My crochet fever continues, and I’ve been churning out four-row squares for Babette. 

The plan is to make a bunch of them, making sure that I use all eight colors equally, and then add to them as need be to make the six- eight- ten- and twelve-row squares.  I found it a bit overwhelming to decide every time how big a square to make and which colors to use.  Now I’m approaching it by saying “I’m making a set of eight four-row squares, with three rows of A and one row of B, and each color will be used once as A and once as B.”  That way I can do it a lot faster and make sure I’m using the colors in a balanced way.

In other crochet news, I got my package from the potholder swap about a week ago.  Starting with the white and multicolor one in the upper left, they were made by Priscilla, Nana, Nannette, Melissa, and Debbie.  They’re really cool, and I’m happy I did the swap. It’s so neat that Priscilla lives in Oklahoma, and one of my potholders apparently made it out to Hawaii!

Fiona says hi.  She’s settled in nicely.

Between getting the new kitty and starting my summer job downtown, I sort of forgot about blogland for awhile there.  So, hi!  I hope everyone has been doing well. 

I’ve barely knit at all since I finished the yellow ishbel.  I’ve been crocheting up a storm though.

These are the potholders I made for the crochet potholder swap (I think I can even catch a glimpse of them in the center of the right edge of the first photo here).  It was a lot of fun doing them, and I definitely think that there are more crocheted potholders in my future.

I don’t like knitting with 100% cotton yarn, but I thought crocheting with it was just fine.  So then I thought of the stash of Berocco Comfort I have.  I got it to make an afghan awhile ago, but I abandoned the project quickly because I didn’t like knitting with the yarn. Again, though, I don’t mind crocheting with it. So in the last couple of weeks, I’ve been churning out squares for the Babette Blanket.

Those little crochet squares are perfect for summer crafting, because they lead to a sense of accomplishment and there isn’t a big, hot pile of yarn sitting in your lap. I’m so glad I found a good home for all that yarn!

I finished a scarf.

It looks kind of funny though.

Homigosh, it’s crochet!

So yeah, I learned how to crochet. I took crochet classes at Sit ‘n Knit from the wonderful Jodi.  I’d been meaning to learn for awhile, as part of my larger quest to try something new.  This orange scarf by Nicole was one of the projects that inspired me most. 

I had nominally learned to crochet once before, when I was on my study abroad trip to Australia.  I couldn’t get it for some reason, the loops always slipped off the hook. 

Now that I have Susan Bates hooks that I’m really happy with, I can see the problem.

The old one is on the left, the new one is on the right. See how much sharper the hook is on the blue one? I think it works a lot better that way, at least for a newbie like me. I’m also partial to metal needles, so it doesn’t surprise me that I’d prefer metal hooks.

While I can’t imagine that crochet will become my primary craft, there are just some things you can only do with crochet. In order to give myself an excuse to practice some more, I’m doing the Crocheted Potholder Swap.  It should be fun!