In-laws, a neice and a nephew, oh my!

I had some company come to visit this weekend.

My in-laws brought 2 of the cousins over for a visit. Their trip here last Wednesday was hampered by a nasty snowstorm and a couple of wrecks along the way that caused big delays, so we were very glad when they made it. The snowstorm followed them, here, though, and we had another day like this one with the horizontal snow. The poor puppy did NOT want to spend any time outside, even to do her business... which meant she spent more time outside when I had to deal with it.

Since my MIL was actually HERE, I finally got around to clipping those too short handles on her Sophie and lengthened them so we could felt it while she was here. I made a big deal of the felting, showing all the kids the magic trick that shrunk it. Much entertainment there! I also thought it called for a little something more to make it special, so MIL and I went hunting for just the right thing. We finally settled on a little brooch. Here's the finished bag:

See... she likes it:

My next trick was to fix my daughter's poncho. I had to do 3 rows of double crochet, with the 2nd and 3rd each skipping some stitches on the row before to reduce the overall number of stitches in order to make the neckline small enough. But, it fits now:

I started the fun fur type edging on it, too. I got all the way around the neck and 3/4 of the way around the bottom before I ran out of yarn, so I'm going to have to pick up some more, and I'll have plenty left over after finishing the bottom hem. I think I'll have a use for the rest, though... the little one doesn't like how open the stitches are that I did at the neckline, so I'll work another row or two around there to hide it. I'm trying to figure out what to do with the extra Wiggles yarn, too. I might be able to make a headband or even the cuffs on a pair of anklet socks for her, who knows. If I decide on the anklets, it'll probably be a long time before I get to them.

I got to go to this month's Crochet Meetup. Everyone there but me was there for the first time. I've only actually been to one other one, and here I was being the old-timer. Too weird.

I met some lovely ladies. One of them had brought some finished doilies and was working on a doily there as well. She has only been crocheting since just a little before Christmas, but she was clearly better than I was. You should have seen her working... I've never seen anything like it. She was SOOOOOOO fast! It was simply amazing. She was holding the working thread different than I do... the completed stuff just hung underneath (I usually hold it to keep it from hanging, because I'm afraid that will elongate the stitches). I hope she comes again... I'd like to watch closer as she's working to see if I could do it. My crocheting is much more ponderous deliberate, which means even when I'm working fast, I'm going much slower than she was.