Almost Crafty

I realized something last night - I think I’m knitting a crochet version of a never-ending stockinette sweater in the round.

Here’s what I mean - I’m repeating the same crochet stitch (dc) over and over and over and over and over. And while I think that might drive a more experienced crocheter to tears with boredom - the way an experienced lace-knitter might be driven mad by round after round after round of knit stitches - I’m thoroughly enjoying it.

The crochet goes fast. In fact, since I’m no longer puzzling over which color to use next all the time, this blanket is going so much faster than v1.0 I can hardly believe it.

See for yourself:

Still plugging away. Still loving it. I may stop after this next section and try seaming a few of the squares together to see how they look. I’m glad I’m working on this one section at a time, rather than doing, say, all of the 2-rounds, then the 4-rounds, etc. because I’m not sure I’ll need to complete the entire pattern to make a decent-sized blanket. Especially since the pattern was written for fingering-weight yarn, and I’m using worsted. That’s a big difference.

For such a big project, I’m still not bored. I’m amazed. I can’t wait to see how it turns out!

I’ve made some progress on the latest Babette. I’m quite tickled with it, actually:

The colors (particularly the darker taupe color) are a little muddy in this picture, but you can see the general idea. 

My pace is a bit slower than the previous blanket, due mostly to two factors:

1. Ruby has become a permanent fixture on my lap, and has determined that the yarn ends are for eating. This does hinder progress, and a few nights I just had to give up entirely.

2. The arrival of this game in the apartment. I’m obsessed, and it has definitely cut into my crochet time. I’m only a little bit ashamed, because it’s really fun.

I have learned something new with this version of the blanket that I think will save some time in the long run. I’ve learned how to hide yarn ends as I crochet along, which will be a huge time saver. I’ll only need to darn in 1 or 2 ends from each square - sweet!

It also helps that I have stripe colors for panels 1-8 completely mapped out. I am making small tweaks as I go along, since the colors on Excel aren’t really accurate (I’m cutting a little pink, adding a little more stone, that sort of thing) so I don’t feel as pressured each time I pick up the project to balance the colors.  For me, that’s the hard part. It’s a lot easier to just do the actual crocheting part!

I’m trying not to be distracted by a knit blanket that’s somewhat similar. That’s going to have to wait. Really. It will.

If at first you don’t succeed, before you try again, stop to figure out what you did wrong.  -Leo Rosten

OK, I’ve decided.  I’m starting over. 

Before I do, I wanted to just go over what went wrong with the first attempt at this blanket.  The pattern is easy, the execution is simple and fun. 

But for someone who admits to being unable to blend colors together, I think I took too big of a leap with 10 different colors to work with.  Even when I picked them out, I thought -”Huh.  Well, the orange and the lime kind of stick out funny in my eyes.  The yellow, too.  So I guess I’ll just use them as accent colors, maybe?  That should work, right?”

And it could have.  In fact, someone else made an entire blanket using these exact same colors, with a beautiful outcome - here’s the link to the Flickr photo.  Isn’t that gorgeous? 

What really did me in was having the 10 colors, and no definite pattern to follow.  Having to make up the color combinations on my own was my true downfall.  I’m sure through trial and error mine might have turned out half as pretty as that blanket on Flickr.  But I got so concerned with the color choosing, I ended up sabatoging myself.  Instead of choosing colors that I thought looked pretty together, I thought I’d try to be… artistic, I guess.  Bold.

I should have known better.  For me, that way leads to ruin.  And an ugly blanket.

That concludes the “what went wrong” portion of this post.  Let’s look ahead at the new blanket I’m planning. 

I made a new excel spreadsheet.  Here’s a portion of it:

Oh my gosh, I like this SO much better.  Fewer colors, but I love the combinations they’re making.  It’s subtle, and there’s nothing wrong with subtle. 

I started it last night, and I think it’s going to be a keeper.  At least, I hope so.