Froggy Day

To Frog or Not to Frog

Early this morning I began the section section of Havana and got four rows in before I realized that I'd taken my foundation single crochet row to the pattern and began Row 1 on top of it.  In other words I started following the patterning using MC instructions for CC colors and visa versa.

I dithered for more than an hour over whether to frog it out and redo from the beginning of row 2.  But I had no heart to either do it or decide not to.  So I set it aside and went back to work on another project begun several weeks ago and went to town on it all morning and again in late afternoon.  At some point I decided it was time to pull out the first one of the several now nearing completion.to compare and measure only to discover there was a significant discrepancy in size between the first and the rest.  The first being the correct size and nearly one fifth smaller. 

Somehow I'd allowed three different sized hooks to end up in the project bag and was pulling them out willy-nilly.--I, J and K.  I'd been using K for awhile and I know for sure I had not selected it intentionally.  But since I use I and J frequently and often dither between them at the beginning of a project I can't remember which one I settled on when I started that blue Bruge lace piece.

Measurements are important for the functions they have in their project.  So there was no choice but to frog them all. Three total including the pink which I was nearly done with before I realized I hadn't got pictures first.

Looking at the picture now I'm asking myself what was I thinking not winding that thread as I pulled it out.  It might have worked out if I'd wound it up directly off my lap without disturbing it.... But now?  That's going to be a mess.  Tomorrow tho.  Not tonight.

And I've now decided that one froggy day is enough so I will not start tomorrow off by frogging those four rows of Havana part 2.  I'm just going to go with it and let the rainbow play at being MC for one panel.

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Havana CAL - Rainbow Complete

Havana CAL Day 8 Row 25

Havana CAL Day 7 Row 21

Saturday began with having to take out most of rows 16 and 17 and put them back in to fix two snags and the curl caused by accidentally switching hooks from H to G or 5.0 to 4.25mm. I was able to add two more rows to the end of row 19 before quitting in the wee hours of Sunday and then Sunday afternoon added two more rows while away from home. Today, day 8, I added rows 22-25 which also completed my 12 color rainbow plus one white.

Have stopped to contemplate my plan to reverse color order to make a mirror image of it as that would take it to 48 rows. Still like the idea well enough to go the extra rows I think. But I'm too excited about the week 2 pattern to wait so I'm going to start it first and go back and forth between them.

I'm going to be working each week's pattern in separate panels as I"m making a cape or cardigan instead of a blanket. This also has the benefit of keeping the project portable until time to assemble it.

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Sunday Serenity - Rainbow Bag Progress Report

October 1st - Rainbow Bag

August 1st - Rainbow What?

Even before I entered the Quilter's tote in the fair August 1st I'd targeted this project as the next one to get priority focus.  And it did for over a month until I got captured by CALs.  3 so far.  3 more tempting me. 

It is also time to shift focus to Xmas gifts and since this Rainbow bag and the Havana and Ubuntu CALs are all for me their priorities are going to have to shift down several notches.  But I don't want to quit on any of them--just slow down.  Maybe a few rows on one of them everyday as a reward for that day or the previous day's significant progress or completion of an Xmas gift.

The 3rd CAL is Xmas gift related which is how I justified joining and will be the only way I'll justify joining any more before January.

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Havana CAL - Slight Snag

Loops Oops & Curl

Snag Close Up

Havana CAL end of day 5 f or Friday had finished row 17

I considered rows 12-17 as all belonging to Day 5 because I didn't put it down until 6 am this morning.

Woke raring to go at noon but while preparing to mount next color of yarn for row 18 I discovered two loops with significant snags atop each other in the top two rows nearly back to the beginning.

Had to take out rows 16 and 17 to end of second iteration or back to approx the 44th stitch. I usually pin the curling edges for the pics but left them this time to showcase what I think contributed to my not seeing the snagged loops before I cut off the skeins.

That curl actually formed almost a tube that I had to smooth out as I inspected the row backwards before starting the next row.

Being visually impaired doesn't help.

While the work was still narrow it wasn't so hard to do it without laying it down on a flat surface and holding it open with both hands. I guess that's what I'll have to do at the end of every row now.

 So disheartening. Still hadn't frogged it as of 6pm Pacific Coast Time.

Then I realized I didn't have to suffer alone.  I had a resource in the CAL group's fb page.  So I took the pics at top of this post and posted them there and withing minutes got back several replies all suggestion it was a tension problem and maybe I could try going up a hook size.

That's when I looked at my hook with magnifier and realized it was a size G and I was sure I settled on an H when I started.  That's a difference between 4.25 mm and 5mm.  There followed a frantic search over the craft table and floor around it and among the WIP kit bags I was wearing yesterday and those hanging off the edge of the table and then in all the skeins I'd cut free and returned to the big Havana CAL kit bag.  I finally found it in the white skein still in the kit bag I wore yesterday.

Fixed

My next dilemma was whether to frog back further than the snags to where the stitches first tightened.  I looked and felt to me to be another two rows down.  I decided that I should try putting part of the orange row back in with the H hook first to see if there was a visible difference.  And lo there was.  After only two iterations of the 12 stitch repeat it was already significantly less curl.  So I kept going and by the time I got to the end of row 16 again it was hard to tell there was an issue.  By the time I got row 17 back in I was able to smooth it flat for the picture with only one pass of my hands over it.  No pins needed.

Since I'd already cut the orange skein free before discovering the problem I ended up needing to reattach it on the last dc about two inches from the end. So I have two tails to tuck.  I wish I'd thot of crocheting over them with the white.  It might be worth taking out those two inches in order to do that;

It's almost midnight and I've not yet added more rows. So I guess Day 6 is a wash.

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Scheepjes Ubuntu CAL

 #ScheepjesUbuntuCAL 

 I fell in love with this the first time I saw the images in late August.  But I knew I couldn't afford the official yarn kits and I didn't think I had enough quantity of any one kind of yarn to cover all seven colors--especially the main color.  I automatically thought of the Aunt Lydia Bamboo that I'd made my first baby blanket out of several years ago.  It would have been perfect for the shawl concept I have in mind.  But alas they discontinued that thread several years ago and tho it is the only thread or yarn type in my stash that has enough of one color to serve as the main color--either white or brown--there isn't enough contrasting colors.  Besides most of what I have left of it is already dedicated to projects either in progress or planned.

As I pawed through my stash i reached inside one bag and as my hand landed on the yarn inside I knew it was what I wanted even before I saw clearly what it was.  It was so soft and silky.  It turned out to be Patons Silk Bamboo.  I had one ball each of six colors which I'd bought at a January clearance sale at Joanne's three years ago.  But one of the colors was black which did not appeal for this project and the silver had been chosen to go with the black for a planned project.  The other four were all perfect for the contrasting colors.  So I'd need two more contrasting colors for the diamonds and a main color for the background.  But I remembered thinking when I got it that I'd always have to watch for discounts and sales to get more.

Early last month I started price comparison shopping online and after a week found a sale at Joanne's online.  I chose Ivory as my MC and ordered three expecting that I would need at least six but there is only so much I can spend in a month..  Then I chose one each of Moss and Coral to go with the Sapphire, Sea, Plum, and Orchid.

It's hard for me to judge whether that is going to be enough as I'm no good at comparing between types of yarn.  The yards per grams in the Pattons is nearly half that in the Scheepjes cotton. If I discover that one ball isn't enough for a diamond that probably means six Ivory isn't enough for the background.

 #ScheepjesUbuntuCAL
My Colors

The yarn arrived today. I'm so excited. I've never done a CAL and now I'm doing two and there is a couple more I"m looking at with drool pooling so that I dare not open my mouth.

Week 4 is in process already so I've got some catch-up;  Though I don't expect to keep pace anyway;  Besides the fact I probably won't have all the yarn before the end of the CAL I can't devote that much time to this one before Christmas as it is for me and I will very soon have to give priority to the Xmas WIP.

Read all about this gorgeous blanket on the web page of its designer.
Get the free pattern
Join the  Scheepjes Ubuntu CAL 
Follow on Social Media:  #ScheepjesUbuntuCAL

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Havanna CAL Adventures

End of day 3.  
End of Row 9.

It was an adventurous day.

For as long as a project is at all portable I carry it about with me in bags hanging off my wrist or shoulder or strapped to me in some fashion.  I contribute to the care of my elderly mother and must respond to her beeps at a moments notice.  Twice today one of the skeins fell out as I left my chair and I traveled thru multiple rooms before noticing.  Down the hall and across the kitchen in the afternoon and down the hall, into the kitchen and back down the hall into Mom's room at her bedtime. 

The first time one of the cats discovered the yarn bonanza before I did and was pouncing on and trying to carry off wads of the loops that had come out of the center of the skein.  I was grabbing them from him and pulling up yards of the yarn and stuffing it willy-nilly into the three bags hanging off of me holster style as I followed the yarn back to the skein in the doorway of my craft room. 

It took me well over an hour to untangle the yarn from that skein, from the straps of the bags and from the yarn from the other four skeins still attached to the project--and from the project itself which was just a ribbon at 6 rows.

In the process I'd detached the skeins from all but the 5th and 6th rows to more easily untangle the yarn.  I keep them on with a stitch saver in the loop until I'm sure I'm not going to need to frog. I probably only need to keep on two besides the row I"m working but was so anxious to start new rows Ii'd been procrastinating.  Besides I have a thing with finishing.

Turns out my fear of finishing is at least somewhat well founded.  Or at least it just got a good jolt of reinforcement.  For as I was getting all set to get back to work on row 7 (on which I'd been 5 iterations in when the adventure began and which I'd frogged first thing to get that skein free of the melee) I discovered that the last stitch of row 2 was missing and the last stitch of row 3 was joined to the air.

After contemplating for several minutes I decided the best option was to remove the last few stitches of rows 3-6 and redo from row 2 up.  That took another hour and a quarter as it was quite tricky for the rows already cut off their skeins.  I managed it by going down a full mm in hook size and increasing tension until my left hand cramped and the yarn was half its diameter.  The difference in the fabric look and feel in that last square inch bugs me but not enough to frog the whole thing and start over.

As my Mom's mother use to say, "What you can't see from a galloping horse..."  Yes she said it just like that leaving it hanging but obviously meaning its not worth a fuss.

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Havana CAL Begins

Havana CAL Gauge Test

 My swatch turned out to be almost exactly 3"x3"

I'm going to have to figure out why I was having such a hard time getting my hook into the border stitches at the beginning and end of each row.  It amounted to a lot of extra time and frustration that I'm afraid I won't tolerate well once the new project glow wears off.

Another thing I won't tolerate well is the inordinate amount of time it has been taking to prep these posts the last three days. I'm beginning to remember why it was so easy to let posting slip out of my days.

I just spent hours fiddling with these photos in the editor and am still not happy.  The colors are not reflecting the reality.  The contrasting colors from the bottom are supposed to be: Lime green, Light Yellow, Neon Orange, Strawberry Pink, Blackberry Lavender and Mint Blue or Turquoise Teal.  Those are six of the twelve colors I've chosen to make my Havana Rainbow.

Havana CAL In the Bag

Here are all twelve in the project bag.  The colors here are closer to the truth.

Havana CAL Yarn Rainbow

Here they are lined up in the rainbow order but the colors are so bad I shouldn't have bothered posting.   But then what a waste of the time I spent shooting and  tweaking it.

I don't know where the blame lies most between my eyesight, the Kindle Fire camera, the LED lamp illumination or the crappy photo editing aps on my laptop.  Whatever it is I need to figure it out if I'm going to be posting frequently about my fiber art.  Or, as I hope, create ebooks of my own original patterns.

I would have much rather have spent the last four hours crocheting!

Anyway.  I've chosen to work my Havana with Caron Simply Soft with White as my MC and twelve CC: Royal Blue, Robin's Egg, Mint Blue, Limelight, Sunlight, Neon Orange, Mango, Strawberry, Burgandy, Blackberry, Grape.

Mmmm.  I'm hungry all the sudden.  Picnic anyone?

I'd been collecting the colors for several years so I already had all the CC and only needed to augment the white.  While I was dithering about whether I should spend that much I found the white as an add-on at Amazon more than 50% off.  Less than $3 per skein.

The Universe is saying 'Yes' so how can you say no? I asked myself.

By the way I'm planning to adapt this into a heavy long cardigan or cape with hood.  I hope that won't offend the designer or break any CAL rules.  But I've no use for an afghan in my living situation (my bed is a mattress on the floor of Mom's room) and I would like my own cape or coat of many colors.

I'm hoping to get this finished in time to wear it before its too warm.  Since its for myself I"m going to have limited time to work on it before Christmas so I'm aiming for mid March to finish.  I'm also working the Unbuntu CAL.  Also for myself.  More on that later this week.

Here's a link to the info about the Havana CAL.  I would post a picture of it but I'm not sure its my right to do so.  Believe me it is worth the trip over to see it.

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