Geeky or not?

I crocheted this water bottle holder with pocket for my phone. Husband thinks it's the geekiest thing he's ever seen. I think it's a success.

Yarn: Cascade 220.

Hook: G

Needle for the pocket: US 6

Time: about a week.

In other hand crafting news, Husband and I went Savannah for 48 hours earlier this week. He had a deposition to take there, I went along for the ride.

While there, I went to Wild Fibre, the only yarn shop in Savannah and bought:
That's Silk Purse in Koi Pond on the left, 100% silk in reds, oranges, and gold. Will probably make a ruffled scarf from Scarf Style to show off the graduated color changes.

In the middle is a single ply merino by Trabajos del Peru, which I think is like a competitor to Malabrigo and Manos del Uruguay. I'm making a 40 stitch 2 x 2 rib scarf on size 9 US. So soft and lovely.

On the right is Kudo by Plymouth Yarn, which I think is a competitor to Noro. It's silk and cotton and much softer than Noro. Not sure what I'll make with that.

While Husband was doing his meeting, I went to Wild Fiber, then Twiggs Needlepoint where I bought a canvas to give to a friend, and Shaver books, a very nice independent bookstore where I bought more gifts and notecards. While there they gave me a postcard for HandmadeSavannah.com, which showed a map t0 3 handcrafting stores: Wild Fibers, French Knot (embroidery), and Fabrika (quilting). Interesting that Twiggs is not part of it.

I went to French Knot, which is only a year old and very well appointed, big and airy. I asked who shops there and they said tourists and students from Savannah College of Art and Design. I didn't buy anything there and frankly think Twiggs has a better selection of canvasses.

I didn't make it to Fabrika but will try next time.

Babette

It is hot and humid in Atlanta. I have airconditioning and ceiling fan going. Therefore I have decided it's the perfect time to start a wool blanket.

What you see here is all the machine washable, worsted weight wool I have:

5 skeins cream

13 small balls of varying sizes in orange

8 balls red

5 balls purplish red

7 skeins green

4 skeins light blue

5 balls cornflower blue

4 balls medium blue

11 skeins dark blues

2 skeins brown

8 skeins black

Brands include Knitpicks, Phildar, Knitting Fever, Patons, Lang, Muskoka, and Lion Brand. Some I bought, others were given to me from my friends late mother's stash.

At bottom are strips of blues and greens from previous attempts to make a superwash blanket.

This time I will be making a crochet Babette blanket. I haven't finished the cotton stripy blanket yet, but the experience of dealing with all those ends to weave in drove me nuts. I'm knitting a hem to encase all those ends.

The beauty of crochet is that ends get encased in the crochet as I go along. Crochet also uses up a lot of yarn and I have a lot of yarn to use.

I've been wanting to make a Babette blanket for a long time and now that I have so much superwash wool, it's time to do it.

Fourth of July 2010

July 4 is many things. In the United States of America, it's Independence Day. There are fireworks and parades and we have a party at our flat because it overlooks Centennial Olympic Park. We get to be in the thick of the fireworks.

We actually got to see fireworks twice: on Friday at the Braves game, which the Braves won, and on Sunday, the Fourth of July.

In my family, it's my parents' wedding anniversary. #41 this year.

It's also the annual Peachtree Road Race, a very popular 10K race. Brother-in-law came to run it and he placed 332 out of 55,000+ racers, so he ranked in the top 1% of racers. He's really into running, having done a few marathons now too. That's our attempt at taking his picture up above.

And I gave up on the crochet stripy blanket. For some reason, the sides bow out and are uneven. I could block it out, but I've ripped out and redone rows and still not working. Plus, I have to look at my work when doing single crochet rows. Which means I can't read or watch TV or people watch at the same time.

So I'm going back to the Chocolate Box pattern, which I first did here for a friend.

Last time, I made one large block. This time I'm going to try making these colorful blocks, alternating with black blocks. We'll see how it goes.

Also, I don't have to look at my hands while I do the Chocolate Box pattern, so have been able to read Storm of Swords, the third book in the Song of Fire and Ice fantasy series, and watch my Leverage DVDs. Really enjoying the commentary track.

Crochet lace

I have it in my head to make a crochet lace something from the green laceweight yarn, colorway River, I got from Creativelydyed.net. It's 1300 yards of fine yarn.

I tried knitting shawls like Clapotis but the yarns kind of splitty. And I'm just in a crocheting mood. Still working on the crochet stripey blanket, but have new yarn, must play with it now!

I've started a Swiss cheese scarf from the red/orange/yellow, colorway Earthbirth, Lisa Souza sock yarn.

happy stripes

This is what I'm doing with the crochet squares that didn't like. Just random stripes in single crochet. DK weight yarn, size G hook.

It was partly inspired by this:
It's my screensaver on my netbook. I took it from Jane Brocket's post here.

I know I keep using the same bright, primary colors over and over but I just love them. And so appropriate for spring.

Second Sean Scully Blanket

After some thought, I've decided to turn this pile of granny squares into this:

The basic construction will be garter stitch log cabin.

First I'm going to knit the center panel in random stripes of black, white, yellow, orange, green, and aqua blue. Basically, unraveling the squares as I knit. ETA: The more I look at this sketch, the more I think I'll make the multicolor stripes thicker. But we'll see when I actually get around to knitting this.

Once I run out of the yellow, orange, green, and aqua, I'll bind off and pick up with white down the side to knit out the white and turquoise blue stripes. If I have enough white or if the dimensions aren't right, I'll pick up on the other side of the multicolor panel and knit out the white and black stripes. Then crochet on a black border to bind it all.

My main inspiration was these 2 Sean Scully paintings. Below is "Heart of Darkness" 1982, oil on canvas, now at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Below is "2.24.82" 1982, oil on paper, in the collection of the artist.
I love his works because they're just stripes which calls to mind quilts, but he combines them in ways that are unusual and strongly graphic. He paints in a way where you can see the brush strokes.

And that fact that he paints stripes makes it very easy to convert into knitting.

Other inspirations include the knitted Block-striped Afghan by Sarah Dallas, and any number of asymetrical stripy folk quilts, such as the quilters of Gee's Bend.

This will have to wait as I'm still working on the Noro Log Cabin. I'm on the last stripe, then will half-double crochet on a black border.

Ready for Spring colors

finished this last night, after cutting off and reknitting the collar to be longer. There is waist shaping, not that you can tell from this picture.

Pattern: Top Down Raglan Cardigan from Cosmic Pluto.

Yarn: Cascade Jewel Hand Dyed, a thick and thin yarn, six skeins

Needles: US size 8

StartedDecember 25 2009

CompletedMarch 18 2010

Current project: baby granny squares blanket

The yarns are a mix of cotton DK yarns: Reynolds Saucy, Takhi Stacey Charles Cotton Classic, and a random left over blue cotton yarn that lost it's label some time ago. There are actually 3 skeins of the white. Size G hook.

Boy or Girl?

Other than the opening ceremony, I haven't really made the Winter Olympics 2010 appointment watching.

Here's a gem from Jane Brocket's blog about the Olympics that I thought I'd share:

There are also some phenomenal thighs and gloriously weird outfits in the speedskating events - and the added entertainment of trying to guess from looking at the competitors whether we are watching a men's or a women's event.

The friend's baby blanket continues apace. Picture to come when I get onto to circular needles so it will lay flat. Otherwise you can't really tell what it looks like.

The friend's baby shower is Feb 25, one week away. At this pace, I think I'll make it. It's cotton yarn, so my arms, wrists, and elbows certainly are feeling it.

On Feb 25, I also have jury duty. I keep looking at the blue, green, yellow, and white yarn and think crochet blanket. I also think "crochet needle easier to get past courthouse security than pointy needles."

Actually, I took knitting needles into a courthouse on Monday with no problem. But still, I saw a crochet blanket in the background on Shades of Ray (watched it on Hulu.com) and have it in my head to crochet a blanket. Never mind that I have 6 unfinished projects, all hiding under the couch. I counted when I cleared out my knitting basket to make room for the Knitting Olympics baby blanket.

Shades of Ray was a cute movie, starring Zachary Levi (Chuck on "Chuck") as Ray, a half Pakistani-half white guy torn between his white girfriend Noelle and a new interest, Sana, a woman who's also Pakistani-half white. She's played by Sarah Shahi, who was on the L-Word.

It's a romantic comedy, with things to say about love, marriage (Ray's parents get a pretty good story line and Sana's parents to a lesser extent), family expectations, race, culture and self-awareness. Fran Kranz (Topher on "Dollhouse") plays Ray's best friend Sal. Sal was Topher as a clueless guy who doesn't understand women.

After I saw Shades of Ray and saw the connection to the L-Word, I was at the library and saw they had season one, discs 1 and 2 of the L-Word, so that came home with me. Have yet to watch it, or season 1 disc 1 of Mad Men.

In other TV watching news, I'm watching Sliders on Hulu. I understand that season 1 and 2 are good, and 3, 4, and 5 not so good. Lucky me that only seasons 1 and 2 are on Hulu. So far the sociologist in me is enjoying the different alternate Earths they go to. What if the USSR won the Cold War? What if penicillin and modern medicine was never invented? What if, what if, what if?

It's also funny to see the mid 1990s fashions and the total lack of cellphones.

Chocolate Box -- need another name

Last night I finished the Chocolate Box afghan. Imay still give it a border of black. New Yorker magazine included for scale.

The pattern is called Chocolate Box in Jan Eaton's 200 Crochet Blocks, because she used browns for her sample. But surely there's another name for it that's not based on its colors but more on its structure. If anyone knows, please let me know.

In any case, I'm really happy with the way it turned out. There's a little bit of yarn left over, a few yards here and there. Those I'll save for another afghan or maybe I'll make them up into flowers for embellishing some future project like some knit and felted purses.

Not really a whiney post though it starts out that way

Work has been stressful lately. Yes, quite the news flash. In a recession with money tight all over, of course work is stressful. Had myself a little cry about that last night on the balcony. A friend of mine who also runs a nonprofit organization said that she cries every day. I was taken aback by that, because we're socialized to not cry. I mean, we grow up and our parents are always telling us not to cry and then as adults we're supposed to control our emotions.

However, over the past few years, I've come to see crying as a good release valve to have. I don't mean that I have huge omg-my-heart-is-broken bawling fits, but just let the stress leak out a bit, have a little pity party, put it in perspective, and then get on with it.

Anyway, that's not where I was going with this post.

So this is what I have to do today: Go to work, deal with the budget and human resources about renegotiating pay and contracts (someone poke my eye out now), work on a grant proposal, and meet with an attorney about the organization's governance (exciting!). At least the day will end relatively early, about mid afternoon after meeting with the lawyer.

This is what I should do: Go home after the meeting with the lawyer and clean the house, especially do the windows, and put away my crocheting and knitting. A friend is coming over for lunch Saturday and then next weekend Husband's family is visiting. Chop up the vegetables and prepare for the Saturday lunch.

What I want to do: Watch DVDs (Chuck, The Last Airbender, Rome, 3:10 to Yuma -- still on the Alan Tudyk kick but will wait for Husband to watch that one) and crochet. Read ("Fool Moon" about Harry Dresden, wizard for hire in Chicago) and knit.

What I will probably do: Go to work etc. Go home and watch an episode of Chuck while finishing the current round on the crochet blanket and then while chopping up the vegetables. Be washing either the windows or the bathtub when Husband gets home.

Because as whiney as I was at the beginning of the post, I know the evening will end with Husband and I at the Braves baseball game so, really, I shouldn't complain.

But it's that what this blog is for? It's like my pensieve, the place I put thoughts and feelings for examination later. Thoughts and feelings I don't mind sharing, that is.

I feel so much better now getting this off my chest.

Crochet Kick

About a week ago, on June 13, I started this afghan. Today it's about half done.

The pattern is Chocolate Box from 200 Crochet Blocks by Jan Eaton. It's called Chocolate Box because of the colors she used in the book, browns and tans.

The yarn I'm using here was given to me by my friend Darija. It was from her late mother's stash, which really was huge. I only took a portion of it, about half, and it just about doubled my stash.

This yarn is very fine cotton, almost like crochet thread for doilies:
I had started making a hexagons afghan, with the yarn held double on a size G hook. It was taking forever. Each hexagon is about 3 inches across and takes me about half an hour to make. I was losing patience. So I decided to make the giant Chocolate Box square using the hot colors in the center and the cool colors on the outside, with a black border all around. Darija's mother had like 20 balls of black cotton yarn.

I used a size K hook, with 2 strands of 2 colors together, for a total of 4 strands. The variations in color are pretty interesting that way. It's going so much faster now. In the picture at top, I'm just about done with the purple. If you look closely, you'll see that I've run out of one color and had to substitute another, but with so many colors going on, I don't think it'll matter. For example, the purple on the outermost left is different from the purple on the right.

My plan is to do a diamond in a square. Once the hot colors are done, I'll use the cool colors to crochet on triangles. I don't have pattern or instructions on how to do it, but I think I've figured out a way.

The nice thing about crochet is, you can rip out stitches and redo pretty easily. And crochet is so fast and uses up so much yarn. It's entirely possible that I'll have this done by July 4 weekend to show to all of Husband's relatives who are coming to visit. Ultimately though, I plan to give it to Darija as an appreciation gift and a way to memorialize her mother.

Next project!

As I near the end of the Sean Scully Malabrigo afghan, I'm already thinking about the next project I want to make.

I know of at least 4 people with babies or soon to have babies, so it'll be more blankets. I haven't forgotten Best Friend's Emerald cardigan, for which I've had the yarn for about a year now. However, that's wool and we're getting into Atlanta's hot season.

I'm leaning toward a crocheted hexagon blanket and found the perfect one at Attic 24's website with tutorial here. I have a bunch of white, pink, and various shades of blue cotton yarn I could use. And a ton of yellow and light blue linen yarn. Hmmmm.

The nice thing about crochet motifs is that you can make a bunch relatively randomly and then play around with placement later. On the other hand, seaming isn't exactly my favorite thing to do.

However, with the right Netflix, it might not be too bad.

What's so funny about peace, yarn and pottery

My apologies to Nick Lowe.

I've finished the baby blanket for a friend and am still feeling the crochet vibe. So I've swatched these, using the "Big Round" pattern from Jan Eaton's 200 Crochet Blocks:

The cluster stitches in the middle make me think of cupped flower petals.

One of the things in my Knitpicks order is a yarn guide that you wear on your finger. It's supposed to help stranded color knitters keep the different yarns separate. However, I'm going to use it to keep the yarn off my skin. When I crochet for a long time, the yarn sliding across the top of my tensioning finger gets to be quite uncomfortable and eventually a little groove gets indented into the top of the finger.

In other news, I've made progress on Husband's afghan, finished one more blue stripe and have wound the yarn for the next blue stripe. Then I will sew the stripes together, pick up stitches on the left and right and knit the side stripes.

In the past, the sewing together was not fun for me, but now I rather like it.

And I've cut off ridge row at the bottom of the Honorine sweater and have begun knitting down. It's just stockingnette in the round, which some people hate, but I love because it's just mindless knitting. I wonder if I could get away with knitting at the board meeting this weekend.... Maybe I'll work on it during lunch and they'll see that I can talk while eating and knitting, and then it won't be so bad during the rest of the day. I did knit during a Georgia Progressive Summit meeting while one of my board members was there...

Anyway, next Wed, Sept 19, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, the Yarn Harlot, will be in town to speak. Honorine will the be perfect project to take along.

Wednesdays are my pottery class. I have been loving it. We are learning to make very large wheelthrown objects. Usually my pieces are about 8 inches tall, and use 5 pounds of clay. In the first class, I threw a jar at least a foot tall, using 8 pounds of clay, and yesterday I threw a huge bowl (that's me, the bowl lady) using 10 pounds. And all 10 pounds put up a fight, but I got it done. The bowl's at least a foot tall and 15 inches wide. I wanted to make my mother-in-law a huge salad serving bowl and I think I got it.

I really like Mariella, the instructor. She's got a lot of energy and not very rigid. I've had instructors who say there's only one way to do this or that, but Mariella's not that way. She thinks imperfections show that these pieces were made by an individual artisan, and not stamped out by some machine. I like that attitude.

I'll miss the next class because of the Yarn Harlot, but I'll go to Mariella's Monday afternoon class instead. Because this weekend will the weekend of work so I'm taking Monday off. I'm going to sleep in, have a cup of coffee, and then go do pottery for as long as they'll let me. I have some pieces from the spring quarter that have yet to be glazed. And I'll have to buy another bag of clay, since I've used up the entire 25 pound bag in just 2 sessions.

It will be bliss. There is nothing better than throwing pottery. You have to focus just on centering the clay on the wheel, and that centers you. Then in pulling up the clay and working on it, you have to pay attention to what the clay tells you. All your motions have to be smooth, deliberate, and slow. You have to feel the clay and make sure you don't push it too far that it weakens and collapses. One instructor said "the enemy of good is better."

In the end, if you do it right, which isn't hard, you get a piece that's beautiful and useful, and peace in your day.

Honorine and Babette

I've finished crocheting the squares for the orange and ivory baby blanket. There are 36 and I just barely had enough of the orange to finish. I frogged the swatches I had to get enough yarn.

Now all that remains is sewing them up and adding a border. And waiting for the baby. However, the baby girl (not mine) isn't born yet, so the blanket is nameless. And I just found out someone else had a baby boy, so of course I'm thinking, another baby blanket to make!

I've cast on for Honorine, using KnitPicks CotLin in Moroccan Red. When I got the box last week, the red made me swoon. Okay, not literally, but I was very happy with it. I swatched with size 6 US and size 5 US and size 6 gave me gauge (22 sts = 4 inches). However, after washing and blocking, the yarn expanded and the size 6 US swatch now turns out to be 20.5 sts to 4 inches.

What to do? Should I go with the pre-washed gauge and cast on the number of stitches for my bust size, or go with the after washing gauge and cast on the number for the smaller bust size and rely on washing to make it grow to my size?

I've also decided to knit it in the round and omit the lace insert for modesty. Actually, I don't want to have to wear a camisole underneath. It's just too warm in Atlanta most of the time to need it. This involved more math, as the lace insert uses a different yarn, with a different gauge which I had to convert to my washed CotLin gauge. In the end, I chose to go with the smallest size and cast on 180 stitches. Here's hoping this works!

Crocheting the orange and ivory really got me into the crochet groove. I've been eyeing Babette by Kathy Merrick from Interweave Crochet 2006 and there are lots of great pics on Flickr. I also have Glorious Patchwork by Kaffe Fassett (love his stuff!). The quilt on the cover was the inspiration for Babette.

But most of my yarn is not machine washable and there's no way I'm going to hand wash an afghan. Really now, people.

However, in flipping through Glorious Patchwork, I found a few quilts that I could convert into knitting or crocheting. After the orange and ivory blanket is done, I'll do some swatching and we'll see what comes of it.

However, it'll have to go the end of the line behind Husband's afghan, Honorine, Brother-in-law's vest -- for winter holiday or his January birthday, the Sandy cardigan from Big Girl Knits for Ma -- needs to be done by Chinese New Year next year, and fixing Sister's Bi-colored Cables sweater. I probably just need to reknit the sleeves. And the collar.

But for now, I will just enjoy going round and round on Honorine, my portable, mindless knitting.

Orange and Ivory

This is what I was working on during my vacation to the cottage a few weeks ago, with book for scale. And look, the colors match! Quite unintentionally, might I add. The hook is orange too.

The yarns are one skein of KnitPicks Bare Superwash worsted wool and one skein of varigated orange superwash sock yarn from Fearless Fibers. The orange is held double, the ivory single, using a size H crochet hook. The pattern is modified from 200 Crochet Blocks by Jan Eaton.

You can see from the ball of orange how much I have left. I alternate between making an orange circle in an ivory square with making an ivory circle in an orange square and will stop when I run out of the orange.

Here's a close up of the squares, where you can kind of see the varigation.

I'll sew up the squares with a skein of Bare in fingering weight that I have already Kool-aid dyed in varigated yellow.

For the border, I'll Kool-aid dye a skein of worsted weight Bare in orange and yellow to try to match the yarn from Fearless Fiber. I have a skein of worsted weight Bare that I've already dyed yellow, so I'll overdye it in orange. I've never tried it, so this should be interesting.

All this orange is quite a departure for me. For the longest time I really did not like the color. But as I began to get into knitting again, I became exposed to variegated yarn. Then I found Koigu and then indie dyers and yarns with colors I never thought about putting together. My horizons were really broadened and now I find myself really liking this orange.

So here's another picture, but in a different medium:

The clay body is raku, which fires white. While leather hard, I used a stencil to carve the blossoms in and painted with an orange underglaze. After the bisque firing, I put a clear glaze over it and high fired it to cone 6. It's about 6 inches tall and I think I started with about a pound of clay.

Next week I'm signing up for pottery class again. There's a new instructor who will be teaching us how to make big pieces on the wheel with lots of clay. So instead of coming home with 20 small bowls, I'll be coming home with just a few really big bowls.

What can I say? I have a thing for bowls.

The only thing I can control

Over the weekend, after Husband's family left, I spent the weekend watching the Harry Potter movies on ABC Family channel and knitting on Sister's sweater, the Bi-colored Cables.
After much counting of rows and stitches, it turns out that the two sleeves were differents widths was because I knitted more rows on one than the other, hence there were more decreases on one than the other.

All the knitting is now done and now I am seaming the sleeves. Then sew up the turned under hems. Oh, I still have to knit the hems of the sleeves, but that shouldn't be too hard.

So as I finish up one project, I am thinking ahead to a new project. Never mind that still on the needles are:
1. Sister's sweater -- it may be close to done, but it's not done yet.
2. Husband's afghan -- I need more Cascade 22o in Kentucky Blue. However, on a yarn diet until we recovered from the spending from last week. You know how it is, with family visiting, there's more eating at restaurants and more people to feed. And oops, unexpected car issues.
3. Lace scarf for me -- using Bamboo yarn from Southwest Trading Company in Butter. It's their simplest wide-bordered scarves from Victorian Lace Today, the one for beginners. It's my portable knitting and I cranked on it for hours during the Court of Women at the US Social Forum a couple of weeks ago. The Court of Women was over 4 hours of testimony on the issues of violence against women, women and girls in the prison industrial complex, and the disaster of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. As I listened to horror story after horror story, I knitted on the the scarf. People came and went, and there were tons of other workshops going on that I wanted to go to, but I felt compelled to bear witness to this and having the knitting helped.

Only three projects? Not enough! Must start more!

So I started a simple lace panel scarf using softer than soft Malabrigo yarn (my favorite) in Buscando Azul, an intense, gorgeous blue that I got at Knitch. I only have one skein and am not sure that will be enough.

Then, since I've been listening to Stash and Burn and hearing about their crocheting adventures, have been trying out different crochet projects, using varigated lace weight from KnitPicks in my stash.

Because of the yarn diet, I have been trying to knit from my stash, especially trying to figure out what to do with the one or two skeins of varigated lace weight and sock weight yarn I bought from Knit Picks. Other than knitting lace or socks, I mean. Oh, the perils of buying pretty yarn for which you have no plans.

So the title of this post. There's been lots of stress in my life lately (yes, I know, so does everyone else) and I realize that I have really gotten into knitting because it's the only thing in my life I can control. It doesn't involve mysterious moving parts that break expensively (like the car). It doesn't have it's own agenda that thwarts my own and if it does, like the lace weight yarn not cooperating with a too-big crochet hook, it's easy enough to put down, take apart, start over, or heck, throw away. It certainly doesn't talk back, quit on you, or ask for more money like people do.

Plus it comes it gorgeous colors. Speaking of colors, go visit Yarn Storm (linked in side bar). She takes wonderful pictures of everyday things.

Tonight I have a support group meeting. Actually, it's me and some friends who have the same kind of job who get together occasionally to commiserate over some margaritas. The big temptation is tonight we will be mere blocks from my favorite yarn shop, Knitch. And I'm on a yarn diet.

Must. Resist. Temptation.

One way of doing it will be to stay at the, ahem, support group until Knitch closes at 7pm. That's one reason I like Knitch. They stay open later, so those of us who work 9 to 5 earning money to spend on yarn (partially), can actually shop for yarn. I certainly shop on line, but nothing beats seeing and touching it in person.

WIPs

This weekend I was inspired to photograph my current projects:


Sister's Bicolor Cables cardigan, from Interweave Knits, in Cascade 220, not the recommended yarn.
The body is knit from the bottom up, in one piece up to the underarm. Then I finished the back.












Here are the sleeves. You can see that they are almost done, and then I decide to count the stitches and find that one has 10 more stitches on the needle than the other. I knit them both at the same time, from opposite ends of the same ball of yarn, precisely to make sure they match. And yet they don't. Another weekend of letting them sit.

This baby blanket is almost done, but here's a picture anyway. The yarn is Cascade Sierra in navy, light blue, pink, and white. The yarn in held double and that's how I got the tweedy look. Size J crochet hook. General pattern is 2 rows of double crochet of the solid colors and 4 rows of the mixed colors. There will be 2 rows of white on the sides to finish.

Husband's afghan: Cascade 220 in black and medium blue, held double, size 10 US needle. There will be alternating strips of black and blue, with a black border. Very similar to the baby blanket pattern, no? Very easy to make? Yes.

Here's a close up of each strip, knit in basket weave stitch. Each block of the basket weave is 5 stitches wide and 6 rows tall.

Last WIP, another baby blanket. Center is Mountain Colors Barefoot in Mystic Lake colorway, double crocheted. Don't remember what hook I used, but may be size F. It was started last year to be a scarf but now it will be a blanket. The other yarn shows is Knit Picks Essential Solid in burgundy, navy, and dark green. Currently log cabining one inch of the burgundy in garter stitch. When that's done, I'll switch back to double crochet. Much faster that way.