Death - reading a crochet pattern is usually the hardest part, so I'd say you're doing very well! The nice things about granny squares: you can use up a lot of yarn scraps making them, there are tons of variations, it's not hard to lay them down then pick up where you left off, you can make clothing and so many things from them, they're small enough to be easily portable, and you can just keep increasing the sides until you have one giant, bed-sized quilt. The only down-side (from my perspective) is crocheting or sewing them together, then working in the yarn tails.

If traditional crochet pattern formats give you trouble, you might check out Japanese-style diagrams. The visual diagram is generally much easier to follow than the more traditional patterns. If you knit, you might try Tunisian crochet. The technique has several similarities to knitting and looks a lot like knitting when finished.

In any case, congratulations on mastering your first granny! Hope you'll be crocheting for decades to come!

Finally getting photos posted of the great supplies Eclectic Dreamer sent me. Sorry for the delay (end of school craziness, then surgery. Finally getting back on track).
First, a shot of all the loot.

Then, all the fabric, felt, and netting.

Next, the papercrafting goodies.

The yarn and sewing supplies.

And, finally, the miscellaneous craft supplies.

I needed new blades for my Exacto knives, so that was a very welcome surprise. I've been wanting to try felting, so that roving is going to be fun, too. I love all the blue and green buttons, but my favorite supplies of all are the bag of fabric scraps (for a crumbs quilt I'm making) and the plastic pieces from milk jug handles. They're hard to find, but so useful! I use them to crease paper when I'm making cards and to press seams open when I don't want to use my iron. This has been a great swap!

Sorry it's taken me so long to post the great MYB photos of Hayleylujah's swap with me. End of school craziness and then surgery have frazzled my brain.
I was so excited to receive that I forgot to get a before photo, but here are the unwrapped goodies.

The yarn is a really lovely shade of light green, although it appears more blue in this photo. I used this same yarn in a swap last year and fell in love with it. Now I can indulge myself and make something for me! Hayley included a pattern book that I'm going to use as my starting point.

Purchased items: a giant mug and teas which my elder daughter appropriated, owl embellishments for scrapbooking and cardmaking, origami kit, a dog stamp, and fingernail file and polish.

And lastly, the crafted items: a tiny bunny, a cabled cowl, a hoopla of flowers, an Irish shamrock pin, and homemade alcohol inks. I love cables and wear cowls a lot in the winter, I'm part Irish so of course the pin is going to get a lot of use, but my favorite of all is the alcohol inks. Can't wait to try them out!

Thank you so much, Hayleylujah!

Third times the charm. Wasn't paying attention, so posted the photo in the discussion thread. Then I realized what I had done, so began posting to the gallery board. Then Windows decided to do an update and closed out my post just as I was about to hit the post button. If this post gets knocked off too, I'm just going to give up. Hate technology that screws around with what I'm trying to accomplish!

Anyway, this is the great cathedral windows pincushion that Dollface made for me. Love it!!!


Postscript: Received a message that this post had timed out and to try again. Aargh!

Cute owl paintings.

Can't imagine a place big enough to hold them all, but wouldn't it be fun?

All our projects together in one place at one time? Thought that's what we were doing by posting here.

But, yes, I love that idea. Maybe we need a Craftster convention!!!!!

Sounds like this could be a lot of fun. Count me in.

I don't object to making an advent calendar but don't want another one for myself. I'd prefer the Christmas in July theme with an advent calendar as an option.

That would be fine with me, Lindy.