For Father’s Day lunch today, we went out for Mexican food! I planned this shot to fit Day 2’s theme of HOT even though the salsa at this particular restaurant is usually fairly mild. In a stroke of serendipity, today the salsa there actually was several degrees hotter than usual, and it was delicious.

Annalie started goofing around with Troy’s sunglasses while we were waiting for our food. I accidentally got a nice self-portrait when I took a photo of her wearing them. I actually quite like this shot, but it doesn’t fit the day’s theme very well. So it’s an outtake.

Happy Father’s Day to all you dads out there!

7 Days – Day 1

I originally crocheted a bunch of these rainbow balls for Bug’s 4th birthday party as party favors. Brenda promptly christened them “rainballs” which is really fun to say.

I just finished making a whole mess of rainballs for a blog reader who plans ahead. She asked me in March if she could put in a custom order for 15 rainballs for her daughter’s birthday party…which will be in November. It took me three months to get around to making them, and I still finished the order five months early. Oh yeah, I rock.

They’re in my Etsy shop waiting for you, Kim!

I’ve been on a major crocheting kick lately. It seems like a weird time of year to spend hours working with warm fuzzy yarn, but this happened last year at this time too. I think the common denominator is that the spring TV season ended and I found a new show to watch compulsively online. Last year it was Chuck; this year it’s Bones.

The first blankets I finished this spring were actually done a couple of months ago. The big blanket above (which was greatly inspired by this beautiful blanket of Colorbook’s) was made for my dear friend Angela’s baby girl, Kate, in April. The two smaller blankets were for Kate’s big sisters Gabby & Annie, two of Annalie’s best friends from our old playgroup in Maryland. I thought that Gabby and Annie, who are 6 and 4, could use the little blankets for their dolls or stuffed animals, but Angela tells me that they’ve both been cuddling with them while they sleep. That made me melt into a puddle of goo and feel very loved. (We miss you too, girls!)

The next blanket I finished was for another playgroup friend, Rebekah, who just had baby Ashley last week! Bek had mentioned that she really liked my flower scarves, so I looked around until I found this neat flower-hexagon pattern (found in the comments of this photo). I’m pretty happy with how it turned out, except looking at this photo I decided it needs three more flowers to be symmetrical.

Ashley doesn’t seem to care that the blanket isn’t symmetrical, though. So I guess it’s fine as it is.

Bekah snapped this great shot of me and Ashley. Isn’t she cute?

No surprise there, though. All her older siblings are adorable too.

After making those four blankets, I had lots of pretty yarn left over. So I whipped up this little nine-patch blanket for another friend who just had a baby. I can’t say who, though, because I have not actually mailed it yet.

Then I made another little blanket with leftover yarn, this one done in a pattern that I’ve known for years. I’ve started several blankets in this style and never finished any of them, so I was especially pleased to actually complete this one. The blanket is sort of reversible, see?

The body of the blanket is just rows of single crochet, but every row is done in the back loops only. It makes the yarn lay differently so that one one side you mostly see the white rows, and on the other side you mostly see the rainbow-colored rows. The border is done the same way, except I alternated which side you see the white and colorful rows. (If you’re really interested in this pattern let me know, I can elaborate more clearly.) This one is for a friend who hasn’t had her baby yet, but I can’t tell you who because it’s a surprise.

Finally, here’s a small granny-square blanket I made with more scraps. I totally winged it, as you can see from the couple of spots where I suddenly changed color mid-round.

I made this with no particular recipient in mind, just keeping my hands busy while I watched TV. Annalie had remarked on how pretty it was several times, so I gave it to her. She was happy.

Someone asked me to email them a heads-up when 7 Days was happening again, and I cannot for the life of me remember who it was. Hey, whoever asked me to remind them: today is the first day of 7 Days!

(The above photo is not my Day 1 shot. That’ll come later today.)