cancer ribbon ghans and bad yarn

My hooks have been busy. I've been working on cancer ribbon ghans. I had not made any of these in a while because Mary Maxim discontinued the yarn I was using. When I was asked to make one recently though, I decided to try and find a good substitute.

I had a tiny bit of the old yarn in my stash so I was able to compare it to various pink skeins. The absolute closest match was Red Heart Soft pink. Bernat Satin flamingo was close but a little bit darker and more red to it. Caron Natura pink was lighter but still pretty close.  Bernat Giggles was also lighter and more of a peach to it I think. I think Simply Soft has a pink that would work, but it's not my yarn of choice, too slippery. Depending on what you like any of the pinks would do. It's really your choice.

I decided to start with the Red Heart Soft because it was the best match and also is very soft. It's a little thinner than the other Red Heart yarns.

Things started off well and then ... what's that? A bit of dark green in my pink. Remember, I've had this problem with Red Heart before. Remember the orange in my navy blue while making the Special Olympic scarves?

This green was just a tiny bit, maybe a quarter inch at the spot, but noticeable in the much lighter yarn. I was able to pick it out and move on. Then there was another and another that I had to cut out. So I stopped using that skein and moved on to another one. I was worried because it is all the same dye lot but sometimes you get the first skein made after another color or the last skein perhaps. It happens and they've always replaced it.

I was able to do many squares before I got another skein with the same problem. I put that one aside and was almost finished the ghan when I got yet another. I bought 12 5oz. skeins of this yarn and at least 3 had the problem. I think I used 4 or 5 for the ghan.

My fear was that I would miss one and keep crocheting. I checked over the ghan very carefully and thankfully did not find any missed spots.

I wrote to Red Heart but told them I didn't want any replacement yarn. I'm done with Red Heart. Shoot me if I buy any more. You have to be able to trust your yarn, especially if you're working on a deadline with no time to order more yarn. If you crochet quickly, and you're doing something else like watching television, you could easily skip over a tiny spot like this and see it when you look down a few rows later. (Yep, that happened!)

In any case I was able to finish a very nice lapghan 38" square with a faux picot edging. It's very soft and the color is beautiful.

I took a picture of it lying on my filet TARDIS so the ribbons would show up. These ribbon squares, by the way, are filet crocheted. The pattern includes a chart and can be found in the charity patterns section of Crochet Cabana.

I was asked to make two ghans, so I used Caron Natura pink for the second one. This yarn is not quite as soft, but it's still a very nice yarn and I haven't had a single problem with it. It's a little bit thicker than the RHS so the squares are coming out a little larger, which is fine. Can a ghan be too big? I think not.

I'll post photos of it when it's done.

The Caron comes in 3oz skeins and it takes almost one skein for each square, making it pretty easy to figure yarn amounts. You do have to account for edging the strips, assembly, and a final edging of the whole ghan. I was able to use leftover from a ribbon square for edging a strip and might even have enough of those for the final edging. We'll see.



Happy crocheting!
Sandie