Excited To Be Here!

First of all, thank you for allowing me to join as a participant on this blog! I'm very excited to be a part of it! I have enjoyed reading through many of the posts and seeing the pictures.

A little bit about me... My name is Gina. I live in Columbus, WI, USA and have a 9 year old son and two 3 year old Sealpoint Siamese cats. I'm happily engaged and life is good...for the time being! ;o)

I LOVE to crochet! My grandma (mom's mom) taught me to crochet the basic stitches when I was a kid...when in my late teens early 20's I borrowed books from the library on crochet. I now crochet all the time. My favorite things to crochet are afghans, and a close running second within only the last week has been crocheting dishcloths! I never crocheted a dishcloth before...Why on earth hadn't I tried making one years ago???

My latest new form of entertainment is to join in swaps. I actively participate in swaps on Ravelry.com as well as here on Google Blogger. Prior to 2009, I had no idea what a swap even was!

I am currently working on some dishcloths for a swap I'm involved in...will have to post pictures when they are done. I found a free pattern online for some awesome flower shaped washcloths! They are so pretty!

The last swap I was in was a FRIENDS Swap. I made my swap partner an afghan titled Flower Field Afghan. This was my F gift, as we had to come up with a gift for each letter in the word FRIENDS.I found the pattern for this afghan online at Coats and Clark. The pattern is free and was designed by Ellen Gormley for Coats and Clark. The only difference between the original pattern design and my finished product is that my fiancee suggested that I make and add the little flowers in the cross intersections where the squares get whip-stitched together. This was to aid in hiding my whip stitching imperfections since I had a hard time getting them to look proportionate. (Shh....don't tell anyone, but I'm not very good at making afghans with squares I have to whip-stitch together! ;) I'm glad he suggested it...the little flowers and the added bumblebee buttons (because my swap partner liked flowers and bees) not only hid my imperfections, but they added depth and personalized charm to the afghan. I started the afghan on May 25, 2009 and finished it on July 10, 2009.

You can view more about this afghan as well as my other projects by visiting my blog: Afghans By Gina. I look forward to having the opportunity to share more with you, and to get to know each of you better and see and learn new things about crochet!