It took more than two and a half months to complete. Weaving in the ends took longer than the actual crocheting part! Would you believe that there were a whopping 1040 ends to weave in on this blanket? 1040. Crazy.

It is made up of one-round granny squares, joined using this join-as-you-go method (because if I had to make all of the squares first and then join them all together afterwards, this blanket would never have been made!).

The real challenge here wasn’t the many, many ends to weave in. It was actually the lack of real estate to actually do the weaving. One of the benefits of using that joining method is that any square can be removed without disturbing the surrounding squares, which would be ruined by traveling the ends from one square to another. So, each end had to be woven in with only 12 stitches to work with. 1040 times.

But you know what?

He was over the moon about it!

Totally worth it. ^_^

Below the cut, you will see the items I have made so far, but with no names attached. If you are on my gift-giving list and want to be surprised, I recommend that you do not continue with this post!

For the rest of you, I’ll include the pattern source when possible. ^_^

Spiderman Blanket This took six days to make.

Crayon Blanket (made it up as I went!). This took seven days to make.

I’m particularly proud of this one for the amount of thinking ahead I did – I wanted to match the sc border on each of the crayons to the colours in the crayon AND whip stitch the crayons together using the same colour again, so when I changed colours for the black stripes, I left super duper long ends. I then used those ends for the sc border and for whip stitching.

Star Blanket. This one only took two days.

All blankets used Bernat Satin and a 5mm hook.

I’m on fire!

As it turns out, I am one of the folks being laid off.

Now, several weeks ago I was thinking about my stash. Those of you who have been following this blog for a while have a pretty good idea of the sheer hugeness of my stash. (Click on “Yarn” up there at the top for a better idea if you’re new!)

But how much *time* does the stash represent? If I didn’t buy another ball, how long would what I have last me? After some quick math, I concluded that with my current work schedule, it would take me less than 2 years to go through all of it. I’m as shocked as you are!

Anyhow, with the news of my upcoming unemployment, I thought, what if I don’t find another job right away? We’re in a very comfortable financial situation right now, but what about the stash? Without having to stop crocheting long enough to scan books, how long would the stash last then??

My course was clear.

As it would happen, the TTC Knitalong was being held the first weekend after the bad news was announced at work. It was the perfect opportunity to stock up!

Here are the adventures of Team Red:
(Click on a picture to see it in a larger size)

We gathered at Passion Knit

where I met a truly lovely woman who teaches crochet there. I think (hope!) I was able to convince her to join our crochet guild.

This is also where we received our swag bags. Here’s mine:

That Mary Maxim coupon is going to see some really good use! I’m thinking birthday shopping…

Speaking of Mary Maxim, that’s where we went next! It seems I forgot to take a picture while we were there. I was pretty busy, though – more on that later!

Then it was time for lunch! We went to the food court at the Younge-Eglinton Centre and freaked out some muggles:

And here we are on the subway, freaking out some muggles:

Next, it was on to Knitomatic

My favourite part of this stop was how we freaked out *other knitters*. A couple of times someone would open the door, and see this:

and say something like, “uh… I’ll stop in on the way back…”

We were feeling rather under-caffeinated, so we decided to occupy a nearby Starbucks:

Now fortified, we headed to our last yarn shop of the day: Romni!

I was pretty tired by this point. More on that later!

We decided to walk over to the Rivoli, which is where we were meeting up with the rest of the groups to compare notes, win prizes, knit some more, and drink. (It’s ok, it’s not like any of us were driving… we all took the TTC! lol)

Prizes, you say? Well, first of all, Team Red very nearly swept the awards. We had the Youngest Knitter, some award about “Interspecies Relations” (there’s a story there about one of our group making friends with the bird at Knitomatic), the Bought The Least Amount award, and the winner AND runner up for Needs A Sherpa (bought the most yarn). Oh, and one of us won the draw that one of the shops was having, too!

So, what did I buy?

Bernat Satin, of course. This is why I was so busy at Mary Maxim!

Lots of Bernat Satin (of course!).

I had known going in that there was an award for having bought the most yarn, so I had come prepared:

Would you believe that the 60 balls of yarn I bought weren’t enough to win me the prize? I was the runner up! The winner had 62 balls. So close!!

We were an interesting pair, her an I. I was preparing the stash for potential unemployment, and she was gearing up for 3 months off of work due to surgery. On her foot. The lucky duck!

Anyhow, I did get a prize for being runner up:

Pretty sweet!

Oh! And the whole point to this adventure (other than buying lots of yarn) is to knit while riding transit. Of course, I crocheted instead:

Not bad for a day’s work!

Thank you so much to the organizers, donors, and participating yarn shops. I had a blast!

As I am not the kind of crocheter who suffers from flights of fancy, and always, always finishes a project before moving on to the next, I never have this problem. (Hey, reader: you’re supposed to be quietly surfing the Internet right now, not snickering at your monitor! :P) But I like to help out where I can, so… crochet from the outside-in!

I’ve shown this technique before (remember that granny square?), but this is the first time I’ve tried it on a larger scale.

This blanket measures approximately 4′ square, and is composed entirely of dc stitches, with dc5tog on the corners:

Look!

The trick to doing a square this way, is to start exactly in the centre of a side, and to make sure that the stitches on a side (not including the corner) are evenly divisible by 4.

So, for this blanket, I started by doing 80 fdc stitches (that’s foundation double crochet), doing a fdc5tog (foundation double crochet 5 together decrease), then 160 fdc, fdc5tog, 160 fdc, fdc5tog, 160 fdc, fdc5tog, 80 fdc, and join. From there on, it was just a case of working one dc into each stitch, and working a dc5tog at the corners (into the dc5tog of the previous round and two dc stitches on either side of it).

You have to be very, very careful when joining the first round. Make extra sure that you haven’t twisted it! I laid mine out on a table to double check.

Once it was joined, though, it was super easy, and to my surprise, the blanket remained portable for longer than it would have had I started in the middle. Working the first 20 or so rounds felt a lot like making a really, really long scarf.

The best part, though, was that each subsequent round was shorter than the previous round, so it felt like I was speeding towards the finish, which you may recognise as being the opposite feeling to what you normally get when making a blanket in the round. :)

Here’s a closer look at the middle:

For the last round, the middle round, I had planned to do 4 dc5tog’s, but by the time I got there I decided to try something different – I did 10 dc2tog’s instead. After you do the join, you use the tail to weave in and out of the tops of the stitches, and pull the hole closed like a drawstring.

You should try it! And if you do, let me know!

This is only my first attempt (and holy moly, following the pattern was somewhat gruelling), but I think I’ve got the basics down.

Basically, the trick is to mostly work into the back loop only, so that when you go to make the stitches over the the front of the piece, you can work them into the exposed front loops. (You also sometimes do front post stitches).

It makes a very cushy fabric. I haven’t decided what to do with this yet. Despite the fact that it has a LOT of single crochets in it, it’s still pretty stretchy.

One of my guild members has made this and made it the centre of a really neat-looking blanket. So… I might do that. lol

Oh, and here’s the back:

Perhaps, despite the terrible quality of this picture, you can see the problem I ran into:

Hint: the bottom is supposed to be straight.

Experienced crocheters would look at this swatch and say: the base chain is too tight! Go up a hook size and try to stay loose.

Alas, that isn’t the problem at all. How do I know this? Because I didn’t use a base chain, I used chainless foundation single crochet stitches.

Given my experience with other patterns that I have failed at, I have come to the conclusion that my problem is, in fact, that my single crochet stitches are too small when compared to my other stitches.

At least I’m innovative with my gauge problems!

Anyhow, I really wanted to start working on this sweater, though, so I’ve decided to go down in yarn thickness (the swatch was Bernat Satin, the yarn I settled on is Bernat Satin Sport). I used a 5mm hook for the round of sc foundation stitches, and then a 4.25mm hook for the rest.

(The bottom looks curved in this picture, but that’s only because it’s a tube and I didn’t want the front and back to overlap in the picture)

I’m going to need to figure out a way around this single crochet problem, though. There are lots of patterns out there that have sc mixed in with other stitches in a single row, and I can’t keep switching hooks.

In other news… I finished the boring, just-a-bunch-of-dc-stitches baby blanket I was working on as a counterpoint to the flower blanket:

(That’s just a plain old hexagon pattern worked until I ran out of yarn; 2 balls of Mary Maxim Sugar Baby Stripes in Tutti Fruitti with a 3.75mm hook)

And I’ve made two more Spiral Hex blankets:

(Shot artfully in a fruitless attempt to make them look like some other pattern)

As for what I’m working on now, well, that pink sweater is at the “need-to-consult-the-pattern-often” stage now, and so is now on the “work-on-it-at-home” WIP pile. My current “avoid-smacking-people-on-the-subway” project is…

… well, never mind what it is…

And then:

(Bernat Satin, 4ish balls, 5mm hook)

Then I tried it with a new yarn:

(Lion Brand Homespun, 2 balls, 6.5mm hook)

And again:

(Lion Brand Homespun, 2 balls, 6.5mm hook)
The colours in this one remind me of macaroni and cheese with ketchup.

And again:

(Lion Brand Homespun, 2 balls, 6.5mm hook)
This one reminds me of Saint Patrick’s Day!

I feel like I should go knit on the Doctor Who scarf for a little while, but I just want to make more of these spiral blankets!

Of course, my first instinct in a situation like this (or, to be fair, in ANY situation) is to crochet.

There’s a common expression that states that the fastest way to get rid of an illness is to give it to someone else, and so this is what I made:

It might be hard to see that the pattern is a sprial in that picture, so here’s a close-up of the middle:

How’s your head?

Honestly, I don’t believe that expression for a minute. I mean, it’s pretty ridiculous, right?

Back to the blanket! I used the pattern here: Pamapaloza: Spiral Hex, with 3 full balls of Bernat Satin “Florals” (variegated), and in the solid Bernat Satin in “Sultana”, I used 2 full balls, and the yarn barf from the third (maybe 1/3 of the ball? or 1/4?), and a 5mm hook. It’s 3′ across from side to side.

I did the ending differently from the original. Several stitches away from a corner, with the variegated, I switched to hdc stitches, did a bunch of those, then switched to sc and worked almost to the corner. On the last stitch before the corner, I did a slip stitch, then another into the corner space. With the solid, I did double crochets over the hdc’s, then hdc into the sc’s, then sc up to and into the corner, then finished off.

This was a really neat pattern to do, and there was no cutting the yarn invovled (well, I lie, I did cut the yarn once when the solid got tangled up in a secondary yarn barf and I was too sick to deal with it), and the end weaving was really just at the beginning and ends of the balls.

I’m definitely going to have to make another one of these!

Where did I come across this pattern? In the 11 Blankets for 2011 thread in the Crochet Liberation Front’s Ravelry group (you need to be logged in to see it).

How’s your head now?

But like I said, I don’t really believe there’s any truth to that expression… but it is suspicious that I saw that blanket for the first time only a couple of days before my migraine hit.

Very suspicious indeed…

How’s your head? I’ll ask you again in a couple of days…

I’m working on a new pattern (how exciting is that?)

Warm and toasty and cozy, I present to you:

Maybe a mitten!

So named because, like Hope’s Hat, you’ll be half-way through making this thing and thinking, “well, *maybe* it’ll end up being a mitten…”

I appologize for the fuzzy pictures, but I was just too excited about this pattern to wait for a winter sun beam!

The pattern isn’t quite right yet, but I think I’ve mostly figured it out. Stay tuned!

In other news, I’ve entered the Craftster “Advanced Accessories Challenge“, have you?

I happened to be at Michaels one day and noticed that Vanna’s Choice yarn had the perfect colours! Not knowing how much I’d need, I naturally over-bought… just in case.

And so I present to you: how to wing an R2D2 hat!

First, start with a sketch:

Next, decide how big around you want the hat to be. I figured 20″ would do the trick, so I did a foundation-dc row about that long, trying (successfully) to get a number of stitches that were evenly divisible by 12 (ended up with 60).

Now, I made the first hat working from the bottom up, then, now having the pattern, I made the next one working top down. (And then had to make a third one because the second one was too big for me and my abnormally large head).

The basic pattern is as follows (from top down) :
R1: 12 dc
R2: 24 dc
R3: 36 dc
R5: 48 dc
R6: 60 dc
All following rounds: 60 dc.

13 or 14 rounds should do it for a kid’s hat. For an adult, do some increases on R7, but take my advice: adding 6 more stitches is too many! :P

Basically, just plug the colours in as per the sketch!

The final step is to make that eye thingie… with black, do a round of 12dc. Then a round of *5dc, hdc, hdc* four times in blue and sew it on.

Of course, I had to make scarves to go with them!

They’re about 3.5 feet long… I think…

This one used post stitches (both dc and tr)

This one used back-loop-only dc stitches:

The green part worked out even better than I thought it would.

I started with a row of foundation dc stitches approximately 3 feet long. Then I did 5 dc stitches into the base of the last foundation dc, then did 1 dc stitch into the bottom of each foundation dc that followed until I had worked into all of them.

Next was a turning chain, 1dc in each stitch until the rounded end, where I did 2dc in each of the 6 stitches making up the rounded end. Then 1 dc in each stitch until the end.

Turning chain, 1dc in each stitch until the rounded end. Then *2dc, 1dc* 6 times to get around the end, then 1dc in each stitch.

Turning chain, 1dc in each stitch, *2dc, 1dc, 1dc* 6 times to get around the end, 1dc in each.

When I got to the flat end this time, I did ch1, then worked sc stitches along the flat edge, basically working 2 sc into the side of each dc, plus an extra one right in the centre.

I then switched to grey and made up the hilts as I went along. If you’re not comfortable with this, a nice, simple hilt could be made by working a dc in the back loop only into each stitch, for as many rows as you think look nice.

Rounded end:

I just love how well working into the bottom of the foundation stitches worked! I think it looks really smart. I’m going to have to use this technique again!

Check out the adorableness: