Why it’s called “crafting”: Flower Afghan

Last night at about 1:30 am I finally finished my daisy flower afghan.  I’m quite pleased with the way that it turned out, which is really lovely, because putting that much time and effort into something you felt ambivalent about would be distressing.  I was so pleased I actually made a special effort with my photography for the finished project.

This blanket epitomizes for me the nature of crafting: a bit of this, a bit of that and a lot of effort.  The patterns are mine and not mine:  part flower pattern I found, edited appropriately, part pattern I made up, a multi-colored checkerboard pattern I came up with and some brown and red borders.  The end result is only a tiny bit talent – some hand-eye coordination and a bit of visualization.  Most of this blanket is just sheer time and effort.  I got a lot of practice crocheting.

So how long did it take?  Well, it took me about an hour to do each block plus a little, and there are 48 blocks, which means about 52 hours.  It took me another 24 hours to do the stitching and borders.  Plus a little time when things go wrong or I have to fix mistakes, another 3 hours.  I’d say that’s a good but conservative estimate of how long it took to make me, and that means I spent over 100 hours of my life spent making this.  I’m quite a bit better at crocheting now.

For the next month or so, you should expect to see a lot of flowers here, this is the beginning.  It’s springtime in the Hill Country, which means wildflowers, which is just about as pretty as it gets for me.  I’ve always preferred simple field flowers to cultivated ones in almost every case.

So there you go! Nice, eh?  I’m very happy it’s finished, and happy it turned out well!

The Benefits of Organization, or How I Always Lose Stuff

Last spring I wrote down the pattern I made up for the brown squares that will go in my flower afghan.  When I decided to stop working on the blanket for the summer, I put everything – yarn, finished squares, crochet hook and pattern pieces into a basket and closed it up.  The point was – TRY NOT TO LOSE ANYTHING.

Raise your hand if you know what’s coming next.

Yeah, that’s right, I can’t find the piece of paper with the pattern for the brown squares.  I also apparently thieved the crochet hook from myself. Oh, and I didn’t write down which type of brown yarn I was using or save a label.

So it took a while to figure out what drugs I was on what I had been doing with this brown granny square.  I figured it all out again (eventually, after three failed attempts) and then decided I could improve it.  So half the squares will be of one sort and half will be a slight variation.  Hey, at least they’re all the same color now.

I did figure out the hook size and yarn type (it was only the second one I tried).

Crocheting shall continue apace. I have just four more squares to do!  That’s a little bit less of a woohoo because I still have to put borders on everything and sew it together, which is not a throwaway bit of work.

<crosses fingers it turns out well>

Fleurs and a Personal Challenge

Aaand, spring ….. go!  Aaaah, I love spring so much!  So much so much so much.  Flowers have to be the best thing ever.  April in central Texas has to be the most beautiful thing.  So, I have made a resolution.  I am going to pick five pictures and do something art-and-or-craft-ish with them.  Dunno what, but I’ll do something.  OK, and Picture #1 doesn’t count, because Audrey is just adorable.

#1 – I love the delicate white and the blue of the sky, and the rich greens, and dots of flowers.  That’s the best.  This was so wonderful in the breeze, the petals fluttering about.

#2 – Indian blanket.  I chose this because this daisy-ish flower is one of my very favorites, but also because of the many textures of this shot, from the petal veins to the spiky bits in the center, to the soft and delicate aspect of the petals.

#3 – Have to research what this flower is.  I like the blue/yellow element, and that there are several blooms on a tall stalk.

#4 – Strong color, simplicity of elements, strong shape, slight petal texture.  Clarity of color, mostly.

#5 – I like the varying shapes in this picture, from the stalk to the long, slender, dark leaves, to the flowers with multiple types and colors of petals, to the darker red unopened buds, and of course the dark, sunlit browns of the ground.

Interested to see what I’ll come up with.  I think I’m going to have to get out some floss.  Maybe some special fabric … hrm …