Skip to main content

Swatch Testing

With my leftover Just Yarn from my bargain yarn experiment I decided to swatch the three free patterns I printed out for next year's calendar project.

The first was the Twilight Shells pattern, which I really thought was pretty and a strong contender -- until I realized I had to crochet nine double treble stitches to make each shell. Double trebles are what I've nicknamed double trouble, as you start by yarning over three times and then hooking through four sets of two loops. Not only is the stitch attention intensive -- you can't blink or you'll drop a loop -- but because it's so tall it's a monster to keep the proper tension. After the foundation row the whole project is nothing but double treble.

I'm not a masochist, so I'll pass on this one.

The next pattern I swatched was the Easy Peasy blanket with the straight rows of granny stitches. It does live up to its name -- you just make granny stitches on top of granny stitches -- but I felt like the pattern needed some corrections to eliminate the bunchiness. Also, as I guessed, it was boring, so I also passed on this one.

That left me with the ripple blanket, which I thought really would be the one. Only nope. After the foundation row the pattern calls for working single crochet stitches (tedious) in the back loops only (ala that dreadful shrug pattern I abandoned.) I had trouble with the instructions, too, which resulted in a messed up second row.

If I can't even swatch a pattern without difficulty I think it's better to throw in the towel.

While I was putting away the patterns and samples in my swatch notebook I thought about that scarf I just made from a skein label pattern. It used alternating V-stitch and double crochet clusters, which made it easy and kind of mindless while keeping it interesting. I liked the results, too, although I made it with variegated yarn, which I'm not planning to use for the calendar project. I went ahead and did the math to figure out how to adapt it to a king size bed cover, which it does work for, so I decided to swatch it in my leftover gray yarn.

The result was nice. I liked crocheting it, and after the foundation row it becomes mindless as before, and as with the scarf the variation of stitches kept my interest and attention. The only problem I have with using this pattern for next year's calendar project is the stitch definition, which is a little muddled in the solid color yarn (for some reason it didn't matter to me when I used it with the variegated yarn.) I might make a sample piece in multicolor yarns to see how it would turn out with more solids and color changes between rows before I finally settle on this one.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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...
1 comment
Read more

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.
Post a Comment
Read more

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.
2 comments
Read more