Crochet Projects Everywhere!

This year I've spent some time on bed rest and even more time on 'rest' so I've had lots of time for crochet projects!  I'm pretty sure the projects were one of the few things (behind my mom and husband!) keeping me sane for a while!  I typically can't sit and watch a movie or a tv show, but with a project in my hands, it's much easier to sit and relax, with or without the TV.  (While I was on bedrest I watched almost all of the old episodes of The Twilight Zone on Netflix!)

The first project I finished was a baby blanket.  Every time I've been pregnant, I've made a blanket.  It's the one things I allowed myself.  So the day after we found out we were expecting, I chose a yarn in a rainbow color (Bernat Baby Coordinates "Baby Baby")  I started the blanket immediately with the only stitch I really knew at the time: double crochet.  I finished the blanket a few months ago and I'm very happy with the results:

As you can tell from the fact that it's pulling itself down, it's a bit heavy.  Or it's just smiling like my model behind it! :)

Since I started it long before we knew what gender our miracle would be, the fabric is white, pink, blue, yellow and green.  After we found out, I choose a border that I thought brought out the historically gender specific colors:  (Spoiler alert!)  This is also the first project I've done where I added a border and I think it makes a huge difference in the finished look of the project.

I love the rainbow blanket for our rainbow baby!

With one project done and lots of down time remaining, I started my 'giraffe blanket.'  For some reason, I've developed a love of giraffe's the last 6 months or so, probably partially because of a lunch I had with one at the Living Desert in Palm Desert.  When I got to the fabric section, I suddenly couldn't completely remember what colors giraffes are.  I found a stuffed one in the toy section, so my giraffe is Chocolate and Banana colored although I've since realized that most stuffed giraffe and yellow and orange.

Compared to the last fabric, these were super easy to deal with.  Still very soft, but they didn't try to unravel and I rarely found myself with my needle in the middle of a piece instead of underneath.  Also, for the first time in my life, I branched out and tried 'a pattern.'  To call a basic granny square a 'pattern' might be a bit of a stretch.  I was skeptical because I like to veg out while I work and counting has never been my strongest subject.  The nice thing about a granny square is you really just have to follow the row before and count to three.  I thought I could handle that.  I don't know that I would try a granny square quilt blanket because the first two or three rounds are the annoying ones and doing them over and over again and then dealing with stitching them together seems like a huge hassle.  I think my tension is varying some because my blanket isn't perfectly square, but it could just need to be darned.

Because I decided to do two colors I had quite a few color switches.  I'd read you could pull a former color through, but I thought that it would make a visible line through the blanket and opted to tie off and weave in all of my ends.  It was a little time consuming and some of them are still peaking out.  I also debated doing a more elaborate edging, but left the final choice to Gavin after showing him several examples and he like this one best.

After my success with the granny square, I wanted to branch out more!  I figured I'd already done one animal themed blanket, I should continue!  I quickly realized lots of animals are brown, though, and I'd just finished this blanket.  So I decided to try a zebra blanket.

The pattern for this one seemed a bit tougher.  It took over a page... scary.

Red Heart Corner to Corner Throw Blanket

But it was a red heart pattern, so I thought it was still worth a try.  You start in one corner and work your way through, so you are always either adding or removing stitches.  It was good practice!  But since I thought I had a high probability of failure I decided to go with cheap yarns: Red Heart Super Savers in black and white.

Red heart is great to work with because unlike the nicer feeling yarns, it doesn't stretch or give much, but it's also much rougher.  I bought one skein of black and white and got to work.  When I say I followed the pattern, I mean that roughly.  I wanted to make it look like a Zebra, and the stripes on a Zebra vary, so each row I'd look at the blanket from a distance and decide if I should switch colors or continue with the one I was on.  The project helped me pass the time on two slightly less than ideal flights (to Vegas and to Chicago) and I was really enjoying it.  I overestimated the amount of yarn per skein and I haven't purchased more, so this project is still  technically 'in progress' although I haven't made any 'progress' in several weeks. (Update, after drafting this post, I was motivated and bought the rest!)

In other yarn news, I started Tight Knit!  We've met a hand full of times and I think it's been great!  It's just been a hand full of girls and we sit around and work on our projects and chat.  It's exactly what I'd envisioned.

Also, while I was in Chicago, I began to teach our god daughter how to Crochet.  It was fun, although I wish I'd had more time to go through a bit more with her.

Crochet has been on the back burner the last few weeks, but I'm sure it will be back when the weather cools down and I can stand the idea of a blanket touching me again!