Now I feel bad about being all slackery

I was blogtipped today! My slacker, slacker blog was blog tipped! Oh, the kick in the pants that was!!

I haven't been posting the last week, because I have been so. very. busy. We had the means to finish decorating our bedroom, so I jumped at that. But that can't just be an easy task. Oh no. Not when you are a vintage-loving cheapskate like myself. Finishing off a room means scouring the Target clearance shelves and driving to every thrift store in town looking for something juuuuuuuust right. Luckily, it all panned out. I'm waiting on some curtains that were out of stock at Target, but other than that, the room is done. Yay!

We've been living in a semi-limbo, too, with the tile in our second bathroom. We had one of those situations you hear about where two people come together with person A thinking person B knows something and so never says it outright. And person B occaisionally says something that reinforces this belief to person A. But really, person B knows nothing and so one day, they both have a rude awakening. In our case, Tile Guy assumed that we knew that he was moving to California the day aftrer our bathroom was supposed to be done. Unfortunately, some of the tile had to be special ordered, which meant that it would take another week before it could be finished. It was a rather large assumption, and one that left our bathroom 2 days from finished and everything that should be IN my bathroom in the middle of our very small bedroom instead. The situation has all been sorted out. He's coming back tomorrow to finish it. But in the meantime, getting ready in the morning takes almost twice as long and crawling into bed at night is akin to walking through a mine field.

On the craft side of things, I have nothing exciting to share at the moment. Well, at least not with pictures.

I finished Gina's Fat Bottomed Bag for her birthday. It. Was. Amazing. As much as I loved the first one, I totally adored the one I made for Gina. And when we were done, I took the girls to the mall and Kai helped me pick out a flower pin for it that was absolutely perfect. And then I wrapped it up in the back of the Blazer in the mall parking lot and we drove it right over to Gina. And I didn't have the camera. So I have not one single photo. I am totally bummed, and plan to fix that the next time I see her, so stay tuned. I'll give the stats now and then when I have photos, I'll add them to this post.

The Stats:
Fat Bottomed Bag for Gina
Pattern: Fat Bottomed Bag from The Happy Hooker (Modified Green Version, see below)
Yarn: One and maybe a quarter hank of Peace Fleece worsted in Siberian Midnight.
Hook: H
Notions and Sundry: 2 6-inch round bamboo handles, a flower broach from Dillards (because I get my PF so cheap, the broach ended up costing as much as the combined costs of the rest of the supplies for the bag!), fabric for lining.
Modifications: The yarn for this was a bit thinner than the yarn the bag called for. So, I used a smaller hook, worked the increases for 2 more rows, the non-increase portion for 2 more rows, and the decreases for 2 more rows. Then I measured guage and realized that even though it was thinner yarn, I was still on guage. Go figure. Still, it was ever so slightly larger and I really liked it that size, so I'm not complaining. Plus Gina just had her third baby not long ago, so now there is room for a diaper and some wipes if she wants to travel light. Also, while working on it, it dawned on me that wool may not be the best choice, given it's propensities to stretch, so when I lined it, I didn't just line the pouch part at the bottom, but also the tabs that fold over the bamboo handles. It made the bag feel very solidly build and durable. It was very, very hard to give this one away.

At the moment, I'm working on a highly practical, super simple afghan for Afghans for Afghans' Mother's Day drive. I was trying desperately to get it done before some new yarn arrived on my door, and didn't quite make it. It needs to be finished asap, though, so I can ship it off in time, so I'm hoping I can wrap it up in 2 days. I'm doing it as a single crochet granny, but just working around instead of stopping and turning, so I don't have to pay any attention to it. But now that I'm 10" or so from being done, it's taking longer and longer to make it around as the square builds. So 2 days may be optimistic.

And, new yarn at my door? Could it be so? Aren't I supposed to be doing No Yarn for a Year? (ahem... sort of?) Why am I not hiding my head in shame? Well, I feel like sharing today, so I'll let you in on something. Shortly after the last Crochet Me went live, I was contacted by a publisher putting together a pattern book on crochet for the home, and inviting me to submit. After I finished squeeing, I put together a 5-item proposal. (Did I mention we're redoing the decor in our house? I was already planning 4 of the 5 things anyway, so her timing was fabulous.) She liked 4 of the 5 ideas, so I've been swatching and sketching and drawing and frogging and figuring and pulling my hair out and ordering yarn and waiting for yarn and basically trying not to go nuts. I'm still in the process of being accepted, but really, just being invited is a big, flattering step for me. Some of the yarn arrived yesterday and was the WRONG SIZE and I nearly fell over dead on the spot and their customer service was already closed for the day. (One of the joys of living in Arizona...) So I'll be dealing with that today and crossing my fingers that the correct yarn will arrive in time for the swatch deadline.

And that, my friends, is the last week in a nutshell. Today I need to run to the post office and do some yard work and then get crackin' again on the project backlog and sroject swatches. I will someday post pictures again, I promise. I don't suppose there is some young, hopefuly photographer/web designer out there who would like to come get me caught up on my photography, edit it, and add it to my posts?

No one?

Not even for cookies?