A Very Special Project

I love making things for people.  Usually, those people are very small and indifferent but they have appreciative parents that make it worthwhile.  With few exceptions, the crocheting I have done has been for babies.  But this project is for a big girl, a very dear friend.  I don't want to reveal it until it is completely done, but it has everything to do with this:

Gobs and gobs of  Sugar'n Cream, 100% Cotton with some Cotton Ease that might make the cut.  I've got this lovely palette of bright "pool colors" (that is what I am calling them) to work with and am only a little sad that I have not found more colors that will work.  Not all of these are right--there is a light blue that is too muted, along with a few others and I only need one ball of that chartreuse.  But it all looks so happy in this box!

Always have Enough Yarn when you start...

I know I need to buy enough yarn for my projects.  There are friendly signs in yarn shops, it says so on the labels of even the cheapest of yarns.  The problem is, I'm not always buying yarn with a certain project in mind.  That rarely happens...because what fun is that??

Recently I was loading up on GOBS of 100% cotton yarn in blues and greens for a very special project. There was a great sale online that I took advantage of and a recent trip to Wenatchee (where they have Craft Warehouse) on the 3-day weekend has the cupboard bustin'.  I picked up some pretty teal yarn that was on clearance for $2.99, not thinking it was right for the project but because it was so shiny and cheap!  Once I was home I came across this pattern (sorry, you'll need to log in to ravelry.com) and knew just what yarn I would be using. It was going super-quick...and then the yarn ran out.

I knew it would...just not so soon.  Luckily, my dad saved the day and picked up more yarn! (Sadly, it wasn't until I was double what you see here that I realized I picked it up and started going the wrong direction.  So it is on the back burner while it thinks about what it has done).

It is completely ridiculous that I allowed this to happen.  You would think after my stocking drama a few months back I would have learned my lesson.

Back when I was a knitter (4-5 years ago?) I bought a bunch of chunky, wool yarn to knit and felt stockings for the (then) three of us.  I never got around to it and this fall I thought it would be the perfect project for crochet.  I found this pattern and got to work!  And promptly ran out of green.  I had 1/2 of what I needed.  The shop I bought it from was closed, but it is a pretty common yarn so I ordered some from Paradise Fibers. I had it in my head that it was "Christmas Green" so that is what I ordered.  Either I was wrong of this is the most inconsistent dye ever. I had no other option but to way over-think it and make 4 different hexagons.

BUT I got it done and sometimes that is what counts.  It is HUGE so I think I may felt it still.  I am waiting to finish Owen's (that is a post in itself...I wanted to do a snowflake in his hexagons and ended up hunting down a Vanna White afghan book for a pattern) before I decide for sure.

Lettuce Crochet!

The crocheting has become obsessive.  The good news? It is relatively quick which means I actually can finish a project before I get bored.  There have been loads of hats, booties animals and little booties being made.  Luckily, the last four months have been chock-full of friends and families having babies so everything is finding a good home.
I did feel like I was near getting in a rut so I decided to try something new.  A market bag!

About 5 dc in, I suspected I would never use it, but thought it was still cute. About  6 rows in (of about 35) I knew I was going to go bonkers with the repetition, but I also knew I would be done that night and could suffer through.

The yarn is Sugar 'n Cream in the Lime Stripes colorway.  I am a sucker for this yarn--it is inexpensive and I can buy it locally.  This is my first time using the stripes--admittedly, it is more appropriate for a more "solid" project like a scarf--and I think that next time I will look for one that uses completely different colors so it doesn't seen like plain-old variegated  yarn.  But I was pretty excited  that each color was equal to one round.  Good planning on my part (as if)!  Before I stretched it a bit, it was all curly and looked like a pile of lettuce.

In case you are curious, I started with this pattern.  But then when I got to round 6 I did not read carefully and just repeated round 5 about 18 times or so, after which I realized my mistake and just decided to wing it from there!