Those Hookers Are On To Something!

You wouldn't believe how busy I've been...sweating. Nah really, I've have a serious crafting spurt.

Letsee...Thursday I hinted that I was going to master the art of crochet during GF's wisdom teeth extractions [and by the way, she handled herself beautifully...thanks for the well wishes]. I did start reading and practicing on Thursday, but didn't get to an actual project until Friday evening. And by the way, I use the term 'master' loosely. I did get pretty ambitious tho. Check it...

What's My Motivation? Crochet!
Backstory
Pattern: Sweet Pea Shawl from Stitch 'N Bitch Crochet
Yarn: Pink 100% recycled, 100% cotton yarn
Needles: Boye aluminum size J hook, and plastic size J hook
Exposition: My first crochet project! I checked out the book and I'm really in love with a lot of the patterns. The Garden Scarf, Go For Baroque, Prepster, and the Ruffled Corset Belt are amongst my favorites, but I started with the Sweet Pea Shawl.

First let me tell you that I really enjoyed crocheting lace [and am now practically and expert at crocheting a shell]! I did make a few boo-boos, but no biggie, I let it go...mostly because I didn't want to frog [is it still called frogging in crochet?] and because I didn't know how else to fix the problem other than frogging. Simple, fairly quick [if you don't lose your crochet hook on the bus home from the fabric store] and very pretty. All in all, it took me about 2 1/2 days to finish. I'm considering adding fringe, but probably won't because as much as I love fringe, I hate how tangled and messy it gets. I didn't swatch because I really wanted to get rid of this yarn and I also figured that since it's shawl, if it came out bigger, I was very okay with it. I figure that the cotton will stretch and right now in it's unblocked state it's large enough to cover my shoulders and tie in the front. I will definitely be carrying this with me everywhere this summer.
and I am definitely going to make more attempts at crocheting...

What's My Motivation? Ruby! Stash Bustin!
Backstory
Pattern: Sauniel's Ruby
Yarn: Southwest Trading Company Phoenix yarn in turquois and Parrot
Needles: Inox size 7 and 8
Exposition: Stash busting in full effect! This was a pretty straightforward pattern but I did make a few changes. First off I since I was striping, I opted to knit the bottom in the round, and back and forth after the neckline bind off. I'm pretty happy with the striping, but y'all know how I feel about the variegated yarn. Saun told me that the Soy Silk has a lot of give after washing, so I'm going to give it a wash and a block and reserve my final opinions about the fit then.

Okay, that's it for finished stuff. I haven't made much progress on the Prairie Tank or Butterfly, but I'm going to get back to those this week.