Sorry, I haven’t been keeping up the blog. I am just out of practice. I will try to do better.

My health progress is doing well. My hands have healed of the nueropathy that plagued them into inactivity. My blood pressure and blood glucose levels are now at healthy levels and I have lost 51 pounds. I am thoroughly enjoying cooking healthy with creativity.

Today we had a wonderful Easter feast and it was so simple and easy for me to eat healthy. I tasted literally one bite of some foods to be polite and also to keep from feeling deprived. I had fruit with cool whip for desert instead of the apple pie and I really was just as happy as all of my family. Actually, maybe even happier because now hours later I don’t feel sick and blotted and over stuffed as some may. So I am happy with the choices I made for today.

I have finished a few new projects in crochet/knit since starting my new healthy lifestyle. I finished a dress length coat for my mother, a prayer shawl in honor of my dear friend Kelly, and I am currently working on a size Med/Large sweater for me for Christmas in Holiday Red. Also, I am working on a beautiful Moorish Mosaic Afghan/Bedspread for my bed.

The afghan has me pretty excited. I have long wanted to do a real tile mosaic and I have wanted to make a beautiful warm heirloom quilt for my bed. I have the best of both worlds and get to work in crochet. Each octagon and square in the mosaic pattern are individual creative designs. Mixing colors in different ways across the pattern creates each octagon as its own work of art. I had started a snowflake patterned design last year, but I got bored making so many of the same exact pattern and then my hands quit working. Now I am able to use those snowflakes as the centers to the squares of this quilt design and it only takes five rows per square to finish them. I think I already have enough snowflakes made to finish this quilt.

As I look at the different colors of yarn and choose which I will use for the next octagon, I tap into a my muse and the layout of the colors seem to call to me as to the next color combo. I have many beautiful octagons so far, but I am finding the style and mixtures I like best within the pattern. I will try to figure out how to post the sample of octagons I have completed to give you an idea. Not sure how to do that here, but lets see if it works.

Moorish Mosaic Afghan