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Sweet Dreams

I got two of the bookmarks I crocheted recently tucked, blocked and dressed last night. They're all dressed up because they do have somewhere to go.

The one at top is the one I experimented with the new Interweave stitch I discussed in last night's post with the bamboo thread I'm intending to use on the baby afghan for my niece. I've decided to send it to her as a congrats gift upon the birth of her son, due January 7. But I'm still debating whether to tell her that I'm making an afghan for the baby based on that thread and pattern. See she will have reason to wonder whether I'll have it finished by the time he starts school because I have yet to finish the needlepoint bible cover I started for her sixteen birthday nearly ten years ago.

Below is one I made for the daughter of a friend. It was supposed to be a Christmas gift.

One of the things I've developed a habit of doing when I know who the bookmark (or any item actually) is for, is to think loving thoughts towards that person as I work, send blessing to them. A kind of meditative prayer state as I work. Hence the 'blessed' in the post title.

And as you can see I continue to name my little darlings.

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Jazzed

Well I've got a lot on my agenda tonight. I'm going to be doing laundry throughout the night while watching 11 episodes of Castle season 2 which was due back at the library today. I'll be crocheting as I watch of course. I'm hoping to start the afghan before I sleep. But I found a huge tangle in the blue bamboo thread when I woke today and I've already spent two hours working at it. One of the drawbacks of working with this lovely thread is that it won't stay on the ball. It keeps falling off in loops as in bunches of loops and if I don't discover it immediately it is liable to tie itself in knots. At least this time it was only with itself and not the five other balls in the bag.

I'm about ready to set this ball aside and break out one of the new ones for the project so I can get started. I have a plan in mind to prevent it from happening again. I am going to stick each individual ball into sandwich baggies so they aren't rubbing on each other.

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I haven't got much to say tonight as I just passed 25 hours awake. So I thought I would share in pics what I've been up to with my crochet hook in the last month or so.

Above you see some of the bookmarks made since mid October. Only some as at least this many if not more have had their tails tucked and then been placed with the others awaiting adornment with ribbons and beads and fringe and tassels.

Back in September I began making sets of one each of the patterns in my repertoire with whichever two colors struck my fancy. In mid October I worked the orange and black set and began an orange and brown set. After Thanksgiving I started working the red and yellow set and then forest green and yellow and then forest green and red.

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I was planning to add white into the mix with the red and green and maybe do a three color pattern--an Xmas theme--but as you can see I'm getting quite low on red. I'm hoping to replace it this weekend. That is one of the colors I can almost always find in one of the three stores locally that sell crochet thread..JoAnne's, Michael's and Wal-Mart--so I did not include it the JoAnne.com order I'm expecting to arrive any day now. But I am expecting my beloved Parakeet Blue replacement. I've been without for over two months now.

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Last week I finished putting in the rows on the blue and white mat. It still needs its tails tucked and either a border crocheted on or a fringe attached on the ends. I began the project with a set of place mats in mind but decided I didn't want to commit to four identical large pieces so now I'm calling it a vase mat tho it could also be a book cover.

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Last week I also completed the last of the purples coaster set. Or thought I had until i began preparing this shot. I discovered that the last one I did--upper right--is missing two rows out of the middle. I need to take out eight rows to put them in.

But not tonight. Tho it's going to bug me until I fix it, I think I'm tired enough to sleep anyway.