DOA's Christmas Granny Square Throw: Progress!

I'm up to 52 squares made for this year's Christmas Afghan.  It's a basic granny using Mistletoe Red Heart Supersaver Yarn (I found a few more skeins :)       There will be white around each square, the joining color is white and it will have a white edge, I haven't quite decided what pattern to use for the edge.  I'm making this up as I go along.

It is working nicely to do a few squares every morning after I have my coffee and the paper.  I think I'll try to do projects this way from now on.  Just keep the project handy and keep working on it, and see it come to life.

Christmas Yarn: Treasure Hunting

Here you go, I'm sharing all the lovely Christmas yarns I found last year, so that you may be filled with Christmas spirit and look for your own holiday yarn.  Ho ho ho.


Caron Simply Soft Party

Bernat Handicrafter Holidays

Red Heart Super Saver "Mistletoe"

Red Heart With Love Metallic

Lion Brand Wool-Ease Thick & Quick

Red Heart Holiday

Lily Sugar and Cream

Aunt Lydia's Classic 10 and 3 Crochet Thread

Unleash the Kraaken! ...er, I Mean, Crochet, Ho Ho Ho

When I recently reorganized my yarn by brand, I also pulled out all the Christmas yarns I bought last year, in some odd, unexplainable frenzy.  It's like I bought every type I found, at least a few.   I was thinking now's the time to get actual projects going with them, and if I needed more of something, maybe it would be out there again.

I have 6 skeins of Red Heart Super Saver "Mistletoe" and thought I could make a throw with them, no idea of the size.  I started making granny squares and  really like them.

My keen idea was to make as many squares as I could from the skeins, then think about adding another row of a matching color or colors if I thought I'd like it.

 Next thing you know, there I was out shopping with a square in my pocket to see if I could find a match in something like the Caron One Pounder.  Lots of room for edges, right. Better yet, I found Red Heart Super Saver Jumbo in White which matches perfectly and lightens up the color scheme.  I really like the addition.

Let's get those projects going, you say!  I have seen more Bernat Handicrafter Holidays Cotton Yarn out there, and could get more of that one.  I wanted to try it out first, and the 12 oz big skeins seemed like an amount you'd want to base a blanket on.  But, can you make an afghan from cotton yarn?  Some say yes, some say no, but only one site showed an afghan using it.   Others dismiss cotton yarn as "kitchen yarn" and "dishcloth yarn."   Eek, like I'm going to make a thousand dishcloths from that big skein.  Or, whoo hoo, a pencil cup cover.  The placemats I've seen aren't too bad, but again, a waste of all that Christmasy colored yarn.  I am really liking working with the cotton.

I'm using Attic 24's Granny Stripe Afghan pattern, and I have two other colors I could be striping in, maybe should be striping in.  But, I love the cotton Mistletoe so much.  It is pretty, works nicely (best on the Boye rubber handled ones--metal and plastic hooks sort of caught on the yarn and were hard to pull through).    It is soft and pretty.  At first I thought I stripe in a red and white with silver metallics every fourth row.  They're also the Bernat Handicrafter and are cotton, but I just kept going.  We shall see how far the first skein gets me.  I'm just on row 6, but I love it.

I've been meaning to try the granny stripe for quite awhile, and it really is a pleasure to work along the rows.  I did take the measurement of another site 164 chains to begin rather than the 239 (?) Attic 24 has.  It's plenty wide.  We'll see how long it ends up.

Christmas Afghan Rows 4, 5, 6

      

 Christmas, as you may guess interrupted the work on this.  Now I can relax and crochet away. This square is 11" x 11" . Big!  Wooly and so soft.  It is so cold out that it is a pleasure to work on this just for the warmth of it. 

Two rows of the original green next.  See? The New Me (as my husband would say) will be finishing projects left and right going forward.

Christmas Afghan Rounds 2 and 3

See me whip this baby up!  Remember, the usual length of time from start to finish for me is ten years so I am rockin' and rollin' here.

I had to resort to writing out the round two directions for myself in plain English. Voila!

Round Two

A little bumpy at the edges because the strands you need to tuck in are the size of a truck, compared to a normal bit of yarn.

Boink!  Looking to Round Three and the picture of the afghan grrrrr there are two rounds of red and I fastened the stinker off.   I had happily wound the white color into a nice soft sparkly ball, too.   Alas, I had to slink in the red again, which didn't quite go according to directions.  In fact round three's directions seemed so whacko, and I was in No Mood, so I just crocheted around the square as I normally would and poof to the directions for this round.  I'm sure I'll pay dearly for this bit of rebellion.  But not yet, muahaha.  Resting before Round Four, Five, Six in soft sparkly white.

Round Three

Christmas Afghan Using Red Heart's Weekend Granny Throw Pattern

Trying this with Bernat Handicrafter Holidays Yarn, in variegated, sparkly white and sparkly red.  You can't tell from the picture, but these are HUGE skeins.  I looked all over for them and finally found them at Joann's.  I found I own two size N hooks, but think because of the gauge requirement, I'll need to find another size or so up.  I've gone off the crochet deep end, because I now love hooks as well as yarn.  A trip to Michaels!  (Larger hook selection)

It isn't the bulky yarn they ask for, but this is the simple pattern I want. http://www.redheart.com/free-patterns/weekend-granny-throw

 

12/4/16

Off to both Joann's and Michael's this morning.   Joann had one more of each of the Bernats, which I'm going to make using a more appropriate sized hook for the yarn I'm using.  The pattern will certainly look a bit different but I'm confident it be lovely.

I got it into my head that I'd like to try it as well in the Red Heart Super Savers Chunky the pattern calls for.  I was up for making it an any nice color combination that I found.  Problematically, I couldn't find a single skein of it in either store.  I looked at all the chunky yarns and decided to go voila! with more Christmasy colors so I'm hoping the Lion Brand Wool-Ease Yarns I bought are the same weight as the Red Heart.  Wool-Ease Poinsettia (2), Wool-Ease Spartans (2), Wool-Ease Starlight (3)

I'm eager to try this out, and have already rolled my first skein into a ball.

Happiness is rolling skeins of yarn into balls!  I've done it since I first started to crochet.  Once you've come to a knot in the center of the skein that is hard to untangle with your project not fitting through the tight loops so well, agh.  It is really relaxing to roll the skeins as well, and they unravel as you crochet smoothly, particularly with my beloved yarn bowl.

I'm thinking of working the two projects in tandem.  Apparently because the pattern is a rectangle rather than a square, the beginning is tricky.  I'm hoping to see how it should go with the chunky yarn, then I can replicate it with the thinner yarn.  

12/4/16

The plot thickens.  The pattern is actually not easy, not at the start in any case.  My first effort came out looking very strange indeed.  So I looked to see if others had advice and found this similar soul:

Okay I think I have lost my mind. I have played and played with this pattern from Red Heart and I can't get it. Everything from

slip st in next ch – 2
ch-1 spaces. (in Row 1) to here in

Round 1 (Right Side): Ch 3 (counts as dc here and
throughout), work 2 dc in ch-1 space, ch 2, 3 dc in same
space, ch 1, ([3 dc, ch 2] twice, ch 2, 3 dc) in next ch-1

space, ch 1, 3 dc in first ch-1 space, ch 2, slip st to top of

beginning ch to join. is just not making sense to me. What am I not understanding. Please help

http://www.crochetville.com/community/topic/125974-weekend-granny-throw-from-redheart/

She gets several people telling her there is an error in the pattern and a couple more saying the pattern is fine, you just need to do xyz.

I'll have to read through again now that I've played with it to see if the advice makes more sense to me.

It occurred to me one of the problems is that I'm used to granny squares and circles, but that rectangles may be a different beastie altogether.   They are indeed, and it seems you have to get the base rectangle right or bad things happen.

These were helpful in letting me see how to make the rectangle, though they're using different length beginning chains:

Crochetbug actually tried to do the afghan in a weekend.  She mentions a bit of trouble at the start, but it didn't remain a problem for long.  

 http://www.crochetbug.com/i-put-red-hearts-weekend-granny-throw-to-the-test/ 

A video tutorial on making a rectangular granny, not quite what we're trying to do, but helpful in seeing how the rectangle should take shape.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7DWpwecDi8    by Yolanda Soto Lopez

Tips on making a rectangular granny from Crochet Again.  Also not quite like the Red Heart throw, but it let me see the idea behind this technique.

https://crochetagain.com/2012/06/27/a-better-granny-rectangle/ 

I thought I had the idea now, right?

Hmmmm....

Slowly trying again, and this time I really thought I had it.

You have to admit it's vaguely rectangular.   The directions say "fasten off" then talk about four corner holes, and ha I have five holes. 

I'm finding the bulky yarn a bit difficult to work with, it doesn't slip over the hook nicely.  I like the coloring and the chunkiness of it though, and think the project will be really pretty if I can just master this bit.

I'm going to try the directions again with a size H hook and some regular weight yarn to see if I can see where the flaw is.

Stay tuned. 

12/6/16

I'm working on Round 2.  I think this looks good so far but the pattern suddenly gets hinky in the middle of this round.  You have to pay such attention to every stitch.  I do like the colors together.  The Poinsettia yarn is silky smooth, much more so than the green Spartan.  They're both just so lovely.  Fingers crossed.