Crochet-a-pa-looza

I’ve been doing a lot of crocheting lately.  A lot.   I’m getting pretty good at reading instructions and fixing mistakes and stuff!

The first project I finished is a baby afghan I made to donate to a worthy cause.  A few months ago I discovered a local yarn store called The Yarn Cloud.  It’s a great store! Almost all of their yarn is unique to them, made just for their store in the Cezch Republic! The owner of the store had a box set up by the door that was piled up with knitted and crocheted  donations that she was giving to the pregnancy crisis center in Manassas. She said this was a year round collection and I knew it was just the place to donate the afghan I was planning with some leftover yarn! 

I had 2 skeins of white Bernat Baby Coordinates Yarn left over from making a baby afghan for what we thought was Baby Jack, who later turned out to be Leah! It was too much to just toss, but there weren’t any babies on the horizon so I’d decided to crochet it up and donate the afghan. 

My first idea for the afghan was to make granny squares and then connect them – I started it that way to use up some of the blue I also had left over, however when I joined them I didn’t like it very much so I pulled it all out.  When I did Baby Jack’s afghan I used my big afghan hook, it worked ok, but since then I’d seen a swatch with the same yarn only it was done really tight and it looked nice so I’d decided I’d use a smaller hook this time.   I didn’t want it to be huge, but after I started it I realized that it was too narrow so after I stitched up the 1st skein I decided to stitch along the long side on both sides to made it wider.   One day over spring break I spent all day stitching along the side of the afghan – I was going to make 20 rows on each side and I was about 8 rows in when I realized the rows were curving! It was bugging me. A lot. I realized why…I’d made a stitch in each space along the side and therefore there were more stitches than rows, which I knew would make it curve.  So I ripped out about 6 hours worth of work and started over.  It was frustrating, but worth it.  After I finished adding 20 vertical rows to each side I crocheted all around the whole thing until the yarn ran out.  By this time I was ready to be done with the whole thing, yet the yarn simply wouldn’t end.  Every time I looked at what I had left it appeared that I’d hadn’t made a dent in it! Friday night I thought I’d stay up till it was done, about 11:30 my hands couldn’t crochet anymore and I gave up.  I started up again Saturday morning and crocheted for 4 more hours before it was done! Glad I didn’t stay up Friday night! 

Here’s the finished afghan:

When I was at The Yarn Cloud in December I picked up a skein of thick purple variegated bamboo yarn.  It had the feel of shoelace, but it was very soft and pliable.  I thought it would be perfect for a placemat.  My plan was that when I finished the afghan I’d start on that since I was pretty sure I’d need more yarn and when I went to get more yarn I could drop the afghan off at the store.  Within hours of finishing the afghan I started on the placemat.  Before I could get started I needed to know what size hook to use, I knew the info was on the Yarn Cloud’s website so I went to take a look, and when I did I learned that the store had been closed all week and the 1st chance I’d get to go would be Wed afterschool! Hmmmm…glad I didn’t finish the afghan sooner! Luckily I have a hook that is close to the correct size – I used a size smaller to make it tighter – so was off and running quickly.  I used a placemat I already have as a model for the size.  Unlike the baby yarn I crocheted my way through this skein in about an hour.   I did fall in love with the yarn though! It’s both stiff and soft.  It’s perfect for placemats and rugs! The only problem is that a skein is only 90 yards and costs $10.  The owner of the store told me that she made a bathmat with yarn and it took 14 skeins. Yikes!

All week I was looking forward to my trip to the yarn store on Wed afternoon.  I ended up leaving work later than I’d planned and then there were some huge storms coming through!  A tornado warning was issued for Prince William County when I was about 1/2 way there, but things didn’t look bad where I was, despite the huge, bright red storm heading my way that I could see on the radar! I forged ahead with the plan.  I was in and out of the yarn store in 10 minutes and even saw a rainbow on my way out! Later I found out there were tornados with the storm that was practically on top of me when I was at the yarn store!

My plan for this piece also involved doing a double crochet body and then going around it for a border.  With this piece I was going to make a row of double crochets followed by a chain stitch to make it open.  After I finished the body I went around the whole thing with single crochets and then started the round with the double crochet/chain pattern.  I discovered that the corners didn’t come out right if there were an odd number of rows.  I forged ahead though and it wasn’t until I started the next round that I realized how I’d done the corners was going to make huge holes so I figured I needed to add another row to the body so that both sides had an odd number of stitched.  So I ripped out the whole border (about an evenings worth's of work) and started over.  I added a row to the body and started the border again.  Only to discover that adding the row didn’t fully solve the problem, so I ended up doubling up the stitches on the corners and it seemed to work.  Also I decided that I needed to use treble stitches for the row with spaces instead of doubles, glad I did, it looks much better now! 

Here’s the finished placemat:

I also have 2 projects in progress:

A few weeks ago I went to Williamsburg for the day to help my grandma with her computer and as a treat when I was done I paid a visit to Knitting Sisters, what a lovely shop! While there I found a number of delightful yarns, one of which was made from sugar cane! It was soft and shiny and pink! They had a number of other colors but the pink struck me so that was the one I got.  I decided I’d crochet a purse for Leah with it.  When I started crocheting with it though I decided that it just wasn’t the right type of yarn for a purse, it was too delicate.  I shifted gears and decided to make a scarf out of for a friend who recently survived breast cancer.  (I hope she’s not reading this…hmmmm….oh well…I’m sure she knows who she is…act surprised! ;-)  I also decided that this was the perfect opportunity to try out one of the stitches in my new book of crochet stitches!

I got started the other night, but when I got to the end of the 3rd row I discovered that I hadn’t chained the correct number of stitches.  So I ripped it out and started again, carefully counting the chains this time.  Once again I got to the end of the 3rd row and realized I didn’t have enough stitches.  So I decided to try it with some different yarn and a bigger hook.  This time I got it and worked through one repeat of the pattern before going back to the cool sugar cane yarn and the tiny hook.  Third time must be a charm because this time I got it!

Here’s what I’ve got so far – just a few hours worth of work on it so far:

I recently bought some glow in the dark yarn on Ebay.  I’d read about the yarn in a Crochet Mystery I was reading and googled it only to discover that it was discontinued! Ebay to the rescue! I’d been debating what to do with it, when I decided that a rug would be cool.  I found a pattern in my crochet shapes book that had a 3-D flower in the middle of a square! I did a practice square a few weeks ago and was ready to get started.  I decided to use some cotton yarn I’d gotten on sale for the background.  I have a limited amount of the glow in the dark stuff so I want to make it go as far as I can.  The nice thing with these squares is that I can do each one in about an hour or so and it’s perfect to work on in the evenings!  After doing 2 squares I like how it’s coming out, however I’m seeing it more as a bed spread/blanket than a rug, we’ll see if I have enough glow in the dark yarn!

So far there hasn’t been any crochet drama with this project, but I did have to spend about an hour untangling the glow in the dark yarn because I couldn’t figure out where to start it!  The glow in the dark yarn is also not the best texture – it’s an acrylic/polyester blend so it’s just kinda weird – seems to be prefect for the accent flower though. 

Here’s a picture of the 2 squares I’ve done so far (I couldn’t capture the glow in the dark factor on film, maybe when I have more squares it will glow brighter):