Hello, Dianne! Take a look at these swatches!

Ahahaha!  I watched Sleepless in Seattle last month and that line has been stuck in my head ever since.  It was too perfect not to use. I love Rob Reiner so much.

Okay, I did have a point (before Rob Reiner so carelessly derailed my thought process).  I've gotten behind on my crochet degree.  I got knocked down a little after that first review, and my grandma got super sick, and it was so easy to convince myself that my education was less important than the other things in my life.  And once I could rationalize it in my head, it was easy to let other things take priority over my swatches as well.

In fact, I cut back on my blog posts last month in an effort to give myself more time to work on my class.  Yet, somehow, I managed to get through December AND January without working on a single swatch.

So, I hauled out all of my class materials and went over them last night.  I have 38 swatches and 4 projects to get done, plus the report on the crochet that I saw in the Fisher Museum of Art at USC.

I had finished my first hairpin lace swatches, but I'm just not happy with them and I want to do them over.  Jake bought me a new hairpin lace tool, since I found the larger frame I was using to be difficult to handle.  I'm hoping that that's what was causing my unhappiness with hairpin lace making.

I've decided to send a set of 10 swatches this time, and work on one of the projects while I wait for them to be graded and returned.  I've got to make a garment with sleeves for one of my projects.  I was thinking of making a baby sweater, since my sister is pregnant right now and I'd love to make something really special for my future-niece.  I have to use a pattern that I must send with the finished garment for judging/grading, so there will be no "winging it" with this one.  Which means I'm now on the hunt for a challenging, showstopping baby sweater.  I'm open to suggestions.  Does anyone have a favorite pattern?

On a completely different subject, I have been crazy sick (read: 102 degree fever sick) over the last few days.  I caught Mims's super cold, and I've done virtually nothing except sleep (and cough, and blow my nose) for the last 4 days.  I think I've lost 6 pounds so far... Ugh, worst weight loss plan ever.  I'm slowly starting to get through all of the comments, emails and FB messages.  If I haven't gotten to yours yet, I promise I'm getting there soon.

xoxo