alphabetghan complete

It's done! The alphabet afghan is complete so here is the post with all the info in one place. 

Finished afghan measures 37" x 50". 

Firstly, the alphabet letters are my own design but they are just block letters. The X gave me fits. It just refused to look right. Hopefully, the end result is passable.

I worked with DIYarn by Lion Brand in colors Peach, Teal, Sky, Pumpkin, and Aqua. Each little Lion Brand DIYarn skein is 1.05 oz (30g) and 65 yards (60m). It is #4 worsted weight and made in Turkey.

I used an I hook for the body of the squares and an H for a single crochet edging around each square. I also used an H for the edging around the entire afghan.

Each square took a bit more than half a skein. I started a new skein for most of the letters to go easy on the tails left to sew in. I sewed my tails as I went along. The picture on the left shows how much I got out of the leftover from a pumpkin skein. I was able to make another full letter and partway around on the edging. (How much is left would depend on what letter you're making as they don't all use the same amount of yarn. Some have more holes and some less.)

You might remember I left a long tail on each square, which ended up being useless as I put another round in beige. LOL I had to sew all those tails in. Not good planning. Without that extra length, perhaps the leftover would have made it all the way around the edging. I can't be sure.

Each square measure about 6" x 7".


Squares were ordered randomly - well, in no particular pattern. It was a "planned" random. :-)

I considered adding a plain square between each letter but decided against it. I estimated that doing that would make the afghan about 54" x 77". The intended recipient is very young so I thought a smaller one at this juncture would work better.

Each square was edged in Red Heart Super Saver Beige with a straight double crochet stitch, working 3 double crochets in corners. If I did it again, I might try five there.  I left a strand 3x the length of the square for assembly. I used a whipstitch assembly method. 

The border around the entire afghan is single crochet. I did use half double crochet at the joins because it seemed to dip there. I just eyeballed it to see where it needed a bit of extra height. I was thinking if I'd used 5dc at the corners that might have eliminated the dip but of course I can only be sure if I do it again. :-)  

I used one round of peach and one of pumpkin for the border. 

There are 6 squares of pumpkin, 6 of teal, 8 of peach, 6 of sky, and 4 of aqua for a total of 30 squares. (They are actually rectangles.) If you wanted to make an afghan using one color, you wouldn't actually need 30 ounces of color since I could get almost a second square out of each 1.05 ounce. That said, you also need to consider the edging around each square and around the entire afghan if you are going to use the same color for that.

I used an entire skein of the Red Heart Super Saver Beige (7 oz) for the edging around each square. If you want to use that same color around the entire afghan, you'd need two skeins.

I am thinking of making another one in red, white and blue and would get 10 ounces of each color. I'd need to decide on my edging color too.

I think that's all the info on the ghan. If I think of anything else, I'll add it here. 

I've turned back to the purple heart afghan I began some time ago and am now edging that in green which matches the variegated yarn.

Happy crocheting!
Sandie

alphabetghan and dresses

My daughter kindly sewed the buttons on the little dresses I made. They will be going out to family who have had little ones. Latest baby wa born a month early and is in NICU so if anyone would like to send up prayers for her I know it would be appreciated. Here are pics, showing front and back of dresses.

The alphabetghan is coming along nicely. I decided after all to edge each square so all those long tails I left for assembly had to be woven in. LOL Such poor planning. That is all done and most of the squares are edged. I think I have four left. Then I will put them together.

I am using Red Heart Super Saver Beige for the edging and assembly. Yes, I'm leaving a long strand of beige. LOL I will need only the one skein for this. However, I don't know if there will be enough left to edge all around. I'll decide that when I get to that point. It's an adventure, right?

I used 30 skeins of the DIYarn but if I'd used the leftovers instead of starting a new skein, I could have used less. I have a bunch of leftovers. Each leftover is almost half a skein. It won't allow for another complete square but it's just that close to enough. So I'm thinking if you were using one color, for example, you might need maybe 20 ounces rather than 30 for the squares. I can't be sure of the exact amount. Each skein is 65 yards and I imagine it took about 35 yards for each square. That's a guess. that includes the square and a single crochet edging around. If you don't do the edging in the same color as the square, then you could probably get two squares out of one skein. Of course if you use larger skeins, you'd get more.

Just to reiterate from last post as a reminder, the colors I used are Lion Brand DIYarn Pumpkin, Sky, Aqua, Teal and Peach. There were a few other colors in the bin at Walmart - a darker blue, a red and a brown come to mind. If you think you want this yarn, try to find a Walmart having a sale as it's half the price as on the Lion Brand web site.

I hope to finish the edging today and start assembly.

Happy crocheting!
Sandie

alphabetghan

I have finished making all the alphabet squares for my ghan and I only had to remake two. LOL Both because I used the wrong color - even though I had a chart and had written down all the colors. LOL

Here is a picture of the squares laid out in alphabet order but I didn't fix them all nice and neat. You'll get that in the finished ghan pic. :-)

I hope I randomized them enough. I had more peach so I put in the most squares of that color. Looking at it laid out, I probably could have used more of the aqua but overall I think it is okay.

The squares are 6" wide by 7" long. I left a tail 3x the length of the square for assembly. That is, unless I decide to edge each one in a neutral color. Still thinking on that. 

I am considering making a neutral square to go in between each colored one. That would make it about 54" wide by 77" long plus edging. A full size mattress is 54" x 75". A twin mattress is 39" x 75". If used on a twin bed, it would allow a bit of drape over the sides. That would be my preference as bodies are not flat. :-)

Each little Lion Brand DIYarn skein is 1.05 oz (30g) and 65 yards (60m). It is #4 worsted weight and made in Turkey. The colors I used are Pumpkin, Sky, Aqua, Teal and Peach. I got them for 50 cents a skein at Walmart. I see they are 99 cents at Lion Brand. Hmmm I might have to go get some more! LOL

Each skein made a full letter plus almost another one. Here is how far I got on a second letter using the leftover after making a full square. I made the complete letter plus began the single crochet edging.

I'm using a 3dc mesh filet pattern. I rarely use the 4dc mesh because I don't care for really big holes. I guess that's almost counter productive since the holes show the pattern. heh I'm weird.


I had never used this yarn before but was pleased with how it was to work with. I only had to cut one knot out on one skein. The yarn is medium soft. Not as  rough as Red Heart I think. We'll see how it washes up.

That's the update. More as I have it.

Happy crocheting!
Sandie

Alphabet afghan and Jayne hat

Temperature afghan put aside while waiting for yarn to arrive. I decided to use sport yarn and go the seed stitch / moss stitch/ linen stitch or whatever-you-want-to-call-it stitch way. I did start one with the shell pattern but after some thought and an error that would have made me rip back about half of it LOL I decided to change course. So... more on that as time goes.

For reference, here is how the shell stitch one began ... I had about twice this done when I realized I had made an error on one row. Since I already wasn't that happy with the color choices, particularly with the boysenberry which was thicker than the rest, I decided to rethink.

In the meantime, I have started another project. Okay, wait. Before you wonder why in the world I would start another project when I have like half a dozen already started, I have an excuse. a reason. ;-)

I went to Walmart to get some blue yarn for the temperature ghan, and maybe a few other colors so the yarn weight would be the same. As I happened upon the yarn section, there are these oh-so-cute little one ounce DIY skeins. I mean hundreds of skeins. 50 cents each. Could you resist? I think not. I didn't get all I WANTED to get but I got a good many. I was thinking at the time, maybe for the temperature afghan. 

So then I changed course on the temperature afghan and now I had all these little balls of yarn. The sensible thing to do would be to return them, of course. And that is what I planned to do - I had the receipt in the bag and everything, honest! - until I ran across the alphabet afghan pattern and thought I'll bet each letter doesn't take more than one ounce! :-) 

And I was right.  Notice on the aqua G square, I placed the leftover on top of the square. I don't think it's enough to make another letter, but combined with leftover from another square it probably would be.

I have several more of the peach (probably because I love the color peach) than any of the other colors and for some reason ended up with just a few pumpkin. That being the case, and not wanting to go buy more yarn, I decided on a "random" color scheme. We'll see how that works out. I'm good with patterns of color, but random is not my strong suit. 

In any case, it takes hardly any time to make one square. I did all of these last night plus almost finished H. And you know I love filet crochet so it's a pleasure to work on this one.

I still do have to finish the purple squares and eventually get back to my spider stitch lapghan. Since none of these have a deadline, I'm free to work on whichever one tickles me at the time. Right now, until I get the yarn, it's the alphabet.

Oh and I also was looking at this pattern for a Jayne hat (from the TV series Firefly). It's knitted but I was impressed with the figurings this gal did. A woman after my own heart. I enjoy doing all that figuring out before starting a project. This is not a new post and Firefly has been off the air for some time now. The Jayne hat is still popular though. FYI, according to this article the Jayne hat was created by Joss Whedon's favorite costume designer, Shawna Trpcic. Although the original is knitted, there are many crochet patterns out there too. Check out Ravelry if you're interested.

Happy crocheting!
Sandie

more temperature afghan

I've been doing a lot of work in the planning stage of the temperature afghan.

The year I chose to start with is 2013. I am going to use the high temperature from each day. It would be neat to do one with the lows too but so much work. LOL Just how many afghans do we need, eh?

I got the temperature information from Wunderground for the year. I copied the two columns which show the day and the high temp for that day. I put that in Notepad, then copied to Microsoft Word. For some reason this makes everything double spaced and the date is on one line and the temp on another line. So ... I made them single spaced, then I put each temp on the proper line with the day. Yes, that was a lot of work. I could have just copied the two columns and put in Word directly and I did, in fact, try that but the columns came out inches apart and I couldn't figure out how to get them to hug. In any case, I wanted to print it all out for easier reference. So by putting the info into three columns, it went from 13 pages to 4. It worked for me. You may have a better method.

I knew that there would not be any highs lower than 30 so I started with 30 and checked each temperature to 100 to see how many there were so I could determine my colors for each category. Yes, this also took quite a while but I like that stuff. Details. Numbers. I am intrigued. LOL

Just to show you what I mean (and for future reference), here are the results. Remember these are the high temperatures for the year 2013, January to December. These numbers will help you to figure how much yarn to buy in each color. (Temperatures are in Fahrenheit)

45 (1) 
46 (4)
48 (2)
total 7 

51 (2)
52 (7)
53 (3)
54 (3)
55 (11)
57 (4)
59 (4)
total 34 

60 (6)
61 (4)
62 (3)
63 (5)
64 (13)  
66 (12)
68 (6)
69 (5)
total 54

70 (9)
71 (5)
72 (8)
73 (20)
75 (23) 
77 (11)
78 (10)
79 (7)
total 93

80 (4)
81 (8)
82 (25)
84 (13)
86 (14)
87 (11)
88 (16)
89 (13) 
total 104

90 (19)
91 (32) 
93 (14)
95 (6)
96 (2)
97 (1)  
total 74 

In this case there are six groups. However, three of those groups are very large and could be divided to give more variety in coloring.

After much hemming and hawing and thinking and changing around here are my final groupings with color.
40s ILTY Mixed Berry
50s RHWL Boysenberry
60-64 RHSS Blue
65-69 RHSS Delft Blue
70-72 RHSS Med Thyme73-75 RHSS Tea Leaf
76-79 Impeccable Fern
80-85 VC Mustard
86-89 RHSS Yellow
90-92 RHSS Pumpkin
93-97 RHSS Red

While that does still give me quite a large segment of mustard (50), yellow (54) and pumpkin (51), it allows me to go from the cool purple to the hot red. The Mixed Berry and Boysenberry are a little bit of a cheat. They should be more blue but the only blue purple I have is DK weight. However, it still shows the variation in temperature which is what it is meant to do.

The next step, if you want to do this, is to put the actual yarn color next to the line so you don't have to keep going back and forth to figure it out.

For example, 
Jan 2013
1  78  tea leaf
2  53  boysenberry

Of course you would use your own colors and grouping.

I haven't quite made up my mind about the pattern yet but will soon. The pattern and stitch or stitches you use will also impact how much yarn you need. I decided to go with yarns I knew I would be able to find easily should I run out before I'm done.

In the meantime I am still working on the purple square afghan. I am edging each square in green and then will put them together. I thought about using the join as you go, but decided against it. Who knows why. LOL That's just me.

I also still have a spider stitch lapghan that I started a while back and a hat using the Who scarf colors. I'm sure I'll get to them eventually.

I am also still coloring, which I enjoy when I can get to it. I received a new book for Christmas which I'm anxious to delve into and some new pens as well.

There you have it. What I've spent the past days working on. I will be doing the figuring for a second temperature ghan, if I survive this one. That one will be for last year, 2016.

Happy crocheting!
Sandie