Friday, November 11, 2011

Fiber Arts Friday: Nice and Squishy

So I've had a pretty serious lack of online presence lately that is mainly owing to all of the ridiculous amounts of work but also contributing to that is the fact that pretty much all of the time not spent at work or work events has been going into crafting.

I have managed to complete quite a few little goodies at this point that I'll take home to (hopefully) be sold at the Christmas Market. But with the deadline of Thanksgiving its rather inevitably that I feel quite rushed to get things done. Good things do always seem to take time.

The other day however I was  putting on an old scarf that was a gift from my Aunt a number of years back. It was a simple crochet pattern but the bright fluffy yarn has made it a favorite for a number of years now. "I must make some of these" I thought.

A few days later I found myself at Jo-Ann's and wandered the yarn aisle considering the myriad of options. Choices are one of the many banes of my existence. How am I supposed to choose! But I had a friend along which always helps and a sale price plus a coupon made the $ less of an issue. I grabbed two skeins of Lion Brand Wool-Ease Thick & Quick in a gorgeous deep orange rust color. The yarn has the advantage of being super soft and squishy plus being machine washable.

Back home it sat for a few days as I worked on other things. Then Wednesday night I decided I wanted to start on it. I checked the band and it called for a "N" hook. I checked my hooks and my biggest regular hook was "H". D'oh. I knew I had some bigger hooks somewhere from way back when I crocheted the rug for my kitchen. But I had no idea where I'd stored them. After much thinking and some searching, I was scouring the craft room when it dawned on me and I found the hooks stashed in a box of miscellaneous craftiness.

The smallest hook of the bunch was "P". Well at least I was getting closer. I tried out the P hook but the loops looked insanely large. So I reverted to the H and started a few rows of double crochet. It was ok but the fabric was just too dense. I ripped it out, was at a bit of a loss, and considered buying another hook. However before doing that I decided to give P another try.

Of course the loops were still huge but I was more comfortable and just went with it. After a bit of testing I settled on 10 stitches which gives me 5 or 6 inches. It is insanely easy going and after 2 nights of sporatic work I've used up all of one skein and have somewhere in the neighborhood of 4 feet. I still want to add more length but it'll be an easy project to finish.

I think I need to work with bulky yarn more often (and buy more yarn to whip up one or two more to sell).

PS: Help me out! To fringe or not to fringe? that is my question. Let me know what you think in the comments!



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5 comments:

Kathryn Ray said...

Hmmm, I'm generally not a fan of fringe... but every now and then it's just the right thing.

Vivian said...

I vote for fringe! I don't usually use fringe in my knitting, but I think it will look really nice on your bulky scarf.

Heather Woollove said...

What a fun scarf!! I think fringe would be lovely!

WonderWhyGal said...

I vote for fringe. I like the scarf. I really do need to learn to crochet...and learn my alphabet of hooks.

yarnyMarni said...

Yep, I agree with those who came before me... fringe it! Great work, BTW!