Yarnification

Thanks for the birthday wishes, everyone! :)

I have new-project-itis again. Besides the things I was already working on, and there are plenty of them to begin with, in the past few days I’ve started a belt, which I’m making out of one strand each Red Heart Tiki (in the neutrals colorway) and Aunt Lydia’s Denim (in black). When I saw Sara last, Don and I took her out clothes shopping for her birthday, and she mentioned she was looking for a cool belt but didn’t find one while we were out. Then I saw this gorgeous belt that Tiffany made and got inspired. I started doing the same pattern that she used, but then I changed my mind because long rows tend to be a major test of my attention span, so I started over doing a simple 5 sc per row pattern, and it’s coming along nicely and looks pretty nifty. Looks like I’ll have enough left over to make one for me, too.

And then I went and spent some birthday money last night (my mom and mother-in-law both gave me cash, which I’m supposed to be spending on me but feel like I ought to be putting toward bills, so I’m compromising and doing some of both). So far I’d spent a bit of it here and there, but last night I decided one of the things I wanted to do was buy enough yarn for a lightweight afghan for my bed. For the past couple of years we haven’t had a suitable blanket for spring, so when the weather starts to warm up we either swelter under the comforter, freeze under just a sheet, or end up using one or two of the blankets we have that aren’t wide enough for a queen-size bed and either get all tangled up in blankets or have a tug of war over a too-narrow one.

So. I bought a bunch of Red Heart in claret and country rose (I wasn’t so sure about the country rose, but it matched the claret really well, and then when I got it home and away from the harsh fluorescent lights at Walmart I liked it much better) and brought it home and thought about what I wanted to do with it. I decided on this square pattern (I’m going to try that joining method, too—it looks pretty) in 12-inch squares. (The pattern for the squares on that page is way down at the bottom.)

Don and I put our heads together and drew up a bunch of grids and filled them in all different ways. Don came up with some really cool designs that would probably come out great in Tunisian crochet, particularly this really neat interlocking rings design he sketched out. (Really need to learn Tunisian one of these days.) After playing around with layouts for a while, this is what we decided on (colors are only vaguely approximate):

Because of the color scheme and the color names, I’m calling it my Wine and Roses afghan. (Disclaimer: That is off the top of my head and I would not be the least bit surprised if there were a published afghan pattern by that name. Also, don’t think I’m saying this is my original thing since I’m using someone else’s square pattern and all.) Here’s the first square (without edging, because the edging is going on as I join them):

The squares are working up pretty quickly, 8 rounds for a 12-inch square with my L hook.