Yarn Along 2015.29: Knitting and Knitting and (What?!?) Crochet

Hot, humid, and overcast Wednesday at this little place here.  Weatherman says thunderstorms this afternoon; I'll believe it when I see it.  We've had that same forecast more than a few times in the past two weeks and so far, nothing.  Kind of ironic how we went from too wet to too dry in less than half a month.

Joining Ginny & the Yarn Along today to see what everyone is knitting (or crocheting) and reading.

I did a bit more knitting this week than last.  Partly because the last several days have been extremely hot & humid, so I do things a little differently.  Instead of staying outside for hours at a time working on the garden and other outdoor stuff, I cycle in and out of the house.  An hour out, then a half hour to an hour back indoors (where it suddenly seems so much cooler, despite the fact that we do not have air conditioning) until I've cooled down a bit, then another hour back outside, followed by a 'break' doing indoor stuff. . .

This work pattern allowed me a bit more knitting time than usual, and I managed to get the leg completed on sock #1 of Dad's Petty Harbour socks as well as turn the heel and pick up the gusset.  Yay!

sock in the Susans

 I gave in to the urge to cast on for a washcloth to send to college with DD2 (I'll make a few more too, if time allows).  I made it in yarn that has her favorite shades of blue, and used this pattern.  It's not quite as fast to knit up as most dish/wash cloths since it is entrelac, but, oh, is it fun to knit and I love how the color changes in the yarn are coming out in the pattern.  I will definitely be using this pattern again in the future.  Wouldn't it make fun dish cloths in Christmas red, white and green?  Hmm, add it to the Make For Gifts list.  :0)

As you can see in the picture, I also found a book to read.  This one was on the New Books shelf at my local library when I went in last week to pick up a movie I'd requested.  Plain Killing by Emma Miller is an Amish murder mystery.  Well, most of the characters are Amish, anyway, and the heroine is a woman who was raised Amish, left to pursue an education, then returned to her community (but not the faith) to run a Bed & Breakfast.  I've read about half of the book so far and am enjoying it.

Last on my show and tell list for today is a crocheted item (yes, crochet!) I made recently.  Once upon a time, when I was very young, my mother attempted to teach me crochet.  I mastered the chain, and that was it.  LOL.  Many years later, I picked up my crochet hook again, taught myself to do single and double crochet, and  made the kids several winter scarves and a blanket for each of their beds.  All by the eyeball method, not using a pattern or even counting stitches.

A few weeks ago, DH mentioned wanting me to put a felt pad underneath a ceramic house (DS2 made in an art/sculpture class in high school many years ago) that I use as a doorstop in our bedroom, because the finish on the wood floor was starting to get scratched up where we move the doorstop a couple of times a day to close the door then hold it back open again.  I didn't really want to glue a piece of felt to that 'lovely' house (it's kind of a Seussian looking thing, if you know what I mean), and I pondered for another week or so before hitting upon the idea of making a sort of doily for it.  You know, a nice round something made with yarn.  Being that doilies are typically crocheted, I decided it was time for me to attempt crocheting something other than a rectangle.

But, crochet patterns still look like alien code to me, so I again winged it, first making a few chain stitches and then doing single crochet into them, adding or decreasing where it looked like I needed to in order to keep things circular.  And this is what I came up with, using some fat yarn I had leftover from making DD2 a Rapunzel braid for her 8th grade play in 2012 (a brunette Rapunzel, of course, since my kids all lost their blond locks around the time they started kindergarten).

It's beautiful, yes?

Okay, maybe not that pretty, but it is doing it's job well, sitting nicely under my Seussian house doorstop and sliding across the wood floor when needed, without sanding off the finish.  Plus, I'm quite satisfied with myself for creating a round piece of crochet work.  Maybe one of these days I'll sit down and try to figure out how to read crochet patterns and make something other than a wonky rectangle.