Happy New Year ~ Happy New Projects!

Today, the first day of the year, is a glorious free-from-commitment day in the middle of a very good and full new year's weekend.  And as soon as I post this, I'm going to commemorate...?  celebrate...?  accept...?   the transition from 2016 to 2017 by - you guessed it - crocheting!   I can almost hear you thinking  "how redundant".   Aahhh... it's anything but redundant, my friend.   I've been waiting excitedly for three new CAL's to start today.  Three new CALs!  That's Crochet-A-Longs for the uninitiated.

Oddly, I've hardly crocheted at all since right before Christmas, but it has not been time completely devoid of yarn.  What little yarny time I had last week was devoted to perusing ideas and finally choosing colors and yarns for the upcoming CALs.  So... while I have no pictures of finished projects (or even wips), I'm happy and excited to show you the colors of my upcoming projects.

The first CAL is one I'm hosting.  In the Our Happy CAL Place on Ravelry, we're doing our first ever blanket CAL, and for this first blanket CAL we're crocheting the Moroccan Tile Afghan.  The  CAL will run from January 1 through March 31 of this year.  Some people are starting later, but the "hook-off" officially starts today.  Consider yourself personally invited to join us there - if this blanket appeals.

I pulled yarns from my stash to make a blanket that closely resembles the original Moroccan Tile Afghan:

In a basket, I'm thinking all those colors might look a bit clownish, but hopefully in the finished blanket it will look great.  One thing's for sure, it will be fun to switch colors and watch this thing grow and change.  I can't wait!!!

~~~~

Another CAL I joined is in the Red Heart Lovers' Group.  We're all doing a blanket called Trip Around the World using a tunisian crochet technique called Entrelac.  While I've done some small projects using a simple tunisian crochet stitch, this will be a leaning experience.  I'm making a baby blanket and I picked out much softer colors for this CAL (here's my project page if you want the details):

And here's the thread for that CAL in case you're interested in checking us out and joining us. This CAL will also run from now until March 31, 2017.

~~~~

And last, but definitely not least, I joined the 2017 Crochet Block-A-Month (BAM) CAL group on Ravelry and am so excited to make my first pieced-together blanket this year.  I've admired these types of blankets for a long time -- in fact, one of my first projects (when I first got back to crochet six or seven years ago) started out as a granny square blanket, but after years of on again-off again working on it, I ended up quitting and donating what squares I had crocheted up to that point - hoping someone else would finish what I couldn't bring myself to work on anymore).  

I think making squares in the company of other crochet lovers will be the motivation I need to actually complete a blanket like this.  I sure hope so, anyway.  I'm giving it a go!   While the first blocks were revealed today, and I plan to make at least one of them this afternoon, for now I have a picture of the yarns I'm hoping to complete a full-sized blanket with:

My inspiration came from various blankets others have made, and it was difficult trying to decide what colors I truly wanted to work with for such a project, but the overall look I decided to go for was "colorfully vintage".  I felt like that satisfied my desire for something soft-toned, but interestingly colorful.  All of the yarns above are Stylecraft Special DK and the main colors I'm working blocks in are:  Silver, Stone, Lime, Gold, Soft Rose, Raspberry and Parchment.  Accent (and shading) colors will be Duck Egg, Storm Blue, Claret, Mustard and possibly Cream.  That's the plan, anyway.  We'll see if those colors evolve over time.

This project goes all year and I look forward to sharing the blocks here as they are made.  Feel free to join - while the CAL officially started today, truly anyone could jump into the BAM CAL at any point. Many people's large blankets are made with blocks they've crocheted in various BAM CALs, or blocks they've pulled from other sources, but if the idea of crocheting a surprise (often a newly designed) block each month appeals to you, you could join in at any time.   I know some other YOPPERS are also doing this CAL - in fact, those YOPPERS are the reason I was inspired to jump into this one.  :)  It will be fun seeing how the same squares will look different from one another because of the different colors we work them in.  Squares are already showing up on Ravelry and it's fascinating.

I'm sure I'll also be working smaller projects in the mix of these large CAL projects, and I plan to keep up my simple knitting, but boy am I excited about these CAL projects and to share my journey on them here.

And that's it from me!  I'm ready to get my hook and yarn and start crocheting in the new year!

To see what other YOPPERS are up to, click the graphic below to visit our group on Ravelry.

And HAPPY NEW YEAR to everyone!