Overthinking continues...

I finally got around to steam blocking my Sage Advice square.  And, as I seem to do every time I make a new square, I've separated out the squares I've made into two categories, and have another think over this project.

Those made with a blue-based solid color construction:

And those made with a purple-base, and with an off-white component:

My original thought (what was it, in 2017?) was I would combine all of these squares into the same blanket.  But the more I look at all these squares together, and try to place them together, I'm wondering if I'll be happier if I just make two separate blankets.  

Of course, the problem with that is that I will have to make twice as many squares as I would need to make for just one blanket, and it would take at least twice as long to finish all of this "square" business.  

On the other hand, if I make two blankets, I will use up more yarn in my stash - which, let's not forget, is one of my goals.  

While I work out what I want to do, I'll be alternating making squares with blue and purple as the base color.  At some point, I'll either become more sure of making two blankets, or I'll reach the point of having enough squares for one blanket and decide I'm just ready to be done with the the whole project and combine them all together.  

Have I mentioned before how I always seem to overthink a project? 

And, for some reason, make things harder than they need to be?

It's like it's in my DNA or something...

On the crochet front...

What better time than Valentine's week to post about finishing a blanket I've dubbed "Sweetheart Blanket".

Can you see little hearts in the shell pattern of this blanket?

If you can't, don't stress.  The blanket is actually called Corn on the Cob, and it's from the book Weekend Afghans (ISBN-10: 0806964871).  It was originally crocheted in all yellow yarn - which is where its likeness to corn on the cob ended, so if you don't see corn on the cob, don't stress that either.  For some reason, the first time I came across the pattern, I saw heart shapes in all those pretty shells.  I don't see them so much this time, but the name has stuck, and I have now made my second Sweetheart Blanket in a pink gradient.  

So that's two blankets now on the books in my quest to burn through some yarn stash this year.

Also crochet related...  In January I decided to join again with a Block-A-Month Crochet-A-Long (BAMCAL, for short) group on Ravelry.  The idea behind this group is that you crochet along with others two different blocks each month (that are picked out by the moderators of the group), and by the end of the year you've made enough blocks to make a large blanket.   I think it was 2017 that I joined this group and crocheted my first block for my "blanket of many blocks".  It is now 2024 and I have taken stock and see that I've made a total of seven blocks in all this time.  In case I've lost you, let me do the math...  

That's an average of one-block-a-year!  

Now, a lap blanket is made up 12 squares, a throw is 20 squares, and a full size blanket would be made up of around 30 squares.  Clearly, I need to rethink this project, as I will not live long enough to complete a blanket at the rate I am going on this.

Fortunately for me, I've learned some things in my 7 years of slow-poking my way to a blanket made of various and diverse squares.

While I love the idea of crochet-a-longs, I have questionable follow-through.  What I love is the camaraderie and encouragement one gets when doing something as part of a group.  What I don't love is making something (anything, really) that someone else has picked out.  So, just a month after declaring I was rejoining the 2024 BAMCAL, I'm parting from the pack and going my own way on this.  Fortunately, the group has a thread where participants can share their "non-cal" squares, so that will allow me to be in on some of the fun.  And no one seems to mind if anyone completes a blanket made up entirely of the monthly squares, so it appears I can still hang out with these peeps and do my own thing to some degree.

I've already created a file on Ravelry of square patterns that look like ones I'd enjoy making, and ought to work well with the colors I've chosen to work with.

Currently, I'm working on a square called Sage Advice (which, actually, was one of the January BAMCAL squares):

I'm almost done crocheting it, and will soon move on to sewing in the ends.

It looks like a mess, and like something that would be tedious to do.  While I don't love this part of a project, if I put on the right mindset, I can find sewing in ends almost as meditative as crocheting.  It's all a part of the process.

Now, that I've gotten some clarity about how to finish this blanket-of-many-squares project, wish me well on the follow-through and execution!

It's all squares this week...

June has been a slow yarn month for me and I don't know that this coming week will be much different.  

It's been a good month - doing good things (for myself and others).  Some new things have presented themselves.   Some things I've written about, some I've not.  While I know part of the reason I've lagged in interest in working with yarn is due to busyness, I also know I've lost some steam for some reason.   But then I've also been reading more and that kind of interferes with holding a hook and yarn.  😉  Hopefully this lag I'm in will change, or I'll figure it out and recalibrate.  At the moment, I'm feeling a bit rudderless.  It's weird.

All that said, though, earlier this week I managed to get all those crazy ends woven in on my BAMCAL square.  It's not going to require a hard blocking, so softly steaming this Flying Colors square is going to suffice for now (maybe forever):

Not my favorite square (because of my color choices and placements),

 but it will make a decent contribution to a larger blanket someday.

~~~~~

Even though I haven't crocheted much this month, my knitting needles have continually had a dishcloth on them.  While it seems pretty uninspiring to report, over the course of the last three weeks I turned this (and some other odds and ends):

Into this:

~~~~~

Now, if you're like me, when making dishcloths, you end up with lots of little odds and ends of cotton yarn left over.  Sometimes those odds and ends are too small to do much with, but I got to looking at some bags of these leftover bits of cotton yarn and I wondered how it would work to splice some of the yarns together into "magic balls" and make more cloths from them.

Playing it safe, I pulled together two different, but coordinating variegated yarns and did a braided join. 

Here's a picture that shows what that braided join looks like:

Basically, you take two ends of two different yarns, loop them around each other, split each into two sections (doesn't matter how many plies are in a section).  Then braid each side (the three sections of the braid will be the two split sections from one strand of yarn, and one whole strand of yarn).   Do this braiding on both sides of where you looped the yarns together and then wind it into one ball.  Then just keep adding different yarns and colors to a ball until it's the size you want.  Those stringy ends can get snipped off once you've knit or crocheted your item together (I made a little knot of those stringy ends before snipping, but I doubt it's necessary).  

If you want the braided section to more completely blend in, do this braiding at a section in each yarn where the color is as similar as possible.

Anyway...  I knitted up my magic ball and this is what I got:

Kind of cool, I think.  Definitely fun to watch it grow as I knit.  It would probably be even more fun if I combined more disparate colors into one "magic ball".   😀

Oh my goodness...  after posting I decided to look to see how others might do a braided join.  I found this video!  I like her method even better than what I came up with.  

While some may think the braiding isn't worth the effort, to me it was a small thing I could do while my mind was on something else, or my ears were tuned into something completely unrelated to what I was doing with my hands.  And when the item is finished there are no ends to weave in!  Magic!  😃

I'm starting to pull together other scraps of yarn to do this with (and regretting all that I've thrown away over the years).  I suspect variegated or a combination of solids and variegated will work the best with this.  I look forward to finding out.  

And that, dear reader, is all I've got!

2019 Yarn Stash-Down progress:  47.06/100 skeins!

I am such a square...

Two years ago I joined the 2017 BAMCAL group on Ravelry.  For the uninitiated, BAMCAL stands for Block-A-Month Crochet-A-Long.  The idea is you  make two blocks each month and by year's end you'll have enough for a blanket.  

Theoretically.

That first year, I was excited and early on I made a number of blocks - mostly playing with colors, but I eventually made four blocks that helped me settle on my colors and were acceptable for putting toward a blanket I hoped to finish that year.

Here they are (again), for the record:

Then, in 2018, with the renewed enthusiasm that a new year brings, I joined the 2018 BAMCAL group and declared my intentions of making more blocks and hopefully finishing a BAMCAL blanket by year's end.

I made a total of zero squares in 2018.

So this year, I again jumped into the 2019 BAMCAL group, with lots of enthusiasm, but having a more realistic view of my likely progress, I hereby make no more declarations of when this project will finish. 

Finding myself in a bit of a lull between larger projects, this past week I decided to make a couple of new squares.  This was, in fact, the only crocheting I managed to get in finally - when things slowed down late in the week.

The first square I crocheted was Eye of the Beholder:

This was a fun square to see made by different people - That's always true, of course, but this square changed dramatically with different color placements.  If you don't believe me, you can scroll through the Ravelry thread here.

Then, rather than do the second square (which was too open of a pattern for what I want in this blanket), I searched the archives and found Hope Still:

This square was a bear, to be honest, but the finished effect was worth all the effort.  My advice if you chose to make this square...  Don't work it when you're tired, breathe deep, take it slowly, and take breaks.  And most importantly... trust the instructions.    'Nuff said.  

With two squares successfully made in January of 2019 I'm in love with the idea of a BAMCAL blanket again, and my colors.  All is well.

Regardless of how many squares I make this year, this is one of those projects that will eventually get finished.  Oops... there I go making declarations again.  Let's just say that's my plan, anyway.  If I live long enough.  

~~~~~

I mentioned earlier in the month that I would be working on whittling down my kitchen cotton stash this year by always having a dishcloth or washcloth on the needles or hook.  Well, I forgot to mention hotpads.  I still have something of a fascination with hotpads.  😊

Seeing someone else's Pinwheel Hotpad recently, I was inspired to try my hand at making one:

Here's the thing, though...  Since I referred to two patterns and two videos to complete this pinwheel shaped hotpad, I really don't have a pattern to recommend.  If you want to make one, search for pinwheel hotpad.  It was fun, and not even difficult, but without a single pattern to refer to, I'm honestly not likely to make any more.  That said, I'm happy I made it as I've been curious about how these are made for some time.  My curiosity is now satisfied.  😉 

And the following pretties will be added to my dish/washcloth box for using or giving away at some point:

Patterns (or stitch patterns) used in the above cloths:

Simple garter stitch 
Simple stockinette stitch (with garter stitch borders)
Boxes Dishcloth - remains my personal favorite
My Heart Dishcloth  - this would make a sweet child's washcloth 

~~~~~

To see what other YOPers are up to, 

visit our group on Ravelry!

2019 Yarn Stash-Down progress:  12/100 skeins

How hard can I make this?

Not much crocheting happened this week, but I did (and re-did) enough of a border on my Corner to Corner blanket to decide I didn't care for how the border was going, and decided I needed to put the whole thing aside until I find the inspiration to finish it in a way that I'm going to be happy with.

With that large project put in time-out just before the weekend I didn't think I had anything to show yarn-wise, but then I remembered that I never did show a square I crocheted - back in April, I think.  It's only square #5 for my BAM (Block-A-Month) Blanket:

I remember after I made this block I felt a bit unsettled about it going with the other blocks I had made. This block made me think that I should probably be more intentional (maybe careful?) about just how varied in color I make all the blocks that will go in this blanket.

After finishing the above square it hit me that it would probably be a good idea for every block to have at least one color in common, and it probably should be a bold (or obvious) color.

Looking at what I've completed so far, I'm thinking maybe the gold color would be a good color to put in each square to create cohesiveness.  Unfortunately, that would make this newest square
not fit in.  I don't know...  What do you think?:

I think I'm at a crossroads where I need to make a decision about what will make these squares cohesive, and stick with it.  I hesitate to make another square that doesn't have gold because, well... I may end up with another one I'm not sure of.  On the other hand, making some more without gold, and maybe with completely different combinations of colors, will be the only way I can tell if I can successfully use squares that don't have any one color in common.

I'm open to suggestions.  The only thing I'm pretty decided about is that I plan to use the dark blue yarn to border and/or join all the squares, and then to border the blanket itself.   My original thought was as long as I use the blue or another equally dark color in a square, that dark color could be the anchor, bringing a cohesiveness to all the squares.  Looking at the squares above, though, the thing that stands out to me as being most cohesive is the gold color.

I think I know the answer - at least the answer I'm most comfortable with, but I'm always curious how others see things.  Feel free to comment below with your ideas, thoughts, suggestions.

Does a different layout produce a different sense about how they go together?

I had no idea when I started on this project how complicated I could make it.   I shouldn't be surprised.  I am the queen of overthinking things and making the simple complicated.

To see what other YOPPERS are up to, visit our group on Ravelry.