About 2 weeks ago, while we were swimming during some particularly hot weather, she made a comment that she had not received any towels. She found this odd, since towels are such a typical wedding shower gift. She'd received lots of much larger and very beautiful gifts, but not a single towel among them. It wasn't a complaint, just a comment. So I decided she needed towels. I'd just gotten my new and very beautiful floor loom, and I decided the best way to break in my new loom was to weave a set of handtowels for my sister. I'd never done it before, and I had some amazing purple egyptian cotton that was just dying to be woven. They turned out so much more beautiful than I'd even expected. I finished them on Wednesday and had to keep my mouth shut about them until Saturday. It was more difficult than I anticipated. She was, needless to say, entirely appreciative of them. When you give a handmade gift, you never fully expect the recipient to appreciate the time and effort that goes into such a thing, unless they are a crafter themselves. She is not a crafter, but was very appreciative of every stitch and all the love that has been woven in to these towels. Which makes me want to weave for her again. :)I am also still working on the latest version of my mother's sweater. Currently ripping back a single row to fix a tiny error in the sleeve that has thrown my stitch count off very slightly. At the rate I am going, I expect it to be finished or very nearly finished by her birthday. I haven't worked on it this past week on account of the weaving project taking priority. This week, the sweater will regain priority and I will redouble my efforts on it.
Once the sweater is done, I have promised H a very special gift! This one will take me at least a year (possibly 2) to complete. Last year, on a whim, I created an 8-bit Mario afghan chart. It is comprised of 3" squares, each square representing a pixel. I finally crocheted my swatch to calculate yardage. It will require a whopping 6600 yards of yarn. That, as H immediately pointed out, is a stunning 3.75 MILES of yarn. That's kind of a lot!!! So for the first time in years, I will willingly be picking up massive amounts of very cheap acrylic yarn. Otherwise, we're looking at a few hundred dollars to complete this blanket. Nevertheless, it's going to be very fun when it's done! Certainly one of my more ambitious projects. Let's hope it turns out!! :)
