I didn’t post yesterday because after waking up at 3 p.m. and having a leisurely breakfast, I checked my email and discovered that there was a Girlyman show in Providence last night! And since Girlyman just happens to be my favorite band ever, and I haven’t seen them in concert for… OK, well, three weeks, but still…, and Providence is only about an hour’s drive away – I just had to. So by the time I had figu
red out who was available to go with me and had gotten ready for the show, there wasn’t any time left to post – all I had time for was to finish the second module on my Tiffany sock (as you can tell, I’m not that great at this photography thing yet):
And honestly, I’m not feeling incredibly motivated to write about my stash today. Here’s a picture,
because I promised… and yes, I know that this is a tiny stash compared to a LOT of people out there. I’ve also got a few garbage bags full of yarn that are in the basement and will probably have to be thrown out due to mold (but since I no longer remember what’s in there, and most of it is from my high school days before I discovered how nice quality fibers are, I probably won’t miss it and it’s better if it just goes). And I’m pretty proud of myself that I finally (a few weeks ago, actually) went through the stash I left at my parents’ house and (sort of) got rid of most of it. I say “sort of” because my mother ended up claiming a LOT. Including all of my old swatches of crocheted afghan squares. I think she wants to make a blanket out of them… but they’re awful! Horrible cheap yarn in awful clashing colors and shapes that don’t go together at all. I think she’s hoping that she can somehow pull it together into this:
This was my first non-scarf Finished Object, a blanket I crocheted in squares during my senior year of high school, and pieced together to fit the extra-long twin bed I would have in my college dorm. I remember working on the squares during Calculus class, and my teacher mumbling “knit one, purl one” at me. I used to get so mad at people who couldn’t tell the difference between knitting and crocheting! I was a die-hard crocheter then, and didn’t yet know how to knit. I hated being asked “So, what are you knitting?” It seemed like people thought knitting was the only thing that mattered, and crochet was such an inferior art that they couldn’t even be bothered to learn what it was called. Anyway, my mom loves this blanket, even though it’s now five years old and much used – I used the awful Red Heart Super Saver acrylic yarn that was all I could get at the local Wal-Mart, and five years has made it pill and fuzz something awful, and since I didn’t really know then what to do with the yarn ends, some of those have made their way loose, too. But at the time, I was really proud that I had managed to make an actual blanket.
Armed with that hubris, I started working on this:
Yup, it’s another blanket – this one, intended to be a full-size bedspread, crocheted in one piece. I didn’t think about the fact that once it was larger than scarf-sized, it would be much too big to carry around with me. I didn’t think about how much yarn it would take. I didn’t think about the fact that by the time it was even near completion, I’d be so sick of the Red Heart Super Saver yarn I couldn’t fathom buying another skein. I just thought – hey, I like that pattern, I like those colors (I still do – you can probably see my gray comforter and red sheets around the edge of that blanket), and I just made a blanket and I can do anything! So I started it during marching practice for my high school graduation. I worked on it all that summer, listening to Indigo Girls and Dar Williams CDs over and over and over. I brought it with me to college, and during my freshman year it lived in my friends’ suite common room. Several of them were crocheters too, and progress was made, sporadically. Sophomore year hit, and I moved across campus from their new suite – it went with them, and I added a row or two here and there, but we didn’t spend as much time crocheting together. Second semester, I found the Boy. Work on the big project ceased. I still made a few scarves occasionally, and a few hats for the Boy (he kept losing them!), but never pulled out the giant red-and-gray Thing. That summer, it went with me to my grandmother’s house in Maine, and the Boy went off to Seattle, and I think I did work on the Thing some, but not very much. When school started up again and the Boy was back… that’s where my attention was. When I moved to my current house at the end of that academic year, into the basement Thing went. And it stayed there – my oldest UFO. I finally pulled it out yesterday. One thing I will say for acrylic yarn – two moldy summers in a damp basement, and the only problem was the canvas bag it had been stored in – that was molded through and stuck to the basement floor (and was promptly Dumpstered yesterday), but as for the Thing, two spins through the washing machine (because the first one left visible soap suds – I hate my washing machine) and one through the dryer, and
it’s bright and clean and smells like fabric softener.
And the biggest surprise of all – it’s big! After so many years of not working on it, I thought I remembered it being only about 1/3 done. Sure, it’s not quite the full bedspread I intended it to be, but it’ll be great as an indestructible throw blanket for the couch, and for some extra warmth on the bed in these bitter cold Boston winters (assuming those ever decide to exist again… I was walking around outside in jeans and a tank top at 3am Friday night [er, Saturday morning], and was actually too warm… but I digress). So.. I do need to buy more yarn to finish off the last rows and put a quick border on, but I’m going to declare this Big Enough. I can’t declare it done yet – you can see where I stopped mid-row, and mid-motif, and I do want a little bit of border on it, mainly to cover up the side where I carried the yarn.. but it’s out of the basement and clean, and that’s the first step. The UFO will be finished! I just have to convince myself it’s worth it to buy more cheap scratchy acrylic yarn… it’s worth it… it’s worth it… I want it done… it’s worth it.
My next blanket (yes, I’m still insane enough to want to make another) will be knit or crocheted in GOOD YARN, and in BITE-SIZED PIECES.
Wow this was a long post. Guess that’s what happens on a lazy Sunday afternoon when I’m too tired to think about picking up stitches to put a heel on Tiffany. Maybe I’ll just work on January instead. There’ll be a picture of January up soon… when I’m motivated. And when my roommate doesn’t need me to drive him to the fabric store.
