bigass granny square #2

alt title: it takes one to make one. Just kidding! You can make one, too. You should* !

How bigass, you ask? Approximately 5 feet square (60 inches x 60 inches), no idea how much yarn I used--it's mostly leftover partial skeins, you know how those accumulate. Along the way working on it I purchased three skeins when running low on orange and a certain shade of green, or else it looked like it 'd get muddy.

A gift to my sister Marla McLean, for a special birthday . She'd admired my last bigass granny square blanket and asked if I'd make her one...so it wasn't a total surprise...but then again it was...

 

since she didn't know that I really was working on it, or colors. Actually, I don't plan the color. Spontaneity, she is my middle name. More like: flying by the seat of my pants, she is my MO.  I started with the idea of using warm colors, pinks, purples and reds for the double crochets, and cooler  greens, blues and grays for the smaller single crochets. Until I was staring at some Josef Albers *** color studies in the YUAG , pondering the edge when a color, like , say, blue, shifts from warm to cool or vice versa..so I played with that a little.. Also, with only a couple exceptions, I chose colors that I had enough yardage to get fully around the square.

 

This isn't the traditional granny square, in which groups of three double crochets are offset from row to row, so there's a diagonal aspect. It's a version** I prefer, alternating rows of double crochet in groups of three , and single crochets with chain 3 between. If you don't speak crochet,that means the little tiles of color line up in rows below each other, instead of offset from row to row.

 

I'm especially happy with the scalloped edging--that's a new one for me. I had a large ball of Cascade Eco in aqua left over from this hat.  It makes a good ending, more fun than the plain single crochet rounds on BigAss Granny # 1.

I used an H crochet hook. Or four. Kept losing them! One disappeared in the house, just zzzzip, gone. The second ? When Kirsten Kapur picked me up to drive to Maine for Fiber College last month, we hadn't even pulled out of the parking lot  before I fumbled my hook.  It disappeared into mysterious nothingness under the seat. We had to stop at my LYS before we got on the highway. (she acquired some delish yarn so not all that tragic, really) Less than 24 hours later, that hook rolled between two planks of a boardwalk and was gone forever. Thankfully, a vendor at the Fiber College event sold me a nice wooden one, still in my possession.

Most of the yarns are 100% wool, or wool/alpaca blends. Berroco Ultra Alpaca, Cascade 220 and Brown Sheep Lambs Pride are all well represented.  By the way? Marla loves it. 

I totally enjoyed this project--it's a good switchup from knitting, especially if you're working on an attention-requiring project, like a sweater with shaping or a lace shawl. It's so simple-you don't need special skills to start a granny square.  Easy stuff.  All that and the satisfying mmm of using up leftover yarns from other projects--like visiting old friends. Or single skeins of stash, if you are of that persuasion. I may just need to do another. Of some sort. Checkout my Pinterest board when granny squares take over the world  if you don't think I'm serious......

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* Ongoing appreciation for crochet queen Ellen Bloom's insistence that I sit down and make me a granny square  when I was photographing her for CraftActivism. What a gift she gave me!

** in Jan Eaton's 200 Crochet Blocks she calls it the Chocolate Box, you may see instructions elsewhere..but it's worth owning the book, it's an amazing resource 

*** whoa, check out that link to an app based on Albers color studies, and looking at your own designs compared to them. so. cool.

the zoe blanket

*Fiber College, later this week. Still time to join in. Here's why*

Can I have a youGogirl or a yeeHA or something? I have knits to show.  First up: the Zoe blanket.
Good old straight ahead stockinette knitting, after spending much of the summer getting all snagged in the loopy extra fine mohair of this shawl .
It was a pleasure to fly through these stitches.  I practiced different ways of holding the needles to go fastest with the least amount of movement. (can you say knitting nerd?) BTW? The day after I completed it, I found the phonecam photo of the color progression I had in mind when I bought the yarn last year. I'd laid the skeins out and snapped it, so I'd have it for reference. Joke on me! It wasn't this order at all.

 
But it seems to work just fine, anyway.  
My inspiration was this blanket on Pinterest. I assumed it was narrow stripes without any repeating colors. In the interest of economy,  I just chose eight skeins and went with wide stripes, and imitated the color change textures with 2 rows of K1P1 at each change. 

Not long ago I realized the blanket I admired is also on Ravelry--and I learned the narrow stripes repeated, so it wasn't like I'd have had to purchase 25 different colored skeins after all. Even so, I have enough left over to make Zoe a sweater in the same color stripes. 

 

She seems pleased with it, too.

a knit with no subtitles

* Fiber College in Maine is soon: Sept 6-9! Go sign up before it's too late.  I'm teaching.  So is Kirsten Kapur, Mary Lou Egan, Alice Seeger, MaryJane Mucklestone....and a slew of people you've been wanting to meet . More in my next post .*   

It's an odd summer, and I'm not just referencing the weather. I've been working & traveling a lot, on brain challenging photo shoots. When I get a chance to knit , it's on older languishing projects. I somehow slipped down the slope into being an unfinished-projects-in-every-nook-and-cranny type. Moi? Love the process but revel in the gratification of finishing a piece.

whoa. I am on an old laptop and can't get the colors right. yikes.
 I'd kind of forgotten this. About a year ago, I learned a baby would be joining the family,so I cast on for a blanket, inspired by this one. I decided on eight skeins of colors, and wider stripes, to be economical.

Here's a  join, with 2 rows of K1P1 ribbing in the new color. A little texture pop. The yarn is Cleckheaton Country.  Soft, wooly, super easy to work with and superwash DK . . and seems to be discontinued.  (sorry).  You know what'd work well in its place? Kristin Nicholas' Julia yarn  if you don't mind handwashing it, or for superwash,  the slightly thicker MinnowMerino would be great.

I cast on, fighting my superstition against knitting for a not-yet-here babe. The supersititon won.  And to be honest, it is kind of a boring knit.  I put it aside in the second color. And forgot about it totally till last month.

I also forgot what order I intended for the colors. I think this is it, above. Can I just say, I am loving this project now? Perfect for the baby, now that she's here and has a personality.

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Option 2 for color order. Any opinions? And don't say lose the yellow. I love the yellow in there. I think it's rather Noro-esque of me.

 It is just what I want in knitting now: relaxing on the brain, rewarding to see it grow quickly. Good old stockinette! Part of the reason my brain's getting such a workout is a big project I'm on in Vermont, at  a language institute.
I've been shooting here off & on all summer.

Speaking English is forbidden, including for me. It is harder than you'd think to interact with several hundred people in 8 different languages, most of which I don't speak at all, and none of which I speak well. . Chinese, Russian, Italian German & Portugese? Fuhgeddabout it.  My  Hebrew is rusty but sort of functional, Spanish --ugh , how humbling to realize  my Spanish is really SPANGLISH. And French? My leftover high school vocab centers around excuses for not having homework done (my head hurts my stomach hurts, I forgot my notebook, I am tired, I am hungry. Pitiful, non?)

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FYI: The Thimble Islands knitting cruise leaves the dock at Stony Creek promptly on Tuesday evening at 7:15, if you've paid for a ticket, be there at 7. If you don't have a ticket, there are only 2 left. So email me, or you're staying ashore. Matey.

we are what we make?

Head up, lenses up SoCal , there're Photography for Knitter workshops heading your way mid March. If you're a member of the El Segundo Slipt Stitchers Knitting Guild, I am honored to be your March program and hope you'll sign up for the workshop (march 17/18). If you're not a member , find me at Wildfiber in Santa Monica on march 18th (call them to register) and at Loop & Leaf in Santa Barbara  for a Photo Safari on March 20. We're working on some Craft Activism booksignings, too, stay tuned

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About a year ago, under the influence of Ellen, Maryse  and a massive quantity of partial skeins, I started crocheting my Big Ass Granny Square afghan.

 

Little did I know that by the time I finally finished the last long round of edging last week....

 

I would actually BE one.

   

The Big Ass Granny Square afghan is one continuous square of worsted weight, natural fiber yarn -mostly wool with some alpaca and silk blends in there. It's the Chocolate Box Square in Jan Eaton's 200 Crochet Blocks . Awesome resource. It's an alternative to your basic granny square--I like that the little tiles of color line up instead of being  staggered.

There's no sequence or repeats or plan - I chose colors  by contrast or by varying warms and colds. I ended up buying 3 skeins, when I ran out of their colors but thought I'd miss having them in the mix: orange,  grey and a green. Other than that, I love that I can see bits of sweaters and hats I knit,  yarns from gifts for loved ones, yarn for test knitting projects for both Shear Spirit and Craft Activism, yarn I dyed myself , and yarn my dear knitting friends enabler, Mary Lou,  sent me when I worried I might be running low.

I've already put Bobo on notice that he is NOT allowed to cozy up on this one. And I'm  plotting another, for a gift request.

Credit to my friend & colleague Edwina Stevensonhttp://www.edwinastevenson.com, she photographed me in my afghan  at The Inn at Montpelier, where we stayed while working on a photo shoot for a client up in Vermont last week. I wonder if the inn staff thought we were crazy, dancing around in an afghan on a chilly VT back porch?

 

in which we revisit the big ass granny square

It's wip it wednesday,  crochet edition. Remember my bigass granny square from last winter,  put aside when working on it's enormous woolly/alpaca self was suffocating?

 

It's almost done. I stalled on the edging.  Did I want a kind of fancier crochet stitch for the final round? Shells ? Fringe? Corkscrews? A ruffle maybe? What about colors? Too light will get dirty and frame it too much. Too dark will be too dark.  Overthink much? 

 

When I spread it out on the old picnic table, I'd forgotten it's Bobo's perch for Keeping The Yard Squirrel Free. He was on it in a split second, scanning the treetops.

 

  I decided this didn't need anything fancier than a round of double crochet in every stitch followed by a round of single crochet, same way. For colors, I went to my fallback position of local colors.

 

The orangey/rust round was almost done when I noticed I'd done the first two sides in double crochet, then absent mindedly continued 1.5 more sides in single crochet. Glad crochet unzips out fast. 

 

I don't mind this not being done yet, it's just plain old fun & so quickly gratifying . And it's already been put to work for warmth. When camping up at Fiber College, I woke up the first night FREEZING. I didn't have warm enough bedding in my tent.  I did have an almost finished BigAss Granny Square. Slept with it on me, nice and toasty, crochet hook and all for the following 2 nights. 

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You can find more wip wednesdays over on this blog.  Oooh, I almost forgot. Need an idea for some wips, yerself?

LOVE Anna Kuo Lukito's new design, Anacortes (Ravelry) or from her site, Crafty Diversions.