Wedding Gifts

Well, I ended up dropping that human resources grad school class, and am taking a capital budgeting class this semester instead. The capital budgeting is still challenging, but not nearly as bad as the HR class would have been. I had started taking the capital budgeting class in the spring of ’07, but ended up dropping it when I broke my wrist. Having to wear a cast, and then a brace, I was reduced to typing one-handed, pecking at the keys, and there was no way I could have taken any tests or typed up papers like that. Anyway, I’m hoping nothing will go wrong this time, and I’ll be able to complete the class and pass it.

I also started working on some wedding gifts for my younger sister Shauna this past week. Her wedding colors are ivory, lavender and periwinkle. The first is a ring bearer pillow (my son is going to be the ring bearer!). I searched online for patterns for crocheted ring bearer pillows, but couldn’t find any, so I just made my own design. I’m crocheting the cover in a v-stitch pattern, using Bernat Satin in Silk and Star Dust.

I got my husband to take me to Joann Fabrics so I could buy some lavender fabric to make the pillow part. It’s no fun shopping with a man at a craft store! I need to learn how to drive so I can go by myself. My husband looked positively miserable! I would say he looked like I would if I had to go to Home Depot with him, but actually I don’t mind Home Depot, because they sell plants and home décor items. It’s more like how I’d look if he dragged me to a musical instruments store like Sam Ash. My husband loves music, and plays a few instruments, so when we went to Sam Ash a few months ago to buy our daughter a flute for the school band, he kept stopping to look at everything, and ask the salesmen questions. I was so ready to leave! The only good thing was I found a cute pink cell phone case there to match my pink cell phone!

Anyway, I found this lavender fabric at Joann’s with the fabric remnants for sale, for only $1.49. I got the ribbon and pearls at Joann’s too. I bought the rosettes from a lady on EBay. I glued the ribbons and roses on with fabric glue, and had such a hard time trying to get them into a nice heart shape. I keep looking at it thinking the heart looks a bit “off” on one side. I realize the fabric, ribbon and yarn aren’t identical lavender shades, but they look close enough, I think. I guess I shouldn’t beat myself up about it, because my sister isn’t a picky or critical person. I’m sure she’ll be happy with the pillow as it is. I’m going to sew a pillow from the fabric, stuff it, and then put it in between the two crocheted pieces (I still need to make the back), single crochet them together with the ivory yarn, and then crochet a ruffle edging with the lavender yarn. The ribbon is to hold the rings. I need to figure out how to use the zoon feature on my camera, so I can get more detailed photos, because it's hard to see the heart in the picture.

The other gift I’m working on for Shauna is a wedding shawl. She’s getting married in May in an outdoor wedding, and May weather here in the Cleveland area can be unpredictable, so I thought it would be nice for her to have a shawl to cover up with in case the day is a little chilly. I got the pattern for the shawl from the book Cozy Crochet. The pattern was actually for a head kerchief, but I’m just adding more rows to enlarge it. It’s supposed to be a granny square type design, but it’s difficult to tell from my picture. I’m using discontinued Patons’ Katrina yarn in a blue Dawn color, to match the blue trim on Shauna's wedding dress. The yarn is super stretchy - it almost feels like crocheting with elastic - so I think that’s distorting the design a bit too. The yarn is really pretty – very soft and sparkly, but the stretchiness is making it difficult to work with. I have 5 skeins of the yarn, and I’m hoping that will be enough. I bought the yarn from a Canadian seller on EBay – the only place I could find it in the color I wanted - and it took two weeks for it to come, since it had to go through customs, so hopefully I won’t end up running out of yarn and needing to order more. After I finish the body of the shawl, I’m going to crochet a pretty scalloped border around it, and weave ivory satin ribbon through the scallops. I’m hoping I can get the shawl done in time to give it to her at her bridal shower in March.

The last project I have to show is some dishcloths I also crocheted for Shauna. These aren’t a wedding gift – just something to cheer her up because she’s been going through a tough time with some things in her life right now. She and her fiancée came over my house yesterday for a little birthday party for my kids, and Shauna saw my granny square dishcloths hanging up in the kitchen, and really liked them, so I though I’d make her some. I crocheted them with Lily Sugar N’ Cream in Soft Violet and Summer Twists. The first one is a granny square with a picot border, the second is a griddle stitch design with a scalloped border, and the last one is just rows of single, half-double and double crochets, with a ruffle border. I’m going to drop them in the mail to her tomorrow along with a nice card.

I figure her fiancee probably won't like the girly designs and colors, but she puts up with his collection of horror movie character figurines, so he can deal with some ruffles and lavender, LOL!

Thank you everyone for all the nice comments on baby Genna! She was able to come home from the hospital last week. My brother says she's doing better, but is colicky. I had two extremely colicky kids (both were lactose intolerant as babies), and it's definitely no fun, so I'm hoping Genna isn't actually colicky. Her mom is breastfeeding her, so it could just be that she seems colicky to my brother because it's been 13 years since he had to deal with a baby (his youngest son is 13). Thank you too for the nice comments on my son's birthday! My daughter's birthday is this Tuesday, so I'll have to post some pictures of her then.