APR-JUN: Big Swap!

[La Ptite Bete]

This Mario Blanket !!! Awesome gift TheLancemen !!! You must have spent a LOT of time on it...

[ezsebeth]

I'm very pleased the vegemite arrived in one piece! If you're going to try it, go VERY easy on it. It's pretty strong stuff. As for the chocolates and the biscuits, go for your life! Snorlax you may need to fiddle with a bit, I had to keep adjusting his head and feet to get him to look right!

I still haven't found the courage to test the vegemite One day I will though! I adore the Snorlax and the other stuffed animals.How did you know I like them? :p And like BMH said, that Dragonite stitching is the bomb! I still trying to figure out a place to put it.

Thanks!!

[Ally]

Honestly, they're my favourite Aussie animals too! If I could have I would have sent a platypus too, but I couldn't find one! If you do try the vegemite, try it with cheese on crackers or toast, that mellows it out some. And again, I am VERY happy you like it all, I was stressing out about it for a while!

[TheLanceman]

I know you were worried about making me an afghan (being the quilt lady) but I absolutely love it!! I don't have any afghans and it is nice to have something different then quilts for my bed. I love everything and thank you thank you sooooo much!!

I'm so glad you like the afghan and didn't already have something like it! I was pretty worried getting your name since I had already planned on making some sort of afghan.

Man, I don't know how long it takes to make one of those squares, but it gives me hope - I can't quilt (no machine), and I can't knit (no acumen), so if I can just figure out a crochet hook... !

This Mario Blanket !!! Awesome gift TheLancemen !!! You must have spent a LOT of time on it...

This is my first afghan using the granny squares and the first afghan I have ever finished (with my grandmother's guidance), so I may have gone a bit slow but each square took me about 10-15 minutes. The blanket was 24x27 for a total of 648 squares so it took quite a bit of time to get all the squares done. My goal per day was to get 20+ squares done in order to finish by the end of the swap. Once they were all done it took about a week and a half to stitch them all together by hand with a yarn needle. The afghan took pretty much the entire 3 months to complete and it was pretty lucky that I was able to quit my job during that time or else I would never have had enough time to finish!

Wow, how many balls of yarn did that take? Awesome blanket!
RMDC, once you get into the swing of it, crochet is quite easy! It took me a month to get the hang of crochet, whereas I had my late grandmother trying to teach me how to knit for YEARS and I could never get the hang of it!

Overall I think it took about 24 skeins of yarn (for a total of about 12 pounds) of the various colors. The afghan is a lot denser than it looks and will be a nice warm blanket come winter time! And RMDC, like Ally said, crocheting is quite easy just time consuming depending on the project you're working on. My hands still haven't stopped hurting from the 600+ squares.

[tnitnetny]

I can see it took take much yarn, it is heavy!!

[jadely]

I'm sooo jealous of you being able to finish an afghan... I've completed one. A baby one that was tiny. However, I've started and never completed 5 I just gave them away to good people with the yarn to complete them.

HOWEVER, maybe doing a sprite pattern would help... hmmm...

[TheLanceman]

I had several that I had started when I was much younger mainly because I watched my grandmother crochet everything under the sun and she had taught me how to crochet as well Unfortunately, though, I lacked the motivation to finish anything with my childlike attention span at the time... Making it for someone else as well as using a sprite definitely helped me keep the motivation to finish it off. Now I can't wait to make another one for myself!

[CandidGamera]

I haven't heard from my big swap creator at all yet. Although I totally want to make an afghan blanket now!

[PixelPockets]

I haven't heard from my big swap creator at all yet. Although I totally want to make an afghan blanket now!

Don't worry! I haven't heard from mine either, and I'm sure we'll get them soon! =)

[LinkIsMyHomeboy]

I haven't heard from mine, either...but I also just sent mine out today, so it only seems fair. Someone should be receiving theirs in 3-5 business days!