repaired ripple

Just a quick stop in to say that I DID repair that round ripple afghan with the big hole. I was not entirely pleased with the outcome, but there was no hole so the child was pleased with the repair. I would not, in good conscience, be able to point to it and say "look what I did". I would rather say, it could be better, but it won't rip back any further. I think I did learn some things while working on the repair so perhaps all was not lost. :-)

I did not think to take a photo of it before delivering it to its happy recipient. Maybe that was a Freudian slip of memory? :-) Not willing to put that one out there for viewing perhaps? heh

In any case, as noted, the youngster was pleased and that is all that matters.

Happy crocheting!
Sandie

another lapghan

38" lapghan made with 7-round granny squares

The captioning pretty much says it all about this afghan. This one, and the one yesterday, are both about 38" wide and long. Yesterday's was 9 squares, worked to 10 rounds with an H hook. This one is 16 squares, worked to 7 rounds. All granny squares. Both assembled with the continuous join.

The yarns used are Red Heart Super Saver and I Love This Yarn with the one bright orange being the Caron One Pound Orange. It's worsted weight, but is still a heavier yarn than the others. If I'd been thinking I would not have used it in this afghan as it doesn't "feel" the same as the others. I didn't realize it until I had it all assembled.

I used the red for the assembly simply put because I was tired of black and white and thought the red would go well with the grey. What do you think? It's different than my usual look. Also, I thought the brighter color would be enjoyed by seniors. I've been told that generally speaking they like bright colors because the eyesight is not as sharp and they can be seen and enjoyed more easily. Anyway, we all know that color choices are personal so someone will enjoy it, I'm sure.

I have some of each size square leftover and will continue to make them until I can put together two more. :-)

Update on my mom: The doctor she saw yesterday said everything looks good, but it will be at least 4 months before she can put weight on her leg.

Happy crocheting!
Sandie

lapghan

Nine 10-round squares make a lapghan

Sorry for the long delay in posting. I've been really busy the past days. One of the things I've been doing is making squares and I've finally finished putting one lapghan together. These will be going to the skilled nursing facility where my mother is residing presently while she recuperates from her broken leg.

The second one is assembled but tails not tucked in yet. I hope to finish that this evening.

Another thing I've been doing is working on scanning photos to be put on disks so if/when we next have to evacuate I will have my photos in a format I can easily grab and take with me. Unfortunately, we discovered after I scanned thousands of photos that the machine has put a line in a lot of them, from the first album scanned. Not all but many of them. Since I checked them in preview mode I didn't see the line until I went to identify each one. *sigh*

That was discouraging. While I did that, I didn't do much crocheting as that took days.

I also had lunch with some former high school classmates. Great time!

I'll have more crocheting for you soon.

Happy crocheting!
Sandie

tails and pc

My mom is settled into the skilled nursing facility and has begun physical therapy which is going pretty well. Thanks for your prayers for her!

Today, I took time to make a couple of videos. One is about plastic canvas and was posted at Crafty Corral. The other is this one about weaving in those dangling tails, also called ends. I was asked to do a video about that, so I did. :-)



I hope you enjoy it.

I also made a hundred of the plastic canvas crosses that I talked about in the video. Here is a photo of those.

I purchased the 3" crosses at Craft Designs For You and have just placed an order to replace these. (They also have larger ones but I usually make a good quantity at one time and can't afford to buy the larger ones in that number.) I like to keep these small ones on hand for "emergencies". ;-)

I'm continuing to make more of the filet squares and granny squares as well.

Happy crocheting!
Sandie

filet square

I found a square pattern over at Sandi Marshall's site and thought I'd give it a whirl. It is called the Off Center Lines Square.

The square is worked in filet crochet. You might recall that filet crochet is composed of solid blocks and open blocks. Blocks can be 3 dc blocks or 4 dc blocks. This pattern uses 3 dc blocks, meaning that each block is composed of 3 double crochets. Over five stitches there are two blocks with the center dc being part of each block - the left side of one and the right side of the other.

If you are not familiar with filet and you want to learn, you might be interested in Learn To Do Filet Crochet In Just One Day. If you are already familiar, you might like a book I have in my personal collection Filet Crochet: More than 70 Designs with Easy-to-Follow Charts (Stitch Collection). My daughter liked it so much, I purchased a second one for her.

The original filet pattern calls for two rows of dc top and bottom. I find when working a pattern like this with a lot of open blocks, solid rows sort of ruffle. That might be my tension. I don't know. Well, it was no different with this pattern, so I ripped it all back and deleted the beginning row of  solid squares.

I began with Row 3 as my Row 1, then I worked that same row for 13 rows. Then I worked Sandi's Row 12 as my Row 14 (solid dc row), then finished off with 2 more rows of her Row 3 for a total of 16 rows.

That ended on a wrong side, so I chained 1 and turned. I worked sc all around, using (sc, hdc, sc) in corners. I plan to make more squares and the join them.

As Sandi notes in her post, you can make a bunch of these in different colors and turn them different ways to make all your afghans look differently. Way cool, eh?

It's very important for your squares to be SQUARE, however. They have to be the same width and length or they won't go together well if you turn them different directions when you assemble them.

Finished size of MY square is 9". (I've made another one, but haven't taken photo of it yet.)

Another change I was made was with the starting chain. The original says to ch 36 and go into the 5th chain from hook. I could see no reason to go into the 5th chain from hook with a solid block at the beginning of the row. I chained 35 and went into the 4th chain from hook. You need 33 dcs on that first row and that number would give me the proper amount. Some might even want to go into the third chain from hook. It depends on your tension. I tried that, but didn't like the look of it for me.

You know I'll keep you posted on my progress. I realize I AM starting to accumulate some UFOs here so I see a UFO day coming soon. I still haven't finished the sweater and I'm still making granny squares, but haven't assembled any of them yet. I need more yarn!! LOL I also started a Jacob's Ladder which got only as far as one color. I also have a lot of small balls with which I want to make some yo-yos.

Happy crocheting!
Sandie