The Wool Eater

You want to know what the hardest part about blogging is. It's coming up with a catchy title. And I suck at it. I’m seriously considering just numbering them like for podcasts.

Our internet was down all day Sunday. And, of course, that was the one day that I had great ideas to blog about & loads of time to do it. Of course. Actually, the internet is still down today on Monday so I’m typing this up in Word & will upload it when & if the damn thing ever comes back up. Update: It's UP!!

What’s on My Needles:

The wrong side looks like Chrysanthemums

I knitted & crocheted so much yesterday that I’ve aggravated my right shoulder/arm/wrist/hand.

I’m working obsessively on The Wool Eater Blanket by Sarah London. I don’t think I’ve blogged about this project before. It’s crochet which I don’t normally like the looks of. (Wow! My grammar is horrid!) Anyway, this afghan looks amazing. Take a look at some projects on Ravelry & I think you’ll agree with me. The back side is nice too. It is worked from the center out in a square. It’s a two round repeat.

The pattern was a little tricky. Or it may be that my crochet skills are not up to the level of this pattern. Oh yea. I just remembered that it's written in Australian terminology which makes it more confusing for me. The rest of this paragraph is tedious detail about the pattern. Skip ahead if you're so inclined.  I read a lot about it on Ravelry which lead me to a video for Bavarian crochet. This is apparently what this pattern uses. The video helped a lot. Combined with the comments on Ravelry & I was able to figure this pattern out. Even with help the hard parts for me were figuring out where to place the slip stitches for rows 3, 5 and placement of the 8 cluny group on those same rows. FYI-For the 8 cluny group you don’t make any stitches in the “dip” where the slip stitch is. You only make the cluny group over the back posts of the previous rounds trc. Until this afghan I had never done backpost crochet. In fact, I’d never heard of it. I would recommend doing a practice run with worsted weight yarn before you jump off into your project.

I’m using only stash yarns. At least that was the plan. I thought I’d have plenty of this off the wall yarn that I picked up at Walmart a year or so ago for $1 per skein. It's called Georga Promo Fil. I bought 9 or 10 skeins of white, 1 of a dark purple, 1 of a light purple & 1 light blue. I’ve used small amounts of the purples for hats.  The yarn is very soft, acrylic, dk weight. I’m not sure of the yardage & can’t look it up because the damn internet is down. I also had almost a full skein of Universal Yarns Worsted Tapestry in a colorway that works well with the others. 

My plan was to alternate two rows/rounds of white, two of color, two white, etc. All went well through round 17 when I only made it ¾ of the way with the light purple. So, I finished that last ¼ round with white. Then the next two rounds were white. My next two rounds are with the dark purple. Except that I only have 12 g left after one round. Argh! I think I’ll try the next round with the pale blue & see how it looks. Or maybe hit the LYS in search of a compatible purple dk weight. I still have 3-4 skeins of white left but I’m almost out of colors. It’s only about 22 inches square now and each repeat grows it about 1.5 inches.

Update: I ran by Nan's Needleworks yesterday & picked up two skeins of Dark Horse in two colorways that will work. So, I don't even want to think of how much this small "stash buster" blanket is gonna cost me. Not that the Dark Horse was expensive. It was on sale even.

The other new item OTN is a Fir Cone Square Shawl by Cheryl Oberle. I’ve loved this pattern for years. Somehow, I’m a moderator on the Folk Shawls forum on Ravelry. We’ve decided to do a KAL for the Fir Cone. So, I cast on yesterday using some old laceweight that I got from B several years ago. I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 8000 yards of it. It’s rather scratchy & I’d definitely rather use fingering weight but I just can’t justify spending the money right now on 2200 yards of yarn with all the medical bills.

What’s NOT on my needles: anything for the Market Days in September. I’m bad. That’s what I should be working on. I know. Baby things. I do have a couple of baby blankets, hats & one sweater in my basket. But I need more. I know.