My Year of Crochet

On Christmas Eve i sat down with some ugly lime green red heart yarn and a size J crochet hook (it's purple!!) and started teaching myself to crochet...again.

See Grandma Wonick taught me to crochet one of those oval shaped rugs when i was about 8, she gave me a couple balls of red acrylic yarn and away i went. it kept me busy almost the whole two weeks we were in Iowa, and on the greyhound bus ride home. Then i ran out of yarn, and couldn't get more. so i gave up and it fell into obscurity.

Armed with my ugly green leftovers, my purple hook and my trusty iPhone, i got a chain done (i could do that in my sleep anyway) and then started Single Crochet. Not too hard right? WRONG! my swatch started to look like a Christmas tree, getting smaller and smaller each row. I did of course figure out that I'm supposed to chain one at the end of each row...yes. I'm smart like that.

as soon as i finished that i scoured Ravelry for a Single Crochet Baby Blanket pattern, which i found, ignored and chained the foundation row for my own. I'm using a mixture of yarns, Lion Brand Pound of Love in Antique White, and Pop N Yarn in Aqua. This yarn is ancient. I got it from Gail's big bag o' yarn. and i used every single yard of the blue doing 4 round of edging. I'm back on the antique white to edge THAT and make the thing bigger. because i haz no concept of what size a baby blanket should be.

in the middle of hooking this blanket, i decided to learn Double Crochet and Half Double Crochet. I made washcloths using a single ball of Lily Sugar and Cream Cotton. Everyone is getting cotton cloths and home made soap for Christmas. cleans out my stash /dance

So last night while working on the blanket that doesn't end, i decided this year would be a whole year of crochet. I'll learn new stitches by making wash cloths to stash for Christmas, and larger projects with stitches i like. Also the shawl i promised my mom last year (oops). also kae wants a poncho, and a blanket of her own (which I've been promising for two years).

This is not to say i won't knit. I'm still doing Knit Ishinomaki, making and donating scarves to Japan Relief for the people who are in temporary housing. And the Ravelympics is coming up again!