Thursday, 2 March 2017

The Inevitable Time to Unwind

A hand wound ball of lemon yellow 8 ply (DK) acrylic yarn sits upon a white background.
Moda Vera Marvel
8 ply acrylic (DK)
Colour: 1041 Lemon Sorbet

I've been meaning to tell you this for a while …

Health and household issues have held me back but I'm now here to tell you that … well … the inevitable happened.

I've found myself unwinding the lemon yellow tricot sampler introduced in "A Touch of Tricot" (13 February 2017) because I ran out of white yarn for the baby blanket!



Look! So close!  Only one more row of htr* stitches to go!

The right side of a white square with a tan circle in the middle. The square is worked in rows using intarsia technique for colour changes. A crochet hook with a blue handle is still inserted into the last stitch of the top row, on the top lef-hand corner of the square. A skein of tan yarn is still joined to the circle and sits to the left of the square.
The last square!This is the front of the square.
It needed 5 rows of white above and below the intarsia circle.
I ran out of yarn at the end of the 4th row above the square.
The sides have not been edged yet.

The reverse side of a white square with a tan circle in the middle. The square is worked in rows using intarsia technique for colour changes. A crochet hook with a blue handle is still inserted into the last stitch of the top row, on the top right-hand corner of the square. A skein of tan yarn is still joined to the circle and sits to the right of the square.
Reverse side of the last square.
The intarsia technique required the white yarn to be worked in two sections
–one on either side of the tan circle.

Eventually I had 1 skein of white yarn left.
One section was worked from the centre of the skein
and the other section from the outside.
The strand across the back of the square is where these two ends met!


I could groan  –  it was my own fault that I had run out!

I had chosen to use extra yarn to make neater sides.  This was totally unnecessary as I had made versions of this blanket before without having done that.  The pattern does not recommend that at all.  This was totally a case of me being finicky with the finished product and also curious to compare construction methods (to be discussed in a future blog entry).  One always learns more by doing new things.

If I wanted to, I could undo all of the extra rows of side edges on the previous 8 squares and use that yarn to finish off the last row of this final square.   If I do that, it is likely that I will have a number of short lengths of white yarn leftover to go into the 'scrap bag'.  

A square baby blanket made up of 9 squares, joined by blue borders. Each square is white with a tan circle in the middle. The circle is a teddy bear's face. Facial features are embroidered in black yarn. The ears are shaped like half circles and stitched on to the surface of the blanket along the top edge of the tan circles so that they can flap about. The blanket resembles a tic tac toe game except there are faces where the noughts and crosses should be and the entire blanket is finished off with a plain blue border of solid crochet around the perimeter.
My first "Teddy Blankie"
Crocheted by Jodiebodie 2010
 Pattern: "Bear Necessity" by Candi Jensen.

I didn't want to.

 In previous versions of this blanket, I struggled to achieve the neatness expected from joining the blue onto the white.  This was mostly due to of a lack of experience (back in 2010).

The changing of direction at the end of each row, naturally leaves a slight undulation along the sides of each square.  The addition of half treble stitch* edges gave straight rows of stitches all the way around each white square for straighter sides.

The only choice left was to undo this white yarn and make the
final square in a different colour–the 'lemon sorbet' yellow.  

A yellow square with a tan circle in the middle on a dark background. The square is worked in rows using intarsia technique for colour changes. The sides are edged with rows of yellow double crochet stitches (Australian or UK terminology). Loose ends of yellow yarn run from each corner. Two plastic stitch markers indicate the beginning and ends of each side, top and bottom edge rows.
The lemon yellow doesn't look too bad, does it?
The nursery has yellow in its decor.
I must have known something when I decided not to wash or block that tricot sampler which used the only lemon acrylic in the stash!  

I suspected at the time that it would need to come undone at some stage.  I felt pleased with myself for trusting my instincts and not cutting that lemon skein at all.

Undoing the last square of white yarn gave me a longer, more useful length of white yarn to be used in a future project or perhaps elsewhere in this one‒a much more convenient outcome. 

Nine squares are arranged on a royal blue background in a 3 by 3 arrangement. All of the squares are white with tan circles in the middle except for the centre square which is yellow with a tan circle. The squares still have loose ends of yarn at the corners.
I tossed the completed squares onto a blue blanket
to see how the arrangement would look
with a yellow square in the centre.

Maybe I would have enough yellow yarn to make 4 yellow squares
‒a central column of yellow amidst the white and blue.
 

What do you think?

Design decisions are all part of the fun for me.
How about you?


Please share your design ideas in the comments below.
I'd love to learn from you.
Questions and general comments are always welcome too.


* This blog entry uses Australian/UK crochet stitch terminology.
   half treble (htr) Australian/UK = half double crochet (hdc) USA



Related Posts on Lupey Loops


"Yarn Chicken", 28 February 2017:http://lupeyloops.blogspot.com.au/2017/02/yarn-chicken.html

 "Stashbusting to a Deadline", 21 February 2017: https://lupeyloops.blogspot.com.au/2017/02/stashbusting-to-deadline.html

 "A Touch of Tricot", 13 February 2017: https://lupeyloops.blogspot.com.au/2017/02/a-touch-of-tricot.html

Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

4 comments:

  1. catdownunder03/03/2017, 08:37

    If you leave the single yellow square in there then I'd be inclined to make the expression different - a wink perhaps?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jodiebodie03/03/2017, 10:13

      Good idea. I hadn't thought of that. Thanks, Cat. :-)

      Delete
  2. Meredith05/03/2017, 03:26

    If you use the yellow in the middle maybe you can put a row of it on the border? Sorry about the white yarn mess. I am always amazing how long I have knit and crochet and still underestimate yarn, and frankly my ability.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jodiebodie05/03/2017, 14:44

      Interesting that you should suggest a yellow border, Meredith, because that is exactly what I had in mind! I have a blog post coming about that and I hope you won't groan when I tell you that I have used mathematical terminology as part of my rationale. :-)

      Delete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)