Pretty Maids all in a Row

All of that pretty, "pool-colored" yarn I posted about 2 months ago has turned into this:

Eleven, lovely, crocheted clutches!  My good friend, Kate is getting married today and her bridesmaids and other special women at the wedding will be getting these. Aren't they lucky?? ;)

I found the pattern for the Granny Stripe Boutique Bag at Tangled Happy.  This was Sara's first pattern, isn't it great?  She is always finding the best crochet projects on the web--if you need inspiration just go there!

Almost all of these were done with your basic Sugar 'n Cream cotton yarn, one was done with some Lion Brand Cotton and two were done with Cotton Ease. Kate had given her bridesmaids some paint chips in various shades of blue, green and purple and gave them free reign to just find a dress that would match.  Isn't that brave? So I got a set of paint chips as well and got to search high and low for the perfect colors of yarn--such torture! I did come out on the other side realizing that there is a serious lack of teal yarn out there and lots of pink yarn.

I am so happy I was able to find the colors that I did.  And I'm glad I don't have to pick my favorite one!  Kate claimed the pretty seafoam one between the bright turquoise and purple ones (upper right).

Lettuce Crochet!

The crocheting has become obsessive.  The good news? It is relatively quick which means I actually can finish a project before I get bored.  There have been loads of hats, booties animals and little booties being made.  Luckily, the last four months have been chock-full of friends and families having babies so everything is finding a good home.
I did feel like I was near getting in a rut so I decided to try something new.  A market bag!

About 5 dc in, I suspected I would never use it, but thought it was still cute. About  6 rows in (of about 35) I knew I was going to go bonkers with the repetition, but I also knew I would be done that night and could suffer through.

The yarn is Sugar 'n Cream in the Lime Stripes colorway.  I am a sucker for this yarn--it is inexpensive and I can buy it locally.  This is my first time using the stripes--admittedly, it is more appropriate for a more "solid" project like a scarf--and I think that next time I will look for one that uses completely different colors so it doesn't seen like plain-old variegated  yarn.  But I was pretty excited  that each color was equal to one round.  Good planning on my part (as if)!  Before I stretched it a bit, it was all curly and looked like a pile of lettuce.

In case you are curious, I started with this pattern.  But then when I got to round 6 I did not read carefully and just repeated round 5 about 18 times or so, after which I realized my mistake and just decided to wing it from there!