current projects

[fred_mouse]

Inspired by ysobel's post from earlier in the week about crochet terminology, I went poking around my crochet Stuff. Which lead me to realise that I have a handful of semi-abandoned project that I should finish up before I try the problem project again with the alternate terminology. 

What I knew I was working on - a laundry basket of donated yarn that I'm turning into either single colour 20cm/10 round granny squares or two colour 25cm/12 round granny squares depending on amount of central colour (if I run out, I finish in either white or black, because those are easy to get more of). Since the beginning of June, I've finished 43 of the smaller ones, and 8 of the bigger ones, not counting the ones that still need the ends sewn in (about three, I think). The plan is to keep going until I'm on leave in January, and then see what I can make from them. 

What I had forgotten about

• a corner to corner square, which just needs the ends sewn in
• bun nets (three that I've found, but I think that there are more) which need ends sewn in
• the Julie Yeager crochet along that was mentioned in March. I foolishly decided to make a whole blanket - I have four four colour squares, each starting with a different one of the colours, and I'm making one of each 'pair' of colours (total of 12) to make a baby blanket. This is more than half complete, but I stopped carrying it as my go to project when I started making mistakes on one of the rows. 

plus one knitting project that I'm not detailing here. I'd love to have all of these done by the end of the year (I'll take the last one away with me in December, because it is fiddly but small)

What about you all? What are you working on? 

Comments

[daidoji_gisei]

I have a shrug that's been sitting around for months--two more rounds and it would be done!

I just got the yarn for my first sweater, I'm doing Dora Ohrenstein's Uptown Sweater. I want to get the swatching done for that this week.

[fred_mouse]

That is a nice looking top. And reasonably simple, by the looks too.

[kerravonsen]

Heh... unfinished projects. At least each project is in its own bag... (and if it isn't, then I'm in trouble!)
I'm going to list my textile projects, not just my crochet ones, because I tend to switch between crochet and loom knitting at the drop of a hat.

1. Dark green scarf. This is the one I need to finish first, by the end of this month. This started off as crochet, and had about five false starts until I realized that, with my aim to make it a really soft scarf, crochet simply wasn't soft enough, needed something more elastic to have a bounce-back for softness. So I changed it over to loom knitting.

2. The Amazing Housecoat; a long-term project which I don't know when I'll finish. This has no pattern whatsoever; I intend to make this with free-form crochet + knitting, combine the various scrumbles into large rectangles, and sew them together into a vaguely coat-like object. It was prompted by a few things, including that I have a favourite dressing-gown which I wish was a housecoat, so I could wear it all day; and that I came across a sale for this grey wool, so I bought tons of it. So it's going to be a grey housecoat, made with that sale wool and also other grey yarn as I feel like it. So currently there is a loom-knit panel I'm working on with my largest straight loom using the sale grey wool; that's one part of it. The other part is killing two birds with one stone: I decided I would make sample-squares of various crochet stitches to try new stitches with (made in a variegated grey yarn which is lovely) and when I've done enough, either sew them together or scrumble them together randomly, since this is meant to be free-form rather than a quilt. So... this could be a disaster or a lovely success, I don't know yet.

3. I have this loom-knit panel I'm working on in variegated green yarn... and I've forgotten what it was intended for! It's too wide to be a scarf. Maybe it was supposed to be a panel for a vest? I'm not sure.

4. Necklace, with pale gold plastic carnival beads, a pastel rainbow lucet cord, and, um... I think I'm going to crochet them together.

5. Crocheted face-cloth (must get back to that) in a mix of cream and variegated green/brown/cream; it's a variation of a stitch-pattern I stumbled across somewhere. Basically, single-crochet across with the cream yarn, put in a stitch marker, and then single-crochet, treble-crochet across in the variegated yarn, and then go back to the sc with the cream yarn, and so on. Makes little "knots" sticking out for texture.

6. Slippers. These have been sitting around half-done for ages. It doesn't help that I don't have a pattern, then again, I don't think I could have found a pattern for these. They have rubber soles made from cutting out a thick foam mat, and then I made some "inner soles" from thick pom-pom/chenille yarn, and sewed them to the rubber soles. And that's where I've been stuck for ages, not really sure how to do the sides and top of the slippers. Which is a pity, because I've been wanting some sturdy-soled slippers for a while now.

Yeah, I really don't like using patterns, do I?

[fred_mouse]

I'm with you on patterns. Mind you, I'm all about the regular shapes, so tend to just go round and round until I've got a square the size I need. And I'm lazy - I like the look of fancy stitches, but I can never motivate myself to use them.

And the switching - yes, this week is patchwork, all the way. I have 3-5 small projects (depending on whether I count the three tiny quilt tops as 1 or 3) that I knocked off about 2/3 of on the weekend, and I'm hoping to just do enough each day that they will be ready to do the next thing (two to post, the quilt tops I'll then be waiting on the person with the wadding to get back from OS).

[kerravonsen]

I like the look of fancy stitches, but I can never motivate myself to use them.

Which is why I'm doing the swatches. Mind you, they're limited in that I don't want to make them with lacy stitches, because it is supposed to be a coat, after all, not a summer shawl.
I've been bookmarking various interesting-looking stitches, so at least I have a list to look at.

[fred_mouse]

Actually, the making of swatches is something I might be able to motivate myself on. I bought a '30 fancy crochet dishclothes' years ago, but I refuse to use most dishcloths because I'm highly sensitive to mould, and can smell it on things that have been sitting damp for mere hours. Crochet dishcloths struck me as such a pointless thing, even if the patterns were pretty!