Jordan had been waiting for this day for a long, long time. I’ve held him off, forbidden, delayed and otherwise interfered in the ways mothers do.
But it was time. Sunday morning, Jordan counted up the money he had saved from his paper route. And about ninety minutes later, he had turned that cash-moolah into this:

That is one 80gig PlayStation 3, two games, a second controller and some cord thingy.
This is all HIS money. That he earned and saved up. I’m so proud of him. That paper route is a crappy job – not the least because of the way people treat him. People yell at him. People slam the door in his face. And yet, he goes out three times a week, in all weather and carefully delivers the papers. And when people refuse to pay, or snarl at him, or otherwise abuse him, he smiles and says, well, thank you any way and off he goes. And he is very careful with his money. He is a big spender… on the things that matter to him. He spent a lot of money at the fall fair. But he never buys candy or junk from the dollar store.
He was so excited yesterday – he was practically floating. Not only did he finally have that PS3 he’s wanted forever, but this was his biggest purchase ever. He was feelin’ goooooooooood :)

Last week, I finally sewed in the ends and washed the baby blanket I had been working on for MONTHS. Someone bought the kit and had me make it for them. It looked pretty straightforward when I took the assignment. Sure, I had to learn to crochet with two colours and with three colours, but that literally took less than a minute to learn (it is WAY easier than colour knitting).
However.
The pattern was some kind of messed up. I’d bet that in the end, I actually made the whole blanket twice for all the working and reworking I did to try and get gauge. I had no problem getting the “squares” the right width, but I could not even come close to the right height. And the two motifs were very different sizes. I tried everything: different hooks (many, many different hooks), working more tightly, more loosely, verifying that I was using the right stitches… anything I could think of, but in the end, the star “squares” were still significantly taller than the plaid squares. Ugh. Finally, I did my best to fit them together as smoothly as possible and let it go at that. The border, which is actually quite pretty, went a long way to straightening everything out.

Once it was finished and washed (thankfully, the washing softened the yarn – an acrylic – a LOT. I was really worried about the texture of the thing), I took the finished dimensions. Ummm. The pattern says that the final width was 26”. My blanket was almost 39”. I spent a good 5 minutes in a panic trying to figure out where I went wrong. It was only when I went back and did the math that I realised that (once again) the problem wasn’t me – it was the pattern.
According to the pattern, each motif is 8.5” wide. Yes, ok. Mine were. And the blanket is four motifs wide. 8.5 x 4 = 34”. Whaaa?!! Then add the joining rows and the wide border.. umm.. yeah.. about 39” NOT 26”. Geez.
While I was working on this blanket, I was so frustrated and it was taking way too long and I just couldn’t see how it could come together into anything that was remotely ok. But in the end, while this is no work of art, I’m happy with it. I hope the recipient is too.

Also… WOW! Thanks for the great response on the pumpkin hat pattern. Y’all are so kind.

I’ve finally gotten round to adding some projects to Ravelry. Oy. There’s a process. Over there, I’m billijean.