Skip to main content

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.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Fell Off the Wagon

I did cut up that plastic dollar tote to make into something stronger, but got caught up with work and set it aside. Then last night some hand-dyed silk and pretty threads called my name, and, well . . . Felt SO good to do some handwork, except my neck began hurting about an hour into it. I tried changing the way I sit and work, but it's pretty obvious that the doc is right.

Old Loves & Such

My guy kindly bought me my favorite Chinese take out the other night, and my fortune cookie offered up an interesting story starter: This sounds sweet, right? Only the first thing I thought of was an old love coming back from the dead . . . . must be October. In other lovely news, my favorite hand-dyed thread artist, Lorraine from Colour Complements , is moving her business from Etsy to her own web site. Many of my favorite sellers on Etsy are leaving due to the whole "free shipping" coercion debacle, which has also soured me on the site. To show support I did a little shopping at Lorraine's web site and got in these: I love her threads and trims; you simply can't buy anything like them anywhere. Her work makes my specialty thread box look like a treasure chest: At night I'm spending just as hour working on quilting the scrap project runner, and I'm making slow progress: I'll keep quilting the runner while I try to decide on a design for t...

T-minus Day

This was our little Thanksgiving dinner last year, when it was just the three of us. Time keeps whittling down my favorite holiday; this year it will be just me and my guy, and we likely won't even have a turkey.* That will be a first in 35 years. I feel about Thanksgiving the way other people do about Christmas, and while it's a lot of work it's my favorite holiday. Of all the Thanksgivings I've had in the past sixty years, only three were truly terrible: one when I was a kid that I don't talk about (#1 most miserable); the time I roasted two turkeys together and hosted fifteen people whom I cooked for and served with zero help (the largest and #2 most miserable); and the one I spent in basic training (the #3 most miserable.) I have no pictures of any of those, thank heavens. In addition to doing all the cooking I'm the one who takes all the pictures, washes all the dishes and puts away all the leftovers. I suppose no one else cares because to them it...