We have a new love seat in our library room. I have bins of small fingering weight scraps. Like quotes I’ve added to my commonplace book, at first glance it may seem nothing is cohesive. Hopefully the grey will help.
Current motif are 8cm each. This is a bit smaller than I was planning so I may adjust the design a little because current math by desired size would mean making 400 motifs and that is ... overwhelming as motifs, but not as pages of a book. Hmmm.
Current new plan (as of July 2023) is to join in 9-patch squares and figuring out the longer term joining plan later.
Current new plan (as of January 2024) is to work the motifs with a 4.5mm hook and the fingering weights held doubled.
The new loveseat in the library needs a new blanket too. I’ve been looking at motifs for a while and #19 from Crochet Kaleidoscope: Shifting Shapes and Shades Across 100 Motifs spoke to me. I love the look of the vintage bauble blanket and am curious how it will look with all the different scrap yarns I plan to use. The cobblestone grey will hopefully tie it all together.
In progress: 2 motifs
My first is at about 8cm unblocked. I would like it to be a bit bigger than I am tall so current estimate is that I’d need about 400 of these to get to the size I want.
that’s a bit overwhelming but absolutely doable. I read 400 pages without thinking about it. This isn’t going to be finished next week.
I think all centers need to be a full or semi solid. Everything else is fair game.
It helps to work on the project to make progress. I worked the first round for another 5 motifs and one more is ready for its final rounds. Need to decide if I'll be more likely to finish (eventually) by working the fourth round on all pieces, breaking and weaving in now or not. JAYG is good in many ways but does decrease the portability in part.
For Rnd 4: Instead of (sc, sp in 3-dc cluster, sc). Working (sc, fpdc around 3-dc cluster, sc).
Of course I make the decision after I weave in the ends of the first cornerstone motif!
Joined first 5 motifs -- 3 across, 2 of next row.
After working on this in small fits and starts and misplacing a bag with about a dozen round one centers completed, I posted to social media about the project and as I was coming up with the caption realized there was a better way to join.
Instead of joining across and making one huge blanket all at once, instead I'll now join groups of nine squares in 3x3 grids and at some point, perhaps when I finish the second 9-patch square, or perhaps when I have 4 or more completed, I'll figure out how I'll join them together.
I also need to think of a better plan for storing and grouping the partial balls of yarn. They tangle easily and then I end up schlepping around only a few of the yarns and then I start to plan and over think the squares.
It would be neat to make a few matching specific book covers, but I think that'll happen serendipitously.
Completed 9-patch squares: 1
12 motifs in progress (Round 1 complete: 5; Round 2 complete: 3; Round 3 complete: 4)
While working on the puzzle blanket, I began to feel very much in love with the heavier (for me) weight dk yarn. I wondered what it would be to crochet the motifs for this blanket that I've been ignoring.
So I swatched.
And I fell in love with my new swatch.
It's not much bigger, clocking in at 3.75 inches against 3.14 inches[1] for the fingering weight motif.
If I keep much the same I can make a generously sized blanket that needs about 20% fewer motifs. And working with fingering weights held doubled, that should help me put a dent in my sock yarn scraps a bit quicker.
we'll see how this goes. I have perhaps too many projects in progress right now including several that are very overdue.
What does this mean for the existing motifs? I don't have a solid plan yet but I'm sure I'll think of something.
[1] Why not metric? I used the ruler I had close at hand.
If you look closely at the motif crocheted the other day you'll notice another one of my crochet defaults.
I made it entirely in hdc. That's why it's only marginally larger than the fingering weight motif!
When worked with a 4.5mm hook and dc, per the motif design ... it measures approximately 10 cm across. That's a significant increase from 7cm of the fingering weight motif!
Now to determine how large I want to make this big cozy blanket. That will determine the number of motifs, my current estimates are somewhere between 180 - 270 motifs, both numbers are significantly smaller than the 400 initially calculated!
A forecast of snow combined with stress over the release of Romi, Doron, and Emily led me to work on the double motifs.
Tonight I joined the first nine. I know Dot likes this project because she kept trying to steal it off my lap. When I placed it on her for a quick photo, instead of wanting it off immediately she settled into my lap and began to purr. I’ll update this with the comparison photo with the single nine patch.
this is definitely going to be the cozy blanket I’ve been wanting. Now to figure out exactly how many more I’ll need.