The Babette blanket

I've been crocheting for about two years now. I originally learned at my tiny Lutheran grade school - all the students, including the boys, were taught to crochet. At the time, I was impatient and apparently a bit anxious - I could not master the relaxed tension in the yarn and therefore anything i made would grow smaller and smaller as my stitches got more and more cramped. And when a scarf did not appear after a few hours of work, I was bored. So I gave up that hobby fairly quickly.

I decided to start crocheting again after attending a continuing education class and observing a few other women knitting during the class. My brother and his wife were expecting a baby, and I realized that a beautiful handmade blanket would be a nice keepsake for my niece. My first blanket was a disaster because I forgot the composition of some of the basic stitches. It had some nifty stretchy qualities, though. My second attempt at a blanket for my niece was a basic granny square since I was running out of time before baby's arrival. Since then, I have made seven other baby blankets and two oversized throws. Here's what I've learned:

1. Crocheting satisfies my inability to just sit and watch TV. I must have something else to do. (sidenote - it isn't uncommon for me to read and also watch TV, and know exactly what is going on with both.)

2. Making blankets isn't cheap. Yarn can be expensive. I try to get reasonably priced yarn that is still decent quality. The average skein (or bundle for those not versed in geeky yarn technology) is $3-4 dollars. Baby blankets can average 6 skeins - so that's about $24 dollars just in materials. Yes, you can get a nice soft fleece blanket at Target much cheaper.

3. People are very impressed that I can actually make a blanket. It's almost like a stupid human trick. When the mom-to-be unwraps the blanket and finds out it has been made, not purchased, and by someone under the age of 80 no less, they are amazed and awed. I am still somewhat surprised by this, as crocheting takes some skill, but it's fairly easy to at least become decent at it.

4. I like to test the limits of my ability. My stepdaughter's blanket(s) are a testament to this. Since observing me crocheting baby blankets, she asked me to make her one. I said I would, and she could choose the yarn, and the pattern (oops - mistake). First, she chose a strip blanket (not one where you tuck a dollar in between the rows, but rather one where you crochet various strips, then stitch them together). I. Hate. Strip. Blankets. I made one, and I have vowed to never make another, because I am not consistent enough to make joining the strips all easy-peasy. So I vetoed the strip blanket. Then, after I talked her out of the (admittedly patriotic) red, white, and blue yarn (she's 10, and would have abhorred the thing in about a year). She chose yarns in all shades of blue, but two different weights. I tried valiantly to make that work - changed my yarn tension, changed hooks depending on weight - the edge of the blanket still wove in and out like I had been crocheting drunk and with my feet. So after about 20 rows or so, I admitted defeat. My admission of defeat only occurred after my discovery of the Babette blanket.



I stumbled on a picture of the babette blanket online one day, and loved it. Beautiful bright colors, irregular squares, sort of a crocheted crazy quilt - and fit my stepdaughter's personality perfectly (the original blue blanket was supposed to be a bunch of irregularly sized stripes in differing shades of blue). The babette blanket uses 17 different colors of yarn, and involves over a hundred different sized granny squares. (which brings back in my expensive comment before - stepdaughter's blanket is probably going to cost about $50 in materials - but she's worth it). So, I am knee-deep into the making of this blanket and loving it. I hope to make another when this one is done (which I will probably be able to do with the leftovers from the 17 skeins of yarn I had to purchase). My husband thinks I'm nuts, but also loves that I do such a homey, family-oriented hobby. I hope to take some pictures to post of the progress soon.

Winter running

I'm skipping the obligatory first post and instead going to wax poetic about winter running. I started running this past March, frankly because my sister-in-law, who had recently had gastric bypass, was planning to run a 10K in October. Since I'm a former college athlete, I determined that if she could run a 10K, I sure as heck better be able to run a 10K. So, I started run/walking and worked my way up to running, and suffered through one minor injury setback and ran the 10K this October. I really love it, although I'm never going to run competitively and I struggle to fit runs in unless I run right away in the morning. Which brings me to my hatred of winter running.

Winter running sucks. Or, to be more precise, dark, cold running sucks. I did recently run during my lunch hour, and while it was cold, it was still fairly enjoyable. But for some reason, getting up when it is pitch black and leaving my cozy home for 10 or even 30 degree weather is just not too enjoyable. Plus, the places to run in the pitch black are severely limited - I can't run on the wooded trail I normally run on during summer mornings because there is no lighting. I'm trying to convince myself to become a treadmill runner, but since I signed up to run a 4-mile run in December, in Minnesota, I need to keep training outside for the time being. Or rather, get my ass outside once in a while to still run, because so far I've been failing miserably. I'm trying to power through my first winter as a "runner" but it's not working very well so far.