More crochet and muffins

M's school project - finished!

Niece M came to visit and get another crochet lesson yesterday. When El Jefe told me she was coming and that her project was due on Friday, I thought "Oh, no, don't tell me she didn't finished it yet!" But she did. Apparently, she has to do another one and waited until the last minute to come to get another pattern. I hope she finishes in time.

She found a pattern that I think will go pretty quickly if she sticks to it. I only had to show her one new stitch, a picot. I have dozens of pattern books, but the problem is that almost all of them have written instructions in English instead of diagrams like the Spanish magazines so the selection is limited.

She lost the pattern for her first project and just made something up for the last few rows which made it ruffly around the edges. It looks pretty good! Especially for a first project. I ironed it for her and in the process discovered that she had just cut the thread at the end and hadn't secured it! It's lucky that the whole thing didn't unravel. I guess the teacher doesn't show them anything. As much as I like the idea of M learning to crochet, I can't help but wonder why they are taking up time in school to 'teach' it. It is a "bilingual school," yet she only gets 30 minutes of English a day.

She still has a problem following the pattern. She starts a round and then halfway through it, she changes the stitches. I stressed that you have to count the stitches and stop to compare your work to the pattern every so often instead of waiting until you have to rip out entire rows. I tried to explain that the people who do the best work (no matter what kind of work it is), always check their own work instead of waiting for someone else to tell them whether it is good or bad. It seemed to be a new concept for her. I hope she remembers it.

I served her a pumpkin muffin for a snack while she was here. What I said was that it was caque de cabeza (head cakes). Ha ha. Oops, that should have been calabaza (squash, or in this case, pumpkin). When I saw her eyes get big (never knowing what kind of weird customs we gringas might have), I realized my error, but just for fun I said, "Yes, I cut some heads off the people and make cake out of it." She laughed a lot. She said, "¡Que rico!" (How delicious!).

By the way, don't bother trying to look up the word 'caque.' It's not a real Spanish word but it is used here for 'cake.' I'm not even sure if I spelled it right.

She also brought this excellent doily from home to show me. I said, "I made that! I made it for your mother for Christmas a few years ago."

The doily below is the latest one that I made. I don't know what I'll do with all these doilies. I've never really been a doily person, I just do it to keep my hands busy when I'm watching television.





I think I'll try crocheting some drinking glass covers next.