Crochet Fever

Inspired in not a small part by Amy's beautiful baskets, I decided to try my hand at crochet again. It's been ages since I tried it, having never learned to hold the yarn properly, even taking a beginning class at the local Ben Franklin to refresh. Nothing seemed to take until I saw Amy in action and borrowed a copy of Simple Crochet. It's so much easier to do something the right way!

In a rare moment of early wakefulness on my part and late sleeping of my offspring, I set up shop at my kitchen table to get started without interruption. I used two strands of Sugar 'N Cream ($1 sale at Michael's!), puposely offsetting the variegation so that finished product would be more mottled instead of striped.



Look! Crocheting in the round! I'm doin' it! I then noticed that the color of the cushion in the book picked up the colors of my hydrangeas. No matter that shortly thereafter the breakfast crew had wrecked my idyllic little scene, I have proof that there was a brief moment of tranquility:



Aaah!

And at the end of the day, here's what I had:



I had picked up some very fun Laura Ashley paper while at Michael's, so I tucked them into the basket to give my sister-in-law.



I thought that the red ribbon would add a little oomph and tie (pun intended!) in with the ribbon on one of the paper packaged, but it just looked weak. It was removed, and the basket was gifted very nakedly. I added the crochet hook in this picture for scale. Now I know what I can make with one day and two skeins of Sugar 'N Cream. I think next time, I'm going shopping at Amy's!