Little Big Crochet Update ;)

Hello there!

I've been away from writing for longer than anticipated, partly because of procrastination or something.  I have been working on numerous projects though.

• Picked up pins & batting for the quilt (haven't decided on the back fabric yet tho)
• cleaned up the craft area (it looks very nice now- I'm very proud)
• began & finished an afghan
• began work on a granny triangle afghan, but they look more like granny wedges. This could be a fail... oh well...

OK, those are the only things that spring to mind project-wise. 

I'm most excited about the afghan that I finished. I started it on the flight back from Amber's wedding & finished it today. ^.^  The adventure of this piece was the yarn... you see I have this habit of picking up yarn on my various thrifting trips.  The only problem with thrifted yarn is that it is SUPER HARD to match...

So happy little Caleisha decides to start making granny squares with this really pretty yellow & really soft white yarn from a thrift haul. 

Blurry pic of the first square on the airplane.

Airplane crocheting

Of course I run out of the yellow yarn on the last square, so I just grabbed another bright yellow from my stash... which didn't match exactly, but you cant tell since I was only short a few clusters.  OK... I then decided to make the whole afghan from a gradient of yellow tones (bright yellow, pastel yellow, & cream- all thrifted).  It turned out pretty nice- I think.  I did two squares. One with a white stripe & the other without.

You can only really see the white stripe against the bright yellow.

I'm crocheting away... watching Bones & making quick progress using the join-as-you-go method to attach the squares.  It was really good to be able to see the blanket growing instead of having a stack of squares looming & waiting to be stitched together.

Crochet & Bones... My tradition.

I moved on through the pastel blocks with no problem.  I figured I had enough of the cream as well, but no... I didn't have enough cream and the only other yarn I found in my stash that color was 100% wool... UGH... talk about problem solving. Off to the craft store I went to find a comparable yarn. Go figure the cream was a 3-ply.

WHAT THE CRAP! 3-ply... seriously?!

So I'm looking all through the yarns for something 3-ply, but soon gave up on that and picked up a ball of vanna white baby yarn that matched the color. Crisis averted on that front & the cream blocks were finished.  Now, the original plan was to make the blanket 3x6, but once it was finished... it looked weird... too skinny.  Solution- add another row & make it 4x6.  Now if you remember, I ran out of the thrifted bright yarn and by this time, I am also running dangerously low on the cream yarn I bought... So, again, off to the craft store. I went to Michaels & Joanns before I found a color that matched the bright yellow at Hobby Lobby.  I also didn't want to buy another ball of the cream because they were like $4 each for a little ball... lucky me, I found another yarn in the back of my stash & was able to pretty much match the baby yarn by using two strands together... *wipes forehead from sheer yarn-matching frustration*

Sheesh, this is getting long... sorry...

I successfully added my 4th row to the afghan & did a granny stripe of white around the edge.  All my ends are woven in & I ran it through the wash/dryer to soften up all the yarns.

After all the running around & matching attempts, I'm very happy with the finished afghan. :)

Pre-wash afghan.  The squares are about 9"x9".

Post-wash. It's very soft! Yay for finished pieces!

 It's just too bad that it's really hot now so covering up with it is totally out of the question. But it's so pretty & it will be gracing the back of my sofa until a chilly future evening. :)

Lesson learned: thrift store yarns are best for small projects... if you want to do something large, go match the yarn first. lol.