photo doesn't have anything to do with this post other than Cheri asked how my ripple blanket was progressing....)

Ok, I've been tagged by Julo. I don't mind answering meme's (I think I secretly enjoy them), but I don't really like tagging people, so I don't really like meme's as a whole. But I love reading other people's meme's. I just don't like tagging people to do them. Is that strange? Anyway, this is one of the more interesting meme's that I've been tagged with. Here are the rules:

Go back through your archives and post the links to your five favorite blog posts that you’ve written. But there is a catch:

Link 1 must be about family.
Link 2 must be about friends.
Link 3 must be about yourself, who you are… what you’re all about.
Link 4 must be about something you love.
Link 5 can be about anything you choose.

Post your five links and then tag five other people. At least TWO of the people you tag must be newer acquaintances so that you get to know each other better.

Since my blog is relatively new (almost a year old), we may have to stretch a little to fulfill all the requirements... Ok, here we go!

Link 1 - This post from Mother's Day. We have a very strong female gene in our family... Out of the 8 cousins on my mother's side, there are 7 girls and just one boy...

Link 2 - Haha, I forgot about this post. This is from when I went down to San Diego with a few of my college friends. Oh the picture that Justin photoshopped is fantastic. Interestingly enough, this post includes answers to another meme....

Link 3 - This one is hard for me. I feel like I'm kind of all over the map. What defines me? I'm cheating on this one and using this post. This one just happens to include another meme (I guess I really do like them! Who knew?), and photos of quilts I liked from the quilt show. I think the quilts show a bit of what interests me and what grabs my attention. And looking back at that post, I still like them so don't worry, the interests are current! :)

Link 4 - Something I love? Just one? I LOVE to travel. I love going out and trying new foods, seeing new sights (and sites) and just absorbing the feel of the place. I love all the cultures that different areas of the world have to offer, and I love seeing how my priorities I have from growing up as an American are different from people in other countries. I had one big trip this year, chronicled in this post.

Link 5 - Corgis! I have corgis on my brain! Honestly I have had them on my brain for a while, but I haven't shared that information with all of my bloggy friends until recently. Last year when I was taking a photo a day, there is a shot where I went to a corgi specialty back in May. I think it was couple months before then was when I had decided that I wanted a corgi and that I needed to do more research. It's been a long time coming, but with Lucy coming home with us soon, it will all be worth it. Hurray! Here is the post about Lucy.

Ok, and now my least favorite part. Who to tag? Ok, I tag Melody, Kristine, Amy, June and Suzanne.

3 down, so many more to go....

What's this? Finished objects? I finally finished 3 objects today... And here they are. This first one is my Duro dress, which was way last year, but I finally finished it. I used Simplicity 4072, and was so excited to have it done that I haven't even cut off the threads yet. I am waaaay shorter than the model on front of the pattern, because her skirt part only went to her knees, and mine go about 3-4 inches past my knees. It still looks ok, but I definitely have to wear heels with this dress. It's so nice to finally have this done, I think I started back when they were popular, so probably fall of last year?

On a side note, I am so bad with the timer function. But I did have fun trying to get a twirly shot!! Click on the photo to see a couple more shots of the dress.

Next up is one of Chris' Christmas presents. He got a Wii last year, and wanted a case since I made him bring it back and forth to his house and my house. He designed the case after Link's green tunic. Finally finished this one up too!!

Lastly, we have what I have been calling a "Crochet Bottom Lunch Bag". I saw Anna's beautiful lunch bag way back in June of last year, and decided I wanted to make one too. So here is my version.

And Happy Mother's Day to all the mom's out there. Here is a shot of the girls in my family in one of those rare times that everyone has their eyes open and is actually looking at the camera...

Rippling along.... slowly....

Ripple Blanket Progress
Originally uploaded by lydigann.

So here is the progress on my ripple blanket. It's almost getting too hot to work on it, so I figure I should get in some more stripes before I put it away for the season. The colors are brighter and less bold. The flash did funny things to it.

But this post isn't about showing off the beauty of my ripple blanket! No, no my friends, it's to calculate how much more I need to do! So for this blanket, I cast on 243 stitches, and it's about 60 inches. I'm aiming for a blanket that's 60 x 75, since I like those nice numbers. I'm not really sure what standard size is for blankets anyway. According to Denyse Schmidt Quilts and the Modern Quilting Workshop, a twin size quilt is 64 x 87. Lets see, cross multiply, and I guess my blanket should end up being 81.5 inches. Ok fine, lets do 80. 60 x 80. Like a nice 3x4 digital camera photograph.

Ok, if we're aiming for 60 x 80, and I have 22 inches done (23 stripes since there are 2 half stripes there), I am 27.5% done. Hey not bad! Sorry for boring you with my thought process.. unfortunately, this is how I usually think... Only 60-ish stripes to go!!

EDIT: Ok, bad/good news. I re-measured the width, and it's 64 inches. So I guess I'll go for standard size twin and make it 64 x 87. Which means I am only 25% done, and I have 65 inches (or 68 stripes) left to do....

Plain Jane and proud of it!

What kind of yarn are you?

You are Dishcloth Cotton.You are a very hard worker, most at home when you're at home. You are thrifty and seemingly born to clean. You are considered to be a Plain Jane, but you are too practical to notice.
Take this quiz!








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So I'm dishcloth cotton. Not really all that surprising. I like cotton! I like machine washable stuff. I don't like to clean. Really, I am too practical sometimes, but I do like hanging out at home as much as I can. I mean who wouldn't with so many UFOs?

A new project

I know I know, even with all my UFOs to the right I'm still starting a new project... but this one is fabulous! It's for the No End In Sight Ripple-along, and it's going to be great. You'll be glad to know that I'm using stash yarn for this, mostly from Chris' Tetris blanket. Should be fun. Here is the book where the pattern is from (pg 19, "Soft Waves"):



And here is my start!



More updates soon, I promise. It's much prettier when you get past the first few rows.

Yarn Source

Today we went for a hike at Rancho San Antonio. It was pretty nice to walk. Chris and I decided that we should go for a hike every weekend. There's a nice little farm at the bottom near the parking lot, and they had some sheep and some goats. When I saw this ewe I thought "hmm, she would make some nice yarn" even though I have no idea if this is a yarn type of sheep or even if there are yarn-type of sheep.

On a sidenote, does anyone know how to respond to comments on blogger via email? I'd really like to be able to thank people individually for their nice comments, but I'm not sure if it's possible.