blanket and baskets done!

Hello everyone!  How are ya’ll doing?  Idk about you but I’ve been crafting up a storm since I’m spending more time at home by myself, so I’ve got some stuff to share with you.

Firstly, I finished my Big Beautiful Basket:

big beautiful basket #1

 

I really like it, so I decided to make a second one!  I finished that one, too, although it was a bit more tricky — I thought that to stabilize the bottom of the basket a bit I would crochet around a thin wire, but it kinda made things funky and I had to add some decreases on the sides of the basket, leading to a rather lumpy looking finished product:

big beautiful basket #2

 

I’m using it as a laundry hamper.

And since I still had plenty more of the Lion Brand Mandala yarn I decided to make a third one, but this time I’m using a 9.0mm hook in hopes that a smaller hook will make the fabric a bit more stiff.  Here’s the progress I made before I decided it was too big and ripped back out to take a couple rounds off of the base:

big beautiful basket #3

 

And yep, I’m keeping this WIP and its yarn in my ottoman, hehe.  It’s quite convenient.

Okay, now for the finished project that’s got me most excited: the Kim Taehyung blanket!!!  First, a reminder of my color palette inspiration (read: an excuse for me to post about a BTS member):

Kim Taehyung

 

And now for the finished blanket:

Kim Taehyung blanket

 

The colors are more accurate this time so you can see how they match with the original photos.  I’m really pleased with the yarn (Paintbox Wool Mix Aran), the pattern (the standard Attic24 ripple), and the size!  Above it’s laid out on my king size bed, although it wasn’t made for the bed — this is just so you can see the size — it’s really just a giant throw blanket for the couch.  Now my dog can cuddle under it with me (he likes to get under blankets) and I’ll still have plenty of room!

I haven’t felted it yet — I was trying to decide whether or not to do a border first.  I have the yarn for it, but since this is a decently stretchy blanket I’m not sure I wanna crochet all around the edges, because what if the edging isn’t as stretchy as the rest and it ends up looking weird after a bit of use and a few washes?  I dunno.  What do you guys think I should do?  Border or no?

Please continue to take good care of yourselves — people weren’t that great about preventative measures in my state in the first place, but now that things are starting to open back up I think we might just see a spike in virus cases.  Heh, and speaking of my state, I have this upcoming Monday off for Confederate Memorial Day, which is pretty much the stupidest holiday I’ve ever heard of (sorry, not sorry, it’s really the worst).  I’ll try and get some crocheting done, I guess.

Thanks so much for stopping by!  Take care, and see you soon!

giganto blanket progress

It’s been over 2 months since I’ve shared an update on my Aspen blanket that I have lovingly dubbed “the blanket everyone wants” (well, they seemed to be all the rage this winter).  You hold the yarn double so I don’t know why I got an odd number of balls, but I’ve finished 16 balls of Garnstudio DROPS Andes in 0100 Ecru and this is what I have:

Not Your Average Crochet's Aspen Blanket

Far from my estimated 60″ wide, it’s about 45.  Granted, I wasn’t stretching it at all and I think it will grow over time, but still, I was off on that guess.  Also, I thought 16 balls might be enough to finish the blanket.  It is not.  It’s only about 36″ tall (again unstretched).  I MIGHT be OK if this was 2/3 of a blanket, meaning I might be happy if I ordered 7 more balls to go with my extra 1.  At $7.15 a ball, though, that’s $50.05 not counting S&H, and I just can’t do that right now.  That’ll put this blanket at over $150 worth of yarn.  I hate putting that much into one project because I’ll be so worried about it getting messed up that I might not use and enjoy it, but this was one of the cheapest super bulky yarns in wool that I could find.  Maybe I should keep blankets acrylic, but wool blankets are so much warmer!  Guess there are pros and cons to both.

Not Your Average Crochet's Aspen Blanket

I’m really sad but I guess this will have to go into hibernation mode for a while until I can get the yarn.  The plus side is that I still haven’t broken my New Year’s Resolution to not buy yarn (although when I do buy the yarn to finish this I’m not sure it’ll count against me, since it’s to finish a WIP that I thought I had enough yarn for).  Also, Chris and I both needed a pair of new shoes this month so unfortunately that has to take precedence over yarn, hehe.  We got Chris some new kitchen Crocs because his current ones are old and literally falling apart (they’re heavy duty Crocs made specifically for working in kitchens, without holes in the top and with extra tread on the bottom and padding on the inside), and I finally had to replace my Rainbows sandals after about 9 years of constant wear.

My Wing Chun lessons are going great — we got to stay about 20 minutes extra last time and our teacher taught us the first 5 steps of the wooden dummy form, which was really cool.  I’ve been trying to practice at home on a wall but it has corners, which hurt my arms, and it doesn’t have arms for me to practice blocks.  I’ve looked at practice dummies but even the ones made with PVC are over $500.  Why does everything from yarn to shoes to practice equipment have to be so expensive?  Ugh.

Sorry, I’m a bit grumpy, so I’ll sign off for now, but I do appreciate you stopping by!  I have plenty of other WIPs going too so hopefully I’ll see you soon with updates on those, or maybe something even cooler!

giganto blanket: begin!

So far I’m keeping to my resolutions: I haven’t bought any more yarn, I’ve been working on those crochet patterns, and I’ve got a few projects going.  I’d like to share one in particular with you, my ASPEN Blanket by Go-Girl Knitting (which I’m affectionately calling The Blanket Everyone Wants, because ecru/cream colored chunky-knit cabled blankets are EVERYWHERE right now, everyone really does seem to want one)!  Here’s what I’ve got so far:

IMG_5116

It’s probably going to be about 60″ wide (hard to tell yet) and I’ve got 17 balls of Garnstudio DROPS Andes in 0100 Ecru (Super Bulky, 65% wool, 35% alpaca) so I’ll keep going until I run out!

I’m loving my progress so far and I know I’ll love the blanket when I’m done, but I’ve got a couple of qualms.  Let me make you a list!

  • The pattern is $6 but it turns out to be a really simple pattern that repeats, and it all fits on a plain 1 pg PDF.  A little expensive for what you get, methinks, especially considering the next 2 points…
  • The pattern calls for US 50 needles but many of the projects already made on Ravelry used US 35/36 needles because the 50s made the blanket too loose (even though the yarn is held double throughout).  I therefore started with my US 36 needles but it was STILL too loose, so I frogged and went down to a US 19.
  • Because of the needle size changes I made, I also had to adjust the pattern to keep the width of the blanket about the same, so I added 2 of the pattern repeats, making the CO jump from 72 to 106.

On the positive side, it’s working up fairly quickly and it’s still soft and plushy!  I used the long-tailed cast-on for a neat-looking but stretchy bottom edge, I’m slipping the 1st st of each row purl-wise for neater side edges, and I think I’m going to try to make the yarn joins as invisible as possible by “spit-splicing,” which I learned about via YouTube video (yes, it is what it sounds like it is).

So far I’m really enjoying it, and I’ll probably update with photos on Instagram in between updates here, if you’re interested in finding me there!

Well, that’s all for now, thanks for stopping by!

Kitty Ripple #2

My newest project is Kitty Ripple #2, and when finished it will go with #1 to PetSmart to line the kennels of the adoptable kitties.  Here’s my first couple of rows (I’m using the same pattern as last time).  I just wanted to show you the crazy yarn.  It’s totally something old-fashioned but I think it’s fun for kitties.

I say it’s fun for kitties and there’s already dog hair on it.  I’ll have to wash both kitty ripples before I take them in…

back to the hook

Here’s the crochet stuff!  I started something new: a ripple blanket (pattern here)!  It’s not an ordinary ripple blanket though, it’s a little one, and I’m making it to donate to PetSmart!  I noticed on a visit there today that there were some crocheted and knitted little blankets in the kennels of the adoptable kitties, and I asked an associate if I could just bring some in, and he said yes!  I got some cheap, colorful, slightly grandma-looking yarn from Hobby Lobby and started Kitty Ripple #1:

While I was there, I saw some really cute scissors that I had to get, as well:

But as it turns out, they kinda suck at cutting things.  I had to snip a few times to get through my yarn.  They’re pretty to look at, I guess.

Well, I’m going to go work some more on the ripple.  Thanks for stopping by!

%d bloggers like this: