Crochet deadline; plants doing well!!!

A new project; a new deadline has been underway for the past week.  A customer (via Etsy) requested a 90x95 afghan in the same colorway of another afghan I have for sale in the shop.  He's willing to wait the 6-8 weeks I've requested to complete it;  this will most definitely be the largest afghan I've made.  Each row is taking about 20 minutes to complete, increasing the length by 1/2", so... approx 60-65 hours will be needed to finish off the project.  Guess who's going to busy? ;)

Just prior to having the newest customer, I had been making progress on the Mystery Crochet-Along;  I had been worried up until the last clue -- I'm really liking how my colors are playing together!

And of COURSE, the plants are growing, growing, growing!  Yesterday morning, Cass and I had the task of transplanting many of the tomatoes, peppers and broccoli;  some herbs too.  For the first few minutes, I was really feeling overwhelmed!  I've never jumped the gun like this before.  I've never planted so MANY tomatoes before.  I was running out of transplanting containers.

Growth after transplanting last week (Week #4)

Current growth (Week #5).  The tomatoes look AMAZING!  I just hope I can keep them alive for another (*whiper*) ......... two months!  There is NO WAY tomatoes can go in the ground in our area before mid-end May.  *gulp*

Lesson learned. :)

Time to find some (LOTS) of 5-gallon pails...

Spring weather has hit!  Last weekend, we found ourselves enjoying the first 40 degree day since last Fall!  The girls couldn't wait to pull out their bikes and enjoy.

Since then, this past week, we actually hit temps of 60!  Hallelujah!  Most of the snow is now melted;  even snowbanks have mostly melted away :)

Paul decided to finally burn up the pile of rubble we've been growing for the past few years.  Bonfire time! 

*sigh*  I can only hope that our Spring is truly underway similar to 2012.  We had a stretch of weather just like this;  our first picnic on March 16 even.   Every week, we were all wondering...."Is this the week the temps will drop back down?  Is this the week we get a Spring snow storm?"
But, it never happened!  We had green grass in April;  by May we were ready to mow AND plant the garden still with a little nervousness.  The rule of thumb up here:  "never plant before Memorial weekend".

I was done with harvesting the whole garden in August that year;  I'd love for another year like that!!!

Did you enjoy PI day yesterday?  

Crochet Along (Part 2) & Transplanting seedlings

This past week has been extremely quiet on any crafty front.  Zero quilting or sewing has been completed, and only three (of 20) of the Part 2 Crochet Along mystery units have been made.

Instead, most of my free time this weekend has been spent with our mini-greenhouse.

The initial seeds from two weeks ago are coming up nicely and were transplanted into small cell units to live out the next few weeks.  

So many new things being tried this year.  First off -- we're I'm starting WAY WAY earlier than ever before.  Many new seeds are on my docket, including a Strawberry Popcorn seed (pictured above - day 7).

I just tried out a new method of germinating today, too.  After reading up on germination trays and seed transplanting for growing in pots, I scrounged around the house and found an inexpensive setup that should work out okay for a germination tray.  The bottom of a JCPenny's box and an old cookie sheet have been repurposed to act as a tray for a little bed of lettuce starter.  **shrug**  It holds dirt so far :D

I knew I had things on my to-do list this weekend, but, I truthfully didn't really care mind if I didn't get to them.  ie:  grading papers.  Sorry, but, I wanted the weekend off.   I have some quilting projects that direly need my attention sooner than later, but it was SOOOOOO cold in the basement.  

Therefore, I took my time transplanting all the 2-week old seedlings and prettied up the mini-greenhouse.  It's officially full.  I guess it's a good thing I ordered a new mini-greenhouse, due to arrive on Tuesday :D

This plant is looking much much better now that I took the time to remove the aloe vera plant that was crowding it.    Can anyone enlighten me on the name??

Please imagine this lil' pot FILLED with not one, not two, not three, not even four, but FIVE aloe vera plants.  It was LONG LONG overdue for repotting.

This was the smallest of the five, and it looks so sickly.  All of them had started to yellow.  I received the planter from my MIL..... five (?) years ago.  I think at the time, there were only two aloe plants present, in addition to a beautiful strand of that other plant.  

Never having had an aloe vera plant, I sat down today and did some self-educating on how aloe plants grow and propagate.  It's truly amazing the power of education we have at our dispersal via the Internet!

Sunny's house (Candace's goldfish from her birthday) was also given a cleaning, so he was allowed to swim around our pitcher for a lil' bit.  

And as always, trying to fit in time for family and fun is often attempted, but not always followed through on.  However, last night, the two youngest and I headed to the roller skating rink in a town 20 miles south while the oldest went skiing with a friend.  Paul finished up his shift yesterday and now has a few days off :D

3-day weekend

Where does the time fly to?  Truly.
Thankfully, we are enjoying a 3-day weekend due to President's Day (our Winter break day).  Even Paul has the day off.  We're toggling with ideas on how to spend the day;  skiing, sledding, skating... Nothing has jumped in the lead yet (although the puppy dog eyes keep saying skiing!)

Ms. Caitlyn started working on a lil' quilt project for her upcoming DI competition.  

I am was making great progress on the 20 Granny Squares which are the expectation for the first week's clue of Yarnspirations/Crochet Crowd's crochet-along. 

Was.  

Yes.  

While making some Beef Barley vegetable soup yesterday, the madolin wasn't able to distinguish between my finger and the carrot I was slicing.

Paul was around to bandage me up;  and with no medical tape handy, duct-tape came to the rescue.  I wonder if fingertips grow back.   For now, that fingertip will remain bandaged, and I'll try my best crocheting using my middle-finger tip;  slow-going right now :\

The seeds are 7 days old and germinating nicely!  This is the first year we're using grow-lights; 3 of them, each 2' long.  I would love to invest in another 3, but there's only so much that can be spent on projects that 'save money,' right??? ;) LOL

No exaggeration here, but... every time I walk by the lil' greenhouse, I smile and peek in on them, often on the lookout for any new sproutings.

Candace and I couldn't resist starting some MORE seeds!!!  

Another 36  flower seeds were planted and we await not-so-patiently for them to germinate.

RSC14 and yarn selection for Mystery CAL [Crochet]

Much of this Saturday morning was spent relaxing with a coffee cup in my hand... HOME!  

Eventually, I wandered downstairs and played around with some sashing ideas for my 2014 Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks.  It was enjoyable to simply...... RELAX with no pressure of time.

I have a new iron on my board;  a Black-n-Decker Classic.  My last one simply peetered out and wasn't getting hot anymore.  So far, this one is.......'eh.'  The holes on the bottom catch the edges of the fabric when I'm pressing smaller units :\.  But I chose this one over the completely 'dry' one (which had NO holes) because this had an auto shut-off.  Although, I'm rethinking whether I really need that feature.  It'd be nice to have a nice, flat iron with NO holes.  Something to think about next time.

I purchased my yarn for the Crochet Crowd (via Yarnspirations) mystery crochet along.  The plum showed up quite bold with the flash;  it's a bit darker than what seems present in the picture.  I was sadly disappointed in the selection of Caron Simply Soft at our local Walmart.  It would seem that  they've dropped quite a few of their formerly stocked colors :(  My original color-palette hope....

And I found that Hancock Fabrics has a sale on Simply Soft right now, but.....  **shrug**.... I just can't bring myself to pushing that "Submit Order" button.  ;) ((even though I have a gift certificate from my Mommie for HF)).  Frugal much???

In the meantime, I'm making progress on the newest ripple afghan:  the 12 Interlocking Ripples (Attic24's Neat Ripple pattern).

Mystery Crochet Along - I'm in! [Crochet]

Believe it or not, I actually have a couple of quilting projects under way, but nothing that is blog worthy OR blog allowed right now, but....

As previous posts show, I'm continuing to produce some crochet projects during my evenings in my rocker while upstairs with the family.

This just in!
Mikey over at the Crochet Crowd, is hosting a Mystery Crochet Along (sponsored by Yarnspirations) coming up in just a couple of weeks.  His 'teaser video' truly did a great job of amping up the excitement for what seems to be a FAB-ulous afghan for the making!

I'm in!