Wednesday, March 28, 2007

I have forsaken knitting

No that is not true. Let us just say that I have begun using one stick instead of two. Get it now? Crochet! And it's a hook not a needle, I keep saying that. It's just that I have begun to notice these wonderful granny square afghans. Especially Alicia's. I just think that they are delightfully tacky. I wanted one.

Okay so I must admit that I have always thought of crocheting as being below knitting. I know that is terrible of me, but it is true. I think that I am just a snob, in music, books, in everything. Maybe not yarn though, at least yet, because I am also very frugal. I think that this snobbishness is also why I thoroughly enjoyed Main Street by Sinclair Lewis, which was the most recent book that I had to read for lit class. Carol comes into this small town with all these ideas about reform and changing and improving all these small town people. Most people hate her as a character because she is pushy, but from the beginning I loved her because she went to library school in Chicago and worked at a library and saw all these people come in, not for literature, but for tractor magazines. And I can totally relate because today, everyone comes in the library for the dvds and John Grisham and Nicholas Sparks, not for anything decent. And it's frustrating because there is a lot of good literature out there, but people just don't have the time or so they say. Or they want something light and uplifting, because God forbid that they actually do any thinking.

See this is why the new title of my blog is "Knitting in College", because the two things interact.

Anyway, I still think knitting produces more aesthetically pleasing things, but crocheting isn't all bad. So don't be offended. And so I've started making some granny squares. These are my first two:

The one on the left is my first one, done in the traditional granny square pattern. The one on the right is my second one, and it's being blocked. On the floor. In the semi-middle of my dorm room. I am pretty sure my roommate thinks that I am crazy.



I think part of the reason I looked down on crocheting is that I could never get it right. Knitting came much easier. But crocheting is not easy! Or perhaps I am just not familiar with terms and what things look like. But it took me a while to get the hang of it. I didn't realize that "into the ring" actually meant into the ring.

So project specs. I am planning to crochet my granny square afghan in Caron Simply Soft, because it is cheap and I already have a lot of it. I am going to use the blue you see above and a darker navy that I also have. These colors (and hopefully another shade of blue) all match my comforter that I use at school. It is a china plate type design, blue floral on white, and I completely adore it because it is very colonial. I will have to crochet 56 8-in squares to get my desired squares. I am not going to do multi-colored squares, at least so far. I checked 200 Crochet Blocks from the library and I'm crocheting patterns out of that.

So far it is all going well. I like it. Although my hand is not used to crocheting and it definitely cramps up a lot sooner than it would with knitting. But I am excited.

Sunday, March 11, 2007

LADY E

Thanks to spring break, I have finished my Lady Eleanor! Pictures!
The middle picture is the best example of its true colors.











Pattern: Lady Eleanor from Scarf Style
Time: About two months.
Yarn: Noro Kureyon, 6 skeins.
Mods: I cast on four base triangles instead of seven so it is less wide, which was necessary because of my lack of yarn. My lys only had six skeins in that particular dye lot and it was a sale, etc... I am just glad that the length turned out okay.

This is honestly my favorite project ever. I absolutely love it. The pattern was the perfect blend of mindless and not mindless, at least for me. I was almost sorry to finish it. With every new color that would come up, I would just be like, "Wow what a great color". Though it's true what they say about Noro, there's bits and pieces of grass or sticks or whatever. I think it just added to the charm. So yay for amazing FO's.

Next up: Pomatomus Socks from Knitty. I'm about an inch and a half into my first one. I like socks, and these are the first ones I've ever made for myself.