"Why's that?" I ask thinking of the flash, and how I hates it so for being so merciless.
"So you can take more pictures of stuff. Every time you take a picture of something the apartment gets a little cleaner."*
...
Apparently, I have been remiss in my general tidying up kinda routines. I just think he got tired of seeing little lost yarn balls living in strange places and jumping out to surprise you. I rather like my little collection of random ends of projects. They're like little bunnies, so cute and fuzzy. D'awwww!
...
Getting sidetracked.
At any rate, I decided that today, I would bite the bullet, and share some crochet, and my embarrassing inability to read pattern requirements for yarn. Hopefully this will amuse the ever-loving snot out of you. It gets me every time.
Allow me to set the stage:
It was some years ago, about 4 now I'd say, when The Best Friend picked up the needles and learned to knit. Gracious soul that she is, she agreed to teach me in return for me teaching her how to crochet. Now it had been a yonk's age since I'd picked up a hook and delved into the mysteries of ch, sc, dc, trc, and the like, so I decided to do a little reading up and make a few small things to get my hand in.
My maternal grandmother, bless her sweet heart, had made my an afghan when I was much younger. Gorgeous wavy thing in purple, white, red and blue. I adored that blanket from the moment I saw it, and treasured it every winter I lived in Whitehorse as I layered it on top of me with the four or five other blankets** I possessed. Keeping that love and joy in mind, I decided, after a few practice scarves and hats, that I, too, wanted to make a blanket.
Here's where I balked: I wanted a quick blanket; an easy blanket; a blanket for the girl-on-the-go who doesn't have time to fiddle with wavy bits or squares or seaming. A blanket that could be started and completed in a reasonable amount of time, and that would fit in with my ramen noodle budget.
Patterns were sought, vetted and tossed with a viciousness seldom seen outside mongol hordes or budget meetings. I thought it was hopeless. I was nearing the point of giving up, when I found this: Lion Brand's 5-1/2 Hour Afghan. (I got the original pattern on the Lion Brand website not knowing about Ravelry. I'm all better now).
I took one look at the pattern, one look at the stitch that makes up the entirety of the blanket, and one look at the hook size, and that was my shopping list. I vaguely remember glancing at the yarn requirements, seeing how many balls that were needed, and thinking "Wow. That's a lot of yarn."
Fired up, I hied myself off to Wally World*** and into their crafting/yarn section to acquire for myself the accouterments for my blanket. I was standing there looking at the, heaven help me, Red Hart**** giant, supersaver, one pound balls of acrylic and I thought: "I should make a smaller version first, just as a test." Quick call to TOH on the cell to ask his favourite colours, and I had one giant ball of Red, Navy, and Forest (I think that's what they're called, I don't remember and lost the bands).
Stay with me here: 3lbs of yarn, for a small version of this blanket. If you have the pattern open, and want to take a second to do some math, be my guest.
Then I picked out the colours for the one I planned to make for me. The one I was sure, beyond a shadow of a doubt, would match the pattern exactly. Stitch for Stitch. Perfect.
I got three big balls of brown, and then three big balls of a brown-grey-green variegated, and three big balls of a brown-grey-blue variegated.
Still with me? 9lbs of yarn for the pattern as written.
Then I tracked down the hook. Q sized. Got the last one on the rack. For those knitters who may have never seen one of these hooks:
That's a Q hook. My hand included for reference. (Hmm... I fit into ladies M gloves with a little breaking in needed for the width. I'd say they're stubby looking, but they're not; my hands are perfectly formed for holding needles and hooks and making things).
So I haul all this to the cash register. Get a look from the cashier. Brightly, perhaps too brightly explain that I'm buying twelve pounds of yarn to make blankets, and proceed to haul all this back to my place (The Best Friend's Basement at the time.)
Then the fun begins.
I get the Red, Navy and Forest out. Rip the guts out of all three balls and find the center pull end, and start in on the pattern. I figured, what the heck, we'll see how far this gets me, just for sh*ts and giggles. TBF comes down to see what I had acquired, as it's not every day I haul four bulging bags up her walkway. I explain my plan, she gets that.... look... that tells me I may be going off the deep end, but okay, she'll love me no matter what because we're Best Friends, and she heads back upstairs.
I make my foundation chain, as per the pattern.
I run the first row, then the second, and continue on, as per the pattern.
I idly keep an eye on the clock, curious, because it's around noon, to see how long this takes me.
I throw on a movie or two while I work. No big thing. I'll run out of yarn sooner or later and have to go back to get some more to finish it (without doing the tassels; don't like tassels).
Exactly Five And One Half Hours later... I finish the blanket. As written.
I have a little leftover yarn.
I look at the blanket. Then look at the nine pounds I purchased for myself.
I blink
TBF comes into the room. She sees the finished blanket. She too looks at the nine pounds of acrylic I purchased for myself. I can't remember what she said, things were kind of blurry around the edges there for a bit. I do know I checked the pattern measurements for the finished article and it was spot on.
Nine Pounds.
That was a Saturday.
Sunday, I think, I made an earnest start on the nine pounds of acrylic I purchased. I chained, I ripped, I chained again, I ripped, I did some attempts at math and gave up, and decided to just wing it.
It didn't take me 5-1/2 hours, but I did turn out what I call the Big Brown Thing. When you saw it last, it looked like this:
 |
| Folded Up |
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| One... |
 |
| Two... |
 |
| Three... |
 |
| Top |
 |
| Bottom |
Nope, just a really really big freakin' blanket.*****
And I know it's derided and booed and disdained, but the Red Heart, for this project, was perfect. Consider it for a charity project, the pattern and the yarn. Three balls, 5-1/2 hours, and someone gets a nice sized throw (not the big brown thing, the actual pattern. I'll get a picture of the one I made for The Other Half if I can dig it out of his jeep. It's become an essential car blanket). A throw that's machine washable, and gets better the more it's washed. And not made of ripples.
The voices made me do it...
I can't be knitting a sweater like I am, in the yarn that I am and not say this:
Check out my blue balls!
Seriously though. These are here because I got the yarn for the sweater after the yarn for the Big Brown Thing. Would you think I'd learned?
Nope! Thought I could knit a sweater from one pound of yarn. Which is why I ran out in the middle of the front of it, and had to set the Demon Sweater aside for a year.
Thinking back on it: it was probably my lack of yarny foresight that turned the sweater down the dark path.
Blast it all.
*Just wait. I'm going to get an "innocent" request to post some of my cooking so I'll clean the stove.
**Not that it was that cold in the house, I was just more comfortable that way. Harder for the monsters under my bed to get at my toes, y'know.
***What my family calls the big blue box store that's invading everywhere. I won't give them the dignity of mentioning their name.
****I was young, I needed the yarn. See also: ramen noodle budget, university student life, paying debts and still having a hobby.
*****A blanket which, when the midden hits the windmill, anarchy reigns, society crumbles, and the undead stalk the streets, will nicely double as camo netting.
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