in excess

Remember how I told you everything I do is in excess? Well, here is more proof. I belong to a group called All Crafts for Charity on the Yahoo site and each month they have a different project they work towards. In the past, I have been more active with that online group, even hosting a month myself, which was a lot of work, but a lot of fun. One of the ongoing needs for each of the monthly projects is 7 inch squares. The squares can be knitted or crocheted, acrlyic or wool. You make as many squares as you want and then send them to one of the joiners who puts squares together from people all over the country (and world sometimes) and then sends the completed blankets to the monthly project. January's project is Bundles of Love in Minnesota. They give Bundles of baby items to new mothers who have little or nothing and have to take their babies home in the cold Minnesota winters. I am cold when it is 60 degrees outside. I couldn't imagine going out when it was negative anything.

So, when I sit and watch TV, or watch the little guy play video games or just sit and need to relax from a busy day of quilting, I crochet. I am trying to go for the title of "World's fastest crocheter" and almost have my speed high enough, when I am at home, in private, with nobody looking. I entered a contest at the local Michael's once and almost died of a heart attack and started shaking so I doubt I would ever win for real, but I can crochet really fast. I can make a 7 inch crochet square in about 10 minutes. My mind wanders and I just think about things and have 10 minutes to pray for the kids in my classes or for my family, or just think about nothing. It looks like I am doing something, so the kids leave me alone, sometimes.

Well, back in November, I picked out a bag of yarn and decided that I was going to work through that bag and make as many squares as I could by the end of the month of December and then send them in to the project.

I don't like weaving the ends in, so luckily the person who is getting them from me doesn't mind doing that for me.

This is what I came up with in about 6 weeks of free time. Of course, there was a week of Thanksgiving in there and almost two weeks of Christmas vacation as well.

155 squares. I have no idea how many afghans this will make, but it should keep a few babies warmer this winter and it gets a whole bag of yarn out of the house. I am going to fill the bag back up and start over again. I will keep working and at the end of February send another box of squares out to a different joiner for a different project.