And some thoughts….
I have no idea how to make the fuzzy tips of the yarn disappear. In amigurumi, you just hide them inside a stuffed part of the piece. Here, no matter how good my weaving job (and I can’t say it’s that good) I can’t seem to hide the very ends of the yarn.

I’m very pleased with the look and structure of my join. It lends the piece such interest.

I like the feel of Red Heart With Love much better than Classic – some of the Classic was almost crunchy off the skein – but it was unexpectedly difficult to find two coordinating shades of gray. After washing, it’s better, but still clearly not as soft.

I’m in no hurry to make another item this large!

So you can see all of it, I undertook some additional contortions to spread it out on the floor. It doesn’t really fit but you can see it pretty well anyway.

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Anyway. After adding the Greek key panels, I went back to clue 8 for the border. I read a project note that opined the border was too curvy for such a geometric afghan, but it reminds me of wrought iron, which goes perfectly with the stained glass idea.

[The photo looks a little unreal because I brightened the shadows so you could see the texture of the border, and then tweaked the tint and saturation because it looked unappealingly washed out.]

The pattern described the border as cable stitch, but it’s not like what I think of as crochet cable stitch. Instead it’s a series of arcs that slightly overlap each other. I changed it a little bit, but just the very beginning (and consequently the end) and how it acts at corners.

For the single crochet base (round 2), of course I didn’t have the right stitch count. Just make sure that each side stitch count is a multiple of 3, not counting the stitches in the very corners (the middle of the 3 sc made into the previous corner stitch). [In particular, on side 1 don’t count your first sc, because it will become the middle of 3 at the end.]

Mark the joining slip stitch of round 2 with a stitch marker. In round 3, when you make your first arc, skip 3 stitches, not two. Mark the first of those skipped stitches with a stitch marker – that is where your last arc will connect – and make sure when you “sc in 2 skipped sts” they are the unmarked two.

Proceed down the side, skipping the next 2 unworked stitches each time you attach a new arc, until you get to the corner. You’ll attach an arc to the very corner stitch, and the next arc will be joined to the next stitch after: make the “sc in 2 skipped sts” 2 sc in the very corner stitch, to make 3 sts in the corner counting the previous arc’s end. In the diagram, the heaviest lines are round 2. The dashed lines are the “sc in 2 skipped sts.”

When you get to the last corner, the arc that is attached to the very corner stitch will be attached to the slip stitch you marked. You can try to attach it to the same sc as the sl st is made into, which is really where it belongs, but that might be difficult. The next arc, which is the one that cups the corner, is attached to the other marker stitch, the first of the 3 you skipped in making the first arc (dotted line in diagram). When you go to “sc in 2 skipped sts” you’ll only sc once (dashed line in diagram), again into the slip stitch that ended round 2. The second sc is the one you made at the very beginning of the first arc. Now you can sl st to that sc, and proceed as instructed with round 4.

I was pleased to realize that although my last arc ended in front of the first arc, because of the backtracking I didn’t have to cut my yarn between rounds 3 and 4 – I was already in the back where I needed to be.

I took a break between skeins to secure the yarn tails, so I have to figure out how to photograph the whole thing, wash it, do the final trimming, and get the on-bed glamour shots. Until next time!

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Instead of a long foundation chain followed by a row of single crochet, I made 213 foundation single crochets to start. Otherwise I followed the pattern, save fixing one typo: In row 9, just before “repeat from * across” it says to dc 3 rows down and skip the next sc. In between those two instructions it should have you chain 2 (in place of the sc you’re skipping).

The pattern calls for you to chain 2 whenever you’re skipping 1 stitch. If I were starting over I would only chain 1. It’s likely the designer’s chains are tighter than mine and a single one puckered unattractively, but in my tension the two chains spread and make the key pattern serif instead of sans-serif, so to speak.

I made the second panel twice. The first time I joined all my leftover gray and still ran out with one long row left. Instead of continuing from that point with new gray yarn and a dozen tails to deal with, I decided to pull it out, and when I got back to the beginning purple I realized I’d joined that in the second row as well! Must have cut out a knot or frayed area. Anyway at that point it seemed worthwhile to start completely over. Once I got the new skein of gray I realized why I’d run out: it wasn’t enough for the panel! Barely – I ran out with maybe 10 stitches left – but man, that’s a yarn eater. I pulled back to the start of the row so the tails would be at the edge and used some of the previous leftovers to finish. Unfortunately the new skein was a vastly different dyelot than the previous, but in the not terribly bright light of the bedroom, hanging off the edge of the bed, it should be fine.

Since I’m down to just the border, here’s my leftover non-black yarn (plus all the ball bands, minus one small ball of light gray which hid in the bag). This is the remainder from 5 dark gray (Red Heart Classic Nickel), 3 light gray (RHC Silver), 5 light purple (RH With Love Lilac, double-sized skeins), and 4 dark purple (RHWL Violet, ditto). The pattern called for 3, 2, 9, and 7 single-size skeins of each color, respectively, so I used less than one additional skein of each color (not counting the extra gray for the extra panels).

In fact, if I’d omitted the extra panels and done the joins and border in two different colors, I believe I could have squeezed them out of the remaining yarn as well. That’s rather amazing because my afghan came out a third again the size predicted – the squares that said they would be 9″ came out 12″ – and I did not buy a third again the called-for yarn. My work must have much more extra air space than extra yarn.

I’ve begun the border but it is slow. I’ve now been working on this afghan fairly steadily for nearly seven months, though, so what’s another one or two?

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Clue 6 took the 14 hexagon motifs and joined them into two long panels. This was a pain in the tuchus and revealed previously unnoticed stitching errors. Many many yards of yarn were pulled out. I think I managed to get it all worked out, though. I decided not to use black within the panels, largely because I couldn’t determine how to fit it in well.

Clue 8 was assembly and border. Here I did use black, to be the leading of a stained glass window. The joining was mostly “make a strip of grannies and add it to this edge.” I wanted to be clever with the joining and use fewer lengths of yarn, somehow going along the edge of the strip and pulling yarn out to do the granny-to-granny joins midstream, but upon further reflection I didn’t think I could do that without yarn tension mania, so I sucked it up and joined the grannies into strips with separate lengths of yarn. My join was single crochet in the back loops only (I intended to use the method of the flat slip stitch join, but spaced out and did it the usual way, which for sc is okay since it doesn’t roll to the front like sl st), and when I came to a crosswise seam end I slip stitched into it to avoid gaps in the black lines.

I’m not going to attempt a full-afghan photo until it’s actually done, so here are some detail shots of the joins to tide you over.

There are still shaggy ends because I’m not going to do the final clipping until the blanket is completed and washed. I will trim a bit, though, and/or weave the longest of the ends in a bit more so they don’t tangle in the wash.

With the border it will be long enough for the bed, but not quite wide enough (if it only needed to overhang one side instead of both, it would be enough). The next post (January?) will show you how I’m addressing that.

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Clue 1: Beginning of center medallion in dark purple, 12 dark gray popcorn grannies, two dark purple old rose hexagons.

I won’t lie, the beginning of the medallion was a little dull. This whole afghan has endless front post double crochet stitches. Fortunately I’m not in the crowd who were discussing having to space them out because of wrist pain. I’m not sure whether I’d ever made popcorn stitches before, but I’m pretty certain even if so I never made them for anything other than practice or experimentation. They have an interesting slightly pointed texture.

Clue 2: Two dark purple solid hexagons, four spiral hexagons in dark purple and either light purple or dark gray, two round ripple blocks in light purple and light gray, 10 light purple front post grannies.

I like spirals. However, the round ripple blocks might be my favorite motif of the entire afghan, though that may be primarily because of how the two light shades look together. In the photo, note that the solid purple hexagon on the right is upside-down and the one on top of the large motif is right-side-up. I got confused, probably in part because of the old rose hexagons of Clue 1.

Clue 3: Four light purple scallops blocks (the only motif worked in rows), two dark purple sun rays hexagons (I found these visually indistinguishable from the solid hexagons and may not have split them up correctly for assembly), four two-color hexagons in dark purple and either light purple or light gray.

The scallops were a nice diversion from all the rounds, and I like their look. Keeping my place in the four-row repeated pattern took occasional orienteering, though. I appreciate that JulieAnny spread out the smaller motifs so every clue had something to give you a break from the big motifs.

Clue 4: Middle of center medallion in dark and light purple, 12 light gray window pane grannies.

The window pane grannies were quite open, with first-round cluster stitches further condensed by third-round post stitches made on them. The middle of the medallion was tricky but interesting. I had to pull a decent amount of yarn out and redo sections. As painful as that was, I figured I shouldn’t spend as much time on this as I am and then let obvious errors go unfixed. It doesn’t make sense.

Clue 5: End of center medallion in light purple, 10 light purple front post grannies.

The end of the center medallion was no more interesting than the beginning, but at least the scenery was better. It was probably one of the largest single items I had worked on to date (well, I mended an afghan for my mother-in-law once, which I don’t think I showed here, and that clearly was larger). Front post grannies, well, are front post grannies.

Clue 7: Brick squares in light and dark purple, 8 dark purple old rose grannies.

The old rose grannies were nice, and indeed, the centermost rounds were identical to the old rose hexagons. The brick squares were the most frustrating and least satisfying motif of the entire afghan. After consistently failing to maintain anything approaching normal tension with 5 yarn overs and a hook insertion five rounds below, I made the tall stitches by yarning over once and pulling four loops up through strands of stitches in the four intervening rounds. It was still fussy and slow, and I’m still not thrilled, but my tension was much more reliable and I can hope that joining straightens them out.

If you want to follow along and get sneak peeks, I’ve kept ridiculously detailed notes on my Ravelry project page (Ravelry login required, I expect), and it’s one of only a few projects I’ve put on Rav as a work in progress. The previous ones were probably all from before I started this blog.

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I’ve mentioned that I was thinking I’d buy a large basket for this purpose. The local co-ops stock fair trade woven baskets, and some are quite large. They are lovely but I couldn’t seem to settle on one – none of them had colors or patterns I was in love with. Meanwhile, I realized that sewing a lining for the basket, as I planned to do to prevent snags and add pockets, would be nearly as much work as simply sewing a basket.

I bought fabric before designing the pattern and so ended up with a yard and a half of each of two home dec fabrics: a patterned “outdoor” fabric and a solid cotton duck. I could have gotten by with 3/4 of a yard of each, as it turns out, so I’ll have to find another use for the rest.

Staring at the yardstick led me to write down a pattern for a 9″x18″x12″ basket, but I started thinking that was maybe excessive, and calculated out a smaller one as well. To check, I made a paper “basket” that was 8.5″ by 16″ by 11″, with no bottom, and decided that was quite large enough, so I went with the 8″x16″x12″ version of my design (it doesn’t sound like a major change, but the difference is a shoebox plus a kleenex box worth of space). For sturdiness, the basket has an inner layer of thin fleece from my stash – all these sorts of projects seem to use batting for interfacing, so that’s what I was going for.

The basket is twice as big in one direction than the other partially so it will sit alongside pieces of furniture with a lower profile, but also so that it could have some large flat pockets on the inside, for printed-out patterns. I knew I wanted a large flat pocket for the afghan pattern and a large slightly non-flat pocket for the blackwork pattern and hooped map-in-progress. I decided to add a pocket for my crochet hook, and as long as I was at it, some shorter pockets for this and that (embroidery floss, stitch markers, etc). The tall thin hook pocket is flat and the shorter, squarer pockets are not. The shorter pockets also snap to the basket lining at the top, to keep those little odds and ends in place.

So I wouldn’t have to deal with turning down the edges at the top and capturing the fleece and what have you, I bound the top of the basket with bias tape (more extra wide double fold, baby).

The sewing was time consuming (mostly because of pocket construction) and not everything is as flawless as I might hope, but I’ll show you how I made it later in the week. Flaws and all, I am quite pleased with how this came out, and I expect it will come in handy many times in the future. It would be a nice bag for car travel as well as projects.

Now I’m eyeing my threadbare purse…

The post Fabric craft basket appeared first on ReveDreams.com.

I have clues 1-4 of 8 in my possession and they will continue to come out every Friday through the middle of August. I’ve stitched the first two clues over the past ten days, eating up far more yarn than I normally would in that time. The first lesson I’ve had to learn is how to deal with 16 skeins of yarn, 9 of which are double-size and at least 4 of which are “active” at any given time (I’ve gotten up to 6: one dark purple tied up in a motif whose instructions are spread over multiple clues and two more so I could do a spiral that had two dark purple strands). I also have to do something with the motifs finished so far. I’ve decided that, after photographing, I’m going to close the motifs for each clue in a plastic bag and label it with the clue number. Everything “inactive” is getting stored in the box the yarn was shipped in, which currently is just sitting on the floor in my sewing room (note: that doesn’t make it in any way unique among my craft supplies).

There’s a complication to this afghan that isn’t present in my other long-term project, the blackwork embroidery map: the materials in use at any given time are bulky and in many pieces. Usually I have one project bag with materials for several projects in it simultaneously – the life of an amigurumi designer! For this project I got out a smallish bag for the multi-clue motif and its active yarn, another for small amounts of yarn left at the end of skeins (just in case), and a larger bag that holds those two as well as the full or mostly full skeins of yarn. I’m considering buying a large basket to put them in so all three bags are still together but I have space in the large one for finished motifs of a clue still in progress. If I do, I’ll also keep the embroidery project in the basket.

Such a system not only looks neater, it makes it easier to move the project around if it’s in the way, which is bound to happen multiple times over such a long stretch. The soonest I could finish the afghan is late August, simply because I won’t have all the clues until the 15th. However, this brings us to the other lesson of this project: pacing myself. Each clue so far has taken at least 8 hours of stitching, and I’m two clues behind. My other considerations are that I’d like to finish the blackwork by some time this fall, write every other week for the local fibercraft blog, and keep up with my monthly goals here. I also need a substantial amount of time (30+ hours per week) to dedicate to my web development job. That’s not to mention that I want to continue to have a social life, spend time online, and read books. Something’s got to give in that scenario, and it’s the afghan. I’ve decided to spread out the stitching to a third of a clue per week, plus two towns on the blackwork map. That gets the map finished in mid-October (just in time for making Halloween costumes) and the afghan done by Thanksgiving, unless joining and edging take a very long time (just in time for making Christmas presents). Afghan and map work should run 4-5 hours per week, dropping down to 3ish hours when the map is done — though by then I may have a new long term project.

Delayed gratification and responsible time management are the watchwords. It’s the right thing to do for my goals and priorities. It just feels so slow!

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