I am so bad at this...

...but hey, those few of you who really do check in on me once in a while forgive me, right? Lol.

I've been pretty busy around here lately...I've been trying to get the condo cleaned up so we can make an attempt at selling it, but it's been rather challenging. Having two little ones who constantly need you at all hours of the day and night is really taking its toll on me. Don't get me started on our ever-increasing grocery bill, yet decreasing amount of food I'm able to bring home each trip.

At any rate, here's an update on what's going on in my crafting world...

...I'm knitting (yes, my CLF friends, I said it: I'm KNITTING) a cover for my flute case, which (sigh) is not even here. For my birthday, dh decided to have my flute overhauled, which the poor thing desperately needed. So, on Feb. 9 of this year, we took it in to get it done. We were told it might be finished by March 15, which would have been 5 weeks. Heheh. Wrong. It's May and it's still not done. Since I rarely get to play any more, it's not that big of a deal, but, hey, I've been getting the urge to break out my Bach and Hindemuth. It used to relax me even more than knitting and crocheting, so I'm really starting to miss it right now. Anyway, back to the cover. The repairman (who shall remain nameless because I know he does a great job; I don't want anyone to think otherwise) fiddled with it a bit before even examining the flute joints and informed me my latches were bad. Well, I've known that for a while, but just haven't sprung for a new case yet. The one I really want is in the $80 range, but I won't spring for that until/unless I get an upgrade to an open-hole (I'm still using my student model I've had since 5th grade. I used a loaner in college since it was mandatory to have an open-hole flute). I wouldn't mind getting a nice one that would work for about $25-30, but things always come up and the money ends up elsewhere. 'Sokay though. That's why I'm knitting a cover for it. It's in a 2x2 rib, and I'm still trying to think of a good way to close it because the handle gets in the way. Might just make a tab/button arrangment through the handle, but what about the rest of the thing to keep the latches from coming undone? I dunno know yet.

I'm working on a laceweight mystery shawl pattern in crochet. That's right. Crochet. There's been a huge discussion on the CLF about the lack of laceweight shawl patterns available to the general public. I've decided to make mine free of charge. The Mystery Shawl CAL will begin here, on my blog, on or around June 1st. If you'd like to join me in this, all you need is some laceweight yarn (probably no more than about 750 yds., I'm guessing, since I don't have the pattern finished yet O_0) and a G/4.25mm crochet hook. Oh, and the link to this blog. I will post a few rows here and there every week, which should give me the incentive to come here more often ;-). The only hint I can give right now about it is that it will be semi-circular-ish in shape...er, I think...I'm still working out the math.

I'm already thinking ahead to Christmas. Well, I've been thinking about Christmas since last Christmas. Lol. With the arrival of our 2nd daughter a week prior to last Christmas, the gifts we were able to give were fairly sparse, at best. This year, I aim to make it up to everyone. Since I'm not a fan of cheesiness or kitsch, or tp covers or bed dolls, (not that there's anything wrong with any of these things, they just don't happen to be my thing, ya know?) I aim toward innovative things that can be made with the hook and a fiber. However since some of my family members actually look in on here, mum's the word on the gifts (guess y'all will have to wait until Christmas Eve to find out, and you know who you are!! :-D). The only hint I can give is that I'm going to put my own twist on Irish lace. And just what does that mean, Tracey? Wait 'til December, and you'll see! ^_^

Oh! I almost completely forgot! And I would definitely slam my head against the wall if I didn't mention this news in this post! One of my patterns is actually getting published! For real! I still can't believe it! The Crochet Liberation Front on Ravelry is having a book published sometime this summer and my Peekaboo Playtime Chemise was accepted!! Woohoo!! I do need to give credit to some folks who helped me out with it...my dear friend Linda, who helped me make a papier mache dress form (with me as the mold). My testers from Crochetville (I had a few, and I do need to go back to check to see who all did it, and I don't want to leave anyone out, so I'll come back and edit this post with all of your names at once! :-) ), SkyDramini (Julie) who worked up a model within a week and her poor wrist was hurting. Thanks for the awesome pics, btw! And for Laurie, our fearless leader, who is working night and day formatting, cutting, editing, and pasting the whole book together. You are awesome. I hope you all know that, right? When I received Laurie's message saying my pattern was accepted, I was ecstatic. I literally danced around the living room for an hour, and pranced around here for days while calling everyone I knew that would care. Any way, I have a couple sneak peeks of the Peekaboo Playtime Chemise (not the ones that will be in the book, btw) if ya wanna see...Wait, I'll have to upload them later since I don't have my own shots on this computer (I have Julie's, but I don't have permission to use them on anything other than the book, so I'll post my own shots tomorrow).

I'm sure there's more to post, but I'm exhausted. Dd1 decided to wake up dd2 at 7:30 this am after dd2 had me up at 2:30 am to feed her, and between the 2 of them, I couldn't get my nap in today (then again, do I ever? :-) ). I'll be back again tomorrow, I promise--er, today? At any rate, after I have a few hours of sleep, fed the girls, gone to the store for food, and the park for a play date. Ugh. Maybe I should just wait until Saturday. Sounds like tomorrow's gonna be worse than today was.