Welcome, June...

It's been a beautiful transition into June here in Indiana. All my crocheting this week was spent on two long-term projects, but only one is worth taking a picture of.  While I'm being terribly slow at making progress, when I do find time to work on my Lost in Time Shawl, I love it.  Very much.

Here is what it looks like today:

After I do one more repeat of the popcorn and ruffle rows I'm going to take stock and see if blocking it will make the ends long enough to wrap this around my neck kerchief-style.  I envision wearing this as a scarf with a winter coat so I don't need it as large as a shawl.  The problem is it's a pretty perfect triangle and the side "wings" really need to be longer than the center point if it's going to drape around my neck.    I'm also now seeing the point of the tassels in the original design go beyond aesthetics.   While they are pretty and add a trendy flair, I really I thought I'd forgo tassels (as they seemed a bit fussy for my tastes).  But I can see that tassels on the outer corners will help give a bit more length to that edge as well.  So maybe I'll go trendy with this after all.

I know I've said this before, but I highly recommend the pattern.  Simple and well written (even if a tad awkward translated into English, it's very easy to understand what the designer is saying).  And the yarn I'm using is so nice. It's dk-weight Stylecraft Batik (an 80% acrylic, 20% wool blend).  It's very soft to work with, and should be easy-enough to take care of.  I have found the place most likely for me to find this at a good price is Deramores.   I just bought some more skeins, in fact, because it was 30% off for a few weeks last month.  I bought more without a plan for its use, but after working with it, I can see it would be nice for scarves, shawls, sweaters, baby hats, baby blankets...  all sorts of things.  I look forward to using it again.

The only other thing that saw hook-time was a large corner-to-corner blanket I've been working on since the first of April.   I had to purchase yet another "last-skein" of yarn this past week to finish this and now I'm finally starting the border.  I'd love to get this finished this week and at that point it will be worth taking a picture of.  Hopefully.  At the moment, it's just a big beige rectangle.   A picture of it today would look identical to the picture I took months ago, except that it's larger.  If this is ever going to be interesting enough to take a picture of it again, it will be the border that will make it so. We'll see soon, I hope.

This year's Year of Projects ends later this month, with Sunday, June 25th being our final wrap-up post for the year.  While some YOPPERS follow a different time table, our group officially begins each new YOP year the first week in July and we run through the last week in June of the following year.    If crafting and blogging sounds appealing to you, please consider yourself invited to join us.  Everyone comes up with their own list of goals, dreams, inspirations for crafting (typically knitting and crocheting, but some other crafts find their way into our posts), and then blog throughout the year about what we are making.  We're a small group of bloggers who find inspiration in blogging and seeing what other YOPers are up to.  We are somewhat diverse (in lifestyles, and in crafts) and it's the most encouraging bunch of folks I think I've met online.   Check out our group on Ravelry and consider joining us if the idea appeals.