Aaaannnnnd we’re back!

Hey readers, I know it’s been a long hiatus these past few weeks, but the Mister and I are safely back on the island and readjusting ourselves to loose brakes and stringy chicken as we speak. 🙂

The vacation was wonderful and definitely necessary for our sanity. We got to spend time with most of the family and saw a lot of good friends at a beautiful wedding the first weekend we were home. We went to the zoo and canoed down the mighty Duck River, roasted marshmallows over a backyard fire, replenished my yarn supply for this semester’s animals, and ate enough good food to kill a horse. I myself ate four cartons of blueberries over two weeks… but that’s a separate story altogether. (Hey, I really have a thing for blueberries, ok?)

Meera stayed with another student while we were gone and seems to have had a good time. She got along well with the other dogs in the apartment complex, had lots of yard space to play in, went on at least one hike and completely wore herself out to the extent that she’s been asleep since we brought her home earlier this morning. 

We had some complications with the way last semester ended so we have to sort out a few more things before the Mister can start classes for this round, but we should know the outcomes of those decisions by Wednesday. Whatever happens though, we know that life will go on one way or another, and we’ll figure out what path our family is meant to take and see what waits for us at the end of it. 

Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers that God’s will will be done, and whatever that turns out to be we will be able to accept it and move forward. Thanks, and happy Saturday!

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Here we are again

It’s finals week again in the Caribbean. You can tell because the grocery stores are out of Mountain Dew and when you walk around campus, the air is deathly silent except for the strange mutterings of students who have their hands buried in their hair and their eyes starting to bug out of their heads.

The Mister took his first final this afternoon and has his second tomorrow, so all good thoughts and prayers sent his way are appreciated. He has been studying hard for several days and I have faith that he can get the grades he needs to move on in the program. We won’t know until Friday though, and by that time we will likely be on our way back to the mainland.

One of my best friends is getting married this Saturday, so the Mister and I are making the trek back to the land of milk and honey for the two week break. We are super excited to see friends, family and a long list of restaurants. Especially the restaurants. 😉

There may not be posts for the next two Mondays since we’ll be running around trying to fit in all the family visits, scheduled appointments and other activities that need to be done before we return to the island of misfit toys. We wish we could fit in more people and places, but it’s hard to do everything in only 13 days, so if we don’t get a chance to see you this break hopefully we’ll be able to do it the next time we’re in the country.

We’re counting down the hours and crossing our fingers for good results on Friday. Love to all and, if you’re in the home area, we hope to see you soon.

My Masterpiece

Well, I am proud to announce that I have finished my greatest crochet masterpiece to date for my most supportive costumer – the Mister. So, after thousands of stitches and about 20 hours of work spread over eight days, I present to you… BOWSER!

Bowser is the turtle enemy of Mario in all of the famous video games featuring the two characters and a host of their friends. The Mister always plays as Bowser when our friends get together for a Mario Kart game night, so when he found out a pattern existed to create the formidable snapping turtle, he was over the moon.

The pattern I used can be found for free here on Nanette Crochet’s blogspot. I made a few alternations to the original pattern, but since I haven’t discussed those revisions with the original creator I will not detail them here. However, they mostly revolve around creating Bowser’s tongue, teeth, claws, eyes and eyebrows, since those were originally done in felt, but I don’t have any felt so I created them from yarn like everything else.

My Bowser is made of 68 individual pieces (at last count), some of them only inches long and a few stitches wide, sewn together like an enormous 3D jigsaw puzzle that I, at times, thought would be impossible to complete.

His jaws and mouth alone are made up of 12 pieces (not including his four teeth or the green part of his head and horns shown in these pictures. Only the jaws.).

His shell has a top and a bottom piece. He has eight hair pieces, two horns and eight spikes. His four arm bands are separate, his belly plate is separate from his body, and his red inner mouth is a different piece from the tan outer plate along his jaws.

All body pieces before head and shell were attached

Body with shell

Hair pieces

Finished product, showing claws, arm bands and eyes

Close-up of his eyes. I am especially proud of these because it took almost an hour of trial-and-error to figure out how to create their iconic shape from stitches rather than felt pieces.

He is approximately 10 inches tall (not including his horns), 9 inches wide from hip to hip, 7.5 inches from the tip of his tail/shell to his belly, and 20 inches around (measuring over his shell and under his arms).

The Mister is impressed and, quite frankly, I am too. I know this is tooting my own horn in a major way, but I’ve never done anything this complex before and I’m incredibly proud of how well he turned out. I don’t want to do items like this on a regular basis, but knowing that I can is pretty cool. 

What do you think? Is the husband worth it? I think so. 🙂 He’s excited to make all his friends jealous. 🙂