Three-Color Afghan Q&A

So one of the main projects I’ve been working on in December was a gift, so I never showed it that much, however now that the holiday is over I’ll reveal it.  It’s an afghan that I made for my grandparents, now about five feet long and about 4.5 feet wide.  It’s very dense and yet stretchy.  Working on it with it on my lap kept me very warm!

Yarn:  It has three colors - off white, chocolate brown and dusty blue.  The worsted-weight yarn is Vanna’s Choice from Lion Brand (oh how my husband laughed when I brought home Vanna White yarn!).  It’s an acrylic yarn, and I thought it a bit squeaky to work with.  But on the whole it’s pretty soft, easy to care for, and fairly priced for a project as big as this.  I believe it took 5-6 balls of each, something like that.  It was made by holding three strands of yarn together as you go, so it took lots of yarn.

Hook Size:  Speed Hook Size Q .  This was my first foray into “speed hooking” and I am torn about the method.  I mean, the loose gauge is great for this sort of project, but it’s not quite so fun to work with.  Kind of hurt my fingers.

Pattern:  Lion Brand’s free pattern the “5 1/2 Hour Throw”.  I modified this pattern quite a bit althought the basic “V stitch” (as I call it) is the same.  I used a smaller hook (calls for size S) which of course decreased the gauge a lot.  I still thought it was loose, so to keep this from feeling “too floppy” I used pretty tight tension.  Despite the gauge decrease, I did increase the size overall significantly by adding additional stitches (the original is about the size of the striped without the border).  I also removed the fringe it called for and instead added a two-row deep half double crochet “binding” border to tighten the edges because I was still unsure how the floppiness and stretchiness of the stitches around the edges would work out over time and with repeated washing.  (Note: Normally I would give you the link to the pattern, but Lion Brand’s site is apparently in the midst of renovation and is totally borked.  So here’s the pattern from Michael’s.)

Color Pattern:  The pattern is a single color thing, but I made a pattern of solid stripes surrounded by a three-tone border.   This matches my grandparents’ sofa (they call the sofa a “davenport” which I’ve never heard outside that area of Iowa).  In my next post, which I shall title “Made of Fail” I’ll tell you how I ended up making this particular color pattern, and give you some insight into how spectacularly the phrase “I am not perfect” fits me and why that doesn’t matter.  The crap I had to go through to get this project to completion was astounding, and as usual, it was all my fault because I made it harder than it needed to be.  Typical.  Well, hope y’all like it

My brother Jeremy gracefully agreed to “model” the blanket to show approximate size.  Pretty big for a lap throw, yes?

Afghan Detail of border and brown stripe:

New Holiday Wreath … looks funny

Oof, the first part of the holiday is done … lots of cooking, people have visited (there’s one of the family dinners there), I have visited people, there has been shopping done, I have made it through a big chunk of work, and now there’s just a nice holiday and some presents.  And all that running around is probably why I feel so exhausted, eh?

So I like making a new wreath each holiday season.  I always find it somewhat amusing to see how many different decorative things you can do with the same basic round object year after year.  This year I wanted to make one to keep, to get back out next year, perhaps .  So this is what I made.  I wrapped a straw wreath with an excessive amount of fabric (some of my mom’s shiny vintage fabric), using a vast quantity of large, dangerous-looking pins in the process. Now I need to buy more pins.
Then  I cut out some of my favorite holiday shapes.  Next I threw that batch of misshapen junk out and tried again.  This time I had better luck and made a front and backing piece for each, and glued them together.  Next step I embroidered them - got some swanky gold and silver thread for some, and a nice bell for the, um, bell.  If I were to do this again, I would embroider before gluing the backing piece on, because embroidering through hot glue is not fun.

Last, I just pinned the ornaments on.  Purportedly it’s now done, but I kind of think it looks unfinished.  I can’t decide whether it’s done, or needs something … and if it needs something, what it might need.  I’ve considered adding some candy cane striped trim, or perhaps creating some more ornaments for a bit of a layered look.  I just don’t know.

What do you think?

P.S. I made two of the trees.   The other one (which had more embroidered lights) I made for my swap partner.  Sadly, my apartment office will not give me my packages, so I have not yet gotten my swap stuff.  Darn it.  Irritating people.

Holiday Decor 2007

I always decorate for the holidays. It’s my favorite time of year (I’m kind of still working out why, but I don’t seem to be alone in this), and I will never be a person who says it’s too much trouble, too much work, not worth it, etc. Doesn’t matter if people aren’t coming over, I still decorate for me.

Seriously, why wouldn’t I want to spend my December living with with pretty twinkly lights, keepsake ornaments, good food and festive surroundings? Why wouldn’t I want to set aside a special day to drink cocoa, listen to festive jazzy tunes, and make my house more beautiful with greenery and ribbon?  Why wouldn’t I want to make something special I’ll remember fondly in year’s to come?  I hope I’m never so busy I can’t take the time to enjoy things I love.

We’ve (that would be Jeff and I) collected stockings over the years. Eeyore is me, Tigger is Jeff. The fish is for Caper kitty, the bone for Audrey puppy, and the last is one made by my Grandma. I’m still making Callie’s. The lovely oven mitts are my anti-burning collection, since I love holiday cooking but as usual, I burn the crap out of myself when cooking.  Can’t seem to remember that pans out of the oven are hot, for some reason.

I hung snowflakes from the dining room chandelier ’cause I want some real snowflakes falling from the sky. Here - not likely! So much wishful thinking. It’s actually about 80 degrees and raining outside. [Amended statement - Monday it was clear and 40, yesterday rainy and 80, today 40 and rainy.  Sheesh.]

My favorite part of the festivity-ness is the tree (the real tree, smelling lovely) because of the many ornaments I’ve collected over the years. One of the things I’ve always looked forward to getting the new tree ornaments my family has given me over the years. I have an enormous number of ornaments now from all over. I can tell you when and where and from whom I got almost all of them. The one on the right, for example, is from my Aunt Mary and Uncle Reg, and there’s another one to match it around here somewhere.  My grandparents tend to get me ornaments when they’re traveling, like the bear-in-a-kilt from Scotland.

Sometimes the ornaments are handmade. These two are handmade by me when I was little. The left one is the oldest ornament I have, a gingerbread man I made when I was about four, baked from playdough or something. Yes, those are holes in it, it’s so old. It’s falling apart. The Snoopy one on the right I also made - of the shrinky dink variety. Gosh I used to love shrinky dinks.

So that’s some of the festive look around here.  Now, if Callie would stop trying to play frisbee with the ornaments (she’s taken to leaping off the back of the couch at them) we’d be golden.  She already took down the ribbon once, and I didn’t even decorate the bottom of the tree trying to avoid this!  Oh, well - merry merry!