Meet the Authors and How to Join Colors in Crochet

Hello!  At our Portland Women's Forum meeting yesterday we had our "Meet the Author's" day.  It was a very inspiring program. Ellie Alexander told us of her parents bakery and how her mom got early onset Alzheimers and her loss and how it inspired her to write.  She writes mysteries - I bought two of her books and will likely buy her whole series on my iPad.  Each title is a pun and they are fun to hear.  "Meet Your Baker", "On Thin Icing", "A Batter of Life and Death".  She wrote another whole series and traveled all over Oregon to research for her books.  "Scene of the Climb", "Slayed on the Slopes", etc.  For her website - click HERE.

Ellie is a great speaker and I just know her books are going to be great.

This is Peg Willis who wrote "Building the Columbia River Highway - They Say it Couldn't Be Done".  She told of how she thoroughly researched the book and I look forward to learning much more about my beloved roadway in her book.  Click the link above to find the book on Amazon.

Author Michelle Abramson wrote two children's book from her real life experiences living in Alaska.  I bought them both to share with my grandsons.  One is about an abandoned baby seal they saved and raised and the other is about living in a fish camp and the critter living under their house.  :-)  "Baby" is on Amazon.. click HERE.

I can't wait to delve into all my new books!  We have some cute little flowers coming up in the farm yard -- I think these are called "Grass Widows".  I think I'll cut a bouquet of Lilacs today and the Lily-of-the-Valley is ready to bloom!

I've been using a really good method for joining a new color in your crochet.. I am sure I didn't invent it, but if I did.. yay me!  LOL!  But first I want to show you a method I've been using to make sure I mix up my colors in my Flowers in the Snow blanket thoroughly.  I have the skeins in a basket and I use each color to make a center and then place them on top of the skein to mark it as used.  Then I do the same thing when I add the second and then third colors.  This is working really well to spread my colors evenly.

Now to add a new color.. make a loop like you're going to start a chain.. 

Stick your crochet hook through any part of the previous work and pull the loop through from back to front.

See?

Then chain three for your first double crochet, then continue your next double crochets over the end.  When you're done with the 3 colored circles, use a yarn needle and thoroughly weave in your ends to secure them.  Always weave in your ends before you go to far and keep it up, the worst thing is to wait until the end when you have 8 thousand ends to weave in, and the best part is your blanket looks pretty while you're building it.  

I am really enjoying this blanket making.

It's such a neat challenge to try to make each "flower" with colors that look beautiful together.  

Here is the blanket so far.  I have lots of new flowers to add soon.  I have the blanket as is on the back of the leather chair in our family room so I get to enjoy it between sessions of adding flowers to it.  :-)

We celebrated Hayden's birthday on Sunday.  We met Kristi's sister and brother-in-law for dinner at Red Lobster and they showed up with a life-size blow up Storm Trooper!!  LOL!

The family having a fun dinner.. being watched over by a Storm Trooper.  :-)

Hayden is now 8 years old!  

Dayle took the boys fishing today and Kristi went along to help.  Me.. I'm kind of burned out after a busy week and decided to stay home and enjoy the house to myself.  No swimming today.  It's already almost 80 degrees and gorgeous outside.  I think I might go out and walk about the garden and pick a big bouquet of lilacs!  What are you up to today?  ((hugs)), Teresa :-)