Scrappy Solution

With all the crochet projects I've been doing this year my scrap yarn ball basket is full to overflowing. I wanted to try a project I could make out of scraps and that I could add to in the future, so I found Jayda in Stitches' Scrapgahn tutorial and decided to give it a whirl Basically you make rows of half double crochet out of two strands of light and dark yarn held together. Simple, right? Other than knotting in more yarn as I used up each scrap ball I wouldn't even have to pay attention to it.

Yes, well. When my first attempt started to slant in at the sides I realized I was being a bit too cocky and assuming I knew everything about crochet again. I ripped out two days of work to fix that.

Here's the second attempt. This pattern does make a pretty thick blanket, but it's not quite as sturdy as Jayda's three-strand big beautiful basket. I like the stripy effect that comes from knotting in new colors, too.

I could keep going and use up all the balls in my basket, but I want to use acrylic yarns only rather than mix fibers; that way I can toss it in the washer and drier after I've blocked it. So I'll just add to it when I have acrylic yarn scraps in the future.

I like the idea of an ongoing crochet project that I can work on whenever I like.

I also was able to use about half of my yarn balls, too, so it's a great scrap buster project, too.

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Love Means This

Invested in a couple of hand-dyed bundles from one of my favorite fabric artists. This one said "Make me into something for Valentine's Day." So I went for a quilted and embellished tote. I kept thinking about what love means to me as I worked on it. Here's the finished tote. Although I was tempted to embellish with beads and pins, I got sick and only felt well enough to do a little stitching every night. As I worked I thought about how often love seems disappointing to us, especially when it fails to live up to our expectations. But now that I've experienced love in many forms, I can say that it's made me a better person than I might have been without it. Love is a precious thing, and should be appreciated in all its forms. I am very grateful for the love of my guy, my child and my friends who have stuck with me all these years. That's you two, in case you're wondering. :) Also finally found something to do with a ve...

Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.

Store Closing Haul

The mega Books-A-Million store over in Sanford is closing, and offered an extra 20% off on their current stock -- all sales final -- so I went over to do some shopping. Safely but sadly there was no one in the store but me the entire time I was there. The Holly Jackson novel is for Katherine, the Halloween board book is for Oliver, and the copy of Garden Spells is to keep on hand because I give that book to everyone. The rest of the books are for me. I love Anne Cleeves, and the Galbraith novel sounded interesting (the first couple weren't, but I'm willing to take another chance.) The Escape Room is by a new-to-me author, plus it was cheap. The GreenCraft mag is just a guilty pleasure. Hopefully the smaller BAM nearer to me won't close. I don't buy many books from brick-and-mortar stores these days, but that's really the last one within reasonable driving distance.

Valerean

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