'nother ribbonghan

I finished the second cancer ribbon afghan. The Caron Natura pink worsted weight yarn washed up beautifully. Very soft. Finished size was I think 41" or 42". I didn't write it down and it's winging its way through the postal system.

With an I hook, I used one 3 oz skein for each square and had a small ball leftover. There are 9 squares as you can see. Each square has a sc edging as in the pattern available at Crochet Cabana. I left a tail 3x the width of the square and used that to assemble squares to one another with a good bit of it left. Then I used the skein leftovers to do an edging around each column. I was able to use what remained of the long tails to assemble the columns, then used more of the skein leftovers to add an edging around the entire afghan. With the leftover balls I was able to make an additional square for another afghan (it took 3 or 4 of the balls - I wasn't paying attention) and still have a few smaller balls left for saltines and such. With that in mind, I'm going to say I could have probably got by with 24 ozs. but there would have been a good bit of tying in new yarn. I am happy with how it turned out doing it this way.

If you wanted to make an afghan with more squares, you could figure it by buying the number of skeins equal to the number of squares.The leftover from each skein would be enough I think for the edging, even of a larger afghan. Of course, paranoid me would buy an extra skein anyway. heh

I can recommend this Caron Natura pink. It is a little stiff to work with though not as stiff as Red Heart in my opinion, but washes up very soft. That said, the Red Heart Soft was soft to work with and washed up well too, but I had to the problem of the little bits of green in my pink so, to me, not worth the chance you'll be wasting money on yarn that can't be used. The RHS also is slightly thinner and works up a little smaller. 


Here are some photos.

 

Happy crocheting!
Sandie

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