Throwback Thursday -- Remember the Inheritance?

Remember this? I am slowly connecting all the squares to finish someone else's project. I figure I will do a large sofa pillow, but it is hard to do. After all the white of the wedding dress, it is even hard to do off-white!

 

I am working on two nine patch sides. I figure when I get done connecting all of them - which could be done in an afternoon if I could concentrate - I will connect them with a brown or some other color. As long as it isn't too close to white.

Happy Crocheting! 

An Unfinished Inheritance

Now, that the wedding dress is finished and the wedding is over, I am finally getting with long put off projects. This morning, I started cleaning out my basement and going through the overflowing bins of yarn and fabric. There are many unfinished projects in various stages ranging through knitting, crocheting, cross stitch, sewing and quilting. There is one quilt that I started over 30 years ago. It is embarrassing to see the "quitter" that I can be!

But, there are a few that I have been given - projects whose creator died and whose inheritor thought of me. I wish I could ask the creator what it was they were making, who they were making it for, etc. Take the project photographed up top. There were only a few granny squares and half of a skein of yarn in a bag. No instructions or notes. So, I dragged it upstairs to count the number of squares and see if anything could be made of them. Upon closer inspection, I found that there were actually squares which were obviously made by two different crocheters with two different yarns. There are 20 squares that were crocheted by one person and 14 crocheted by another. You can see the color difference in the picture at the top of the page. One yarn is slightly yellower and the other has a pink cast to it.

But that isn't the biggest difference.  One crocheter was very good and one. . . not so much. The granny square on the right is very, well,  square. However, the square on the left is not square at all. So what was the difference that made the left one lopsided and rounded? Stitch count.

The square on the right, like all of its sister squares, has even stitch counts on each of the four sides and the corners are consistent in the number of increases. Each side has three stitches in the first round, 7 stitches in the second round, 11 stitches in the 3rd round and 15 in the forth and final round.

The square on the left also has three stitches in the first round, but in the second round there is seven stitches on one side and six in each of the other 3 sides. The third round has 11 over the seven, then 10 stitches over the next side and 9 overt the last two sides. On the final round, there are 14, then 11, 12, and 13 stitches. This is one uneven square! It just goes to show how important counting your stitches can be.

There are enough good squares to make a nine patch pillow, so that is what I think that I will do.

Happy crocheting - er - counting stitches.

Knitting Lace -- or starting another project before finishing any of the others.

I know that I shouldn't have done it -- but I did. I started another project before finishing any of the others. This seems to be a trend. Let's not talk about the 12 partial quilts in the basement, or the needlepoint picture, or the crocheted afghans (two that I can remember), or the still unfinished baby overalls with the cute little ladybugs on them, or the tatted lace, or the . . .like I said we won't talk about it!

Today we are going to discuss my new project. This is as far as I have gotten in a week. I have done several more rows than this; however, you don't see them because they were frogged* -- repeatedly. First I knitted 12 rows only to find I did something wrong and had to rip it out. Then I started again, knit 15 rows and looked at the pattern again and realized I was right the first time. After a 2 day break, I started again, this time adding life lines every 4 rows. It is hard to see the life lines in this photo as they are white yarn. Adding the life lines have helped as I am ripping out fewer lines when I make a mistake. I think that I have knitted close to 50 rows altogether, but you only see 20 rows here.

I read somewhere once that lace didn't look very good until you blocked it. That is an understatement. I can't tell what this lace will look like -- and right now it looks like a "dog's breakfast"**.

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As for some of my other UFO projects:

Actually, I DID finish the scarf that I had started some hundred years ago. And I have enough yarn left over to do a hat with the same yarn to "match" it. I found a pattern for a lacy slouch beret -- I just need to get size 7 dpns.

The old afghan I found in a drawer has been stagnating in my knitting bag. I am beginning to think that I have two choices: frog it and use the yarn for something else or try to run a life line past where I lost the pattern and begin again.

I have a partially done baby sweater which I am knitting on my USM knitting machine. I have done one of the sides and the back, but it too has been languishing waiting for piece number three to be completed.

I have done some work on the mittens, errr, mitten, singular as I have not gotten past the first few rows of the pattern. I think that this evening, after dinner is done, it will be me, the mittens, a baseball game and a glass of wine. 

It is very slow going and I keep finding more patterns to save and dream about doing. Not to mention all the time I spend writing this blog.

Happy knitting!

*Frogging is to rip out the previously knitted work. As in Rip it, Rip it.
**Dog's breakfast is British slang for a complete mess.