Yarnification

Hoo boy, am I ever hating the ends on this throw rug. I had this idea they’d hide better in the seams since it’s done with two strands of yarn, one neutral and one a color that changes every fourteen rows. Next time I say a thing like that, somebody please smack me upside the head, ok?

For one thing, it’s a rug. There’s a back and a front. Nobody will see if the ends don’t hide perfectly because there are multiple colors in each block! For another thing, it turns out they’re hiding nicely along the rows, so I could’ve done this as I went along and saved myself a lot of hassle instead of waiting until I had the strips sewn together.

I always resist doing the ends until the very end of a project, though, and I always regret it when I’m doing them all at once. Maybe someday I’ll learn.

In other news, I’ve been doing some practice squares in thread and I think I’m good enough at it to start on that beaded shawl. The first two squares I did my tension was all over the place and I kept losing stitches at the end of a the row because it was so teeny-tiny, but I think I’ve got that all worked out now.

Back from my weekend trip…

So first with the scrubbies, since there’s the least to say: I’m going to try the other pattern. When I used one on the dishes the other day, it was ok but almost too thick, a little unmanageable, so I’m going to try the other pattern and see how it works out.

I was away this part of the weekend and got lots done on the shawl in transit. I’m on row 36 of (I think) 47 now, so it shouldn’t take too much longer to finish it up. Here’s are a couple of pics of it now—I couldn’t get the whole thing in the picture without assistance, but at these least show that it’s starting to look more like a shawl and less like a triangle that’s hoping to be a shawl when it grows up. Once it’s done I’ll have to get Don to help me take a picture of it.

The scrap yarn rug is also nearly finished, just need to sew one or two more seams and then work in all the ends. I’m not looking forward to those ends all, but I figure I’ll do it in front of the TV some night this week so I don’t get too bored.

While I was away this weekend, we stopped at Hobby Lobby in Columbus. (Michael’s, too, in case they had anything fun on sale, but no luck there.) At Hobby Lobby I was good—I stuck to my list of what I needed for some gifts I’m planning on making and didn’t even get all that Red Heart yarn in Woodsy that was on sale for $1.09/skein. I’m sorta kicking myself for that now because I’m sure it would’ve been great for something, but then we’re not exactly made of money these days, either, so I decided I really shouldn’t splurge on it. I picked up cotton yarn (white and cornflower blue) for the Polish star potholders (I printed the pattern out from somewhere, maybe freepatterns.com, a couple of years ago, but can’t find it online anymore to link to it) and white thread and a zillion rice beads (still need to find the other kind of bead the pattern called for) for a beaded fishnet shawl (PDF file). Oh, and a couple of hooks because I’ve never actually done anything in thread before. I got the size hook the pattern called for and the next two bigger sizes, figuring that if it works out anything close to how yarn does for me, I’ll probably need a bigger hook.

I’ll need to do some practice squares with the thread to get used to working with it. I hope it doesn’t try my patience too much while I’m getting the hang of it!

This is the one nylon scrubbie I have finished. This is the first time I’ve worked with this stuff, and and it was very strange to work with at first. This one is a bit rough-looking because at first I was having a little trouble not making bumbly bits around the edges when I joined the two sides. (The pattern makes one, but I decided to make two and join them.)

Even though things were coming out smoother by the time I finished joining (you can kinda see where about half has the bumply bits and half doesn’t), I’m thinking of trying this scrubbie pattern instead, though, since it sounds like it makes a double-sided one without joining two rounds together, which might work out a lot better.

I completely broke the blog for about ten minutes.

Apparently I know just enough to be dangerous.

I’ve been putting all my spare time today — and some time that wasn’t, strictly speaking, “spare” — into the shawl, and it’s coming along. (For some reason it looks squiggly along the top in both of these pictures — I’m not sure what’s up with that since it doesn’t really look like that when I lay it out and look at it.)

This was how it looked yesterday:

And this is just now, after 23 out of 47 rows. I couldn’t fit it all in the picture this time since I couldn’t get far enough above it. I’m at work right now (I’ve technically been off since five-ish, but I’m here for a while longer while I wait for Don to come get me) and since the piece of foamboard I used to take the picture yesterday got used today, I had to use a counter that was pretty high up.

The throw rug is coming along, too, but it’s at home right now so no pictures. Out of eight strips, I’ve got two pairs sewn together, so five more seams to make and infinitely many ends to work in since it didn’t seem reasonable to work them in as I went along — I’m thinking they’ll hide a lot better in the seams.

These are older pictures, from last fall I think, but it seems eminently suited to a crochet blog. This is Lena helping me crochet a rag rug:

It’s turned into fall awfully fast this year; the weather was in the 80s less than a week ago, but these past few days we’ve had highs of 70° and lows in the low 40s.

That means it’s crochet season again for me. I can hardly touch it all summer in the heat, but by this time of year I’m itching to pick it up. And I’ve done what I usually do in the fall: I’ve started half of the projects I spent the summer eyeing.

What I’m doing right now:
Nylon dish scrubbies: One down, a bunch to go. Cutting the netting was the biggest problem. I’ve never done these before, and I just unfolded it and started cutting individual strips. Later I read that I wasn’t supposed to unfold it — oops! Next time I’ll know, anyway!

A scrap yarn rug. This is in the assembly stage right now — with any luck I’ll have it finished up and in residence in front of the kitchen sink within about a week.

And this cotton shawl, but with some modifications. I have a pound of worsted weight cotton yarn that I bought for something else and didn’t use, so I wanted to use that instead of the double strand of fingering weight yarn. I ended up using a single strand of worsted weight with the same size hook, though a normal person probably would’ve had to use an F or a G since I usually need a bigger hook than what a given pattern calls for.

I’m sure it would’ve been more delicate-looking in the yarn the pattern called for, but I’m happy with how it’s working up. It looks really comfy.

I’ll be back with pictures as things get finished!