back to the hook: ripple #2 begin!

The arrival of my Stylecraft Special DK pack in the mail yesterday still has me in a high state of excitement and happiness.  I wanted to start right away, but before I could pick up my hook I had to organize the colors in a way that would make sure that I used all of the colors equally without necessarily going in a strict pattern.  I came up with this:

Each of the 17 colors has been labeled.  As I use them, I’ll move them from one side of my coffee table to the other so that I can easily keep track of which ones I’ve used, and when I finish using all 17, I’ll mix them up and start again, randomly pulling colors.  A little OCD, you say?  Perhaps, perhaps.  As a counselor-in-training I actually haven’t been able to rule it out for myself.

Anyway, I’ve done 14 stripes already (28 rows, not counting the chain foundation):

I’m loving it so far.  My favorite color is the lavender shade, which is the fifth from the top in the picture above, and I debated not using it for stripes at all but saving it for a lovely thick border.  I decided against this, however, determining that if I need another skein, it’s only a couple of dollars, and I can certainly spare that for such a beautiful color.

I really do like this ripple pattern because it is so completely mindless and you can just go along with the rhythm happily while watching movies or listening to audiobooks.  Currently, I am re-listening to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, but I’m interspersing my listening sessions with romantic movies as well.

Don’t think that just because I’ve started this new ripple, however, that I’m not doing anything else.  There are quite a few new crocheted beanies for charity laying on my coffee table.  Soon there will probably be a post with a lovely picture of all the donate-able items spread out for you to see.

Thank you all for the compliments on my puppy and her new sweater.  She seems to be enjoying it’s coziness quite a lot, since we still haven’t turned our heater on.  We’re waiting as long as possible in the effort to save money on our electric bill.

Well, I think it’s time to go back to my ripple.  This post was a little break for my hands (sort of… I mean is typing really a break?).  Thanks for stopping by — I’m sure there will be more posts soon about my ripple progress because I’m so excited about sharing it with you!