April, no fooling

Happy April!

You won't get any "happy April Fools" from me though, it's been on my my personal holiday (bad word) list since I was ten or so, when my mom approached me with a pack of gum, and me in my gullibleness, in sheer delight that mom was giving me something sugary, put my fingers in the wrapper only for there to be a little snap, a spring snapping on my finger instead of a stick of gum in my hand. I know I insisted afterwords, my cheeks streaked with the tears, that my fingers had been pinched, but I can't say now whether that was true, or whether I was just shocked, hurt, and crying from the realization that the world can be a cruel place. Oh, and hi mom, I look forward to getting your email where you tell me that was nearly 20 years ago and I should just get over it.

I'm a bit relieved it's now April, and that I no longer have the dead weight of the National Crochet Month Freeform-Along riding on my back, weighing me down with the sour anticipation of having to catch up with the project and continue creating useless ugliness. I suppose I am just hamming it up a bit, but really, I prefer my projects to be useful and pretty, thank you very much. I did however like learning new crochet stitches, so I might just do my own little one-person useful-project-with-lots-of-new-stitches crochet along.
At least I didn't bother weaving in most of the ends.
I did wake up yesterday with the intention of finishing it, but I felted around a bar of soap instead (I'll post pictures when it dries).

I've gotten a teeny bit further into J's gloves, and nearly finished knitting another finger. A few days ago I also pulled out of the closet my mostly done Twist and Shout sweater, the only long-standing UFO left of the ones I brought to England. The body is finished, but I've ripped out the (fortunately) not yet attached sleeves which weren't done very well, and they are now drying and hopefully unkinking.
The freeform along hasn't put me off crochet though. I really want to make this Super Mario Brothers Blanket. My sister says she wouldn't mind a blanket (didn't tell her what it'd look like though), so I'll be making it for her as a Christmas present. Is anyone else thinking of making it? We can have our own little crochet along...

Speaking of alongs, I'm still doing the bakealong. Last week was jam-filled baked goods, so I made vampire cookies (if you make it, don't forget to flour the rolling pin as well, the dough is very sticky, and leave plenty of room in between each cookie, they spread). This week is something with lemon. Not sure what I'm making this week ... maybe a cake? Feel free to join the bake-along thread on ravelry, you don't have to a group member or anything like that.