Cat Mad Crochet

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

It got very cold and snowy here very suddenly. Despite all of the projects I have on hook, I got it into my head that I should throw all of those to the side for a bit and make an afghan. Why? Because it’s cold and afghans are nice to make when it’s cold because you get to work under them while you crochet. There was a time when I thought that every December I would start a new afghan with the goal of finishing it by the end of March. I would get a nice new blanket, and I would get to be warm through the winter months. I never instituted this plan because there is only room for so many afghans in my house and those monsters take a lot of yarn.

In the interest of using up stash yarn, I pulled eight hanks of Malabrigo Chunky yarn, which were hiding in my stash for . . . reasons, for this project. I also pulled what, for me, is a simply enormous 9 mm hook. As I balled the yarn up, I got it into my head that I could polish the whole afghan off in a week. I mean look at the size of the yarn! At the size of the hook! This was going to be a fast project, and it is now that I have settled on the stitch pattern and worked at it steadily, but getting there was a process and I think it is going to take longer than a week.

I tried some motifs first but quickly discovered that the little gaps in and between flower petals when worked in lace weight are great, gaping holes when worked in bulky weight yarn. The diminutive cuteness I find so appealing in tiny motifs is utterly lost on the motifs I attempted in bulky yarn. I frogged those attempts and cursed myself for cutting the yarn. I seem determined to make ends for myself to weave in.

The second try was a block design based on “Apartment Complex” in Thomas Knauer’s book The Quilt Design Coloring Workbook. Quilts and their happy designs intrigue me, and I keep coming back to them for inspiration. I thought this particular design would work well because there weren’t that many open spaces, it would distribute little bits of color everywhere, and (though it would have a bunch of ends) it would be visually very interesting. 

So I made a little granny square block and worked a row of linked double crochets around that. I worked the corners as three doubles because I did not want the open gaps of a traditional granny square. After the first row, I worked the next three rows only on two sides of the square. Theoretically, this would have created a little block with an off center, differently colored square “center”. And it really tried to. I think it would have been fine if I hadn’t decided to be all fancy and put a row of single crochets around the outside edge, but here we are. I ended up with a rather off-kilter, squonky (for lack of a better word) trapezoid sort of shape. The stitch count per side was right (after I realized that two of the stitch markers were not in the corners but on the last stitch of the turned row), but still the block decided, because this was clearly something the block was doing to me on purpose, to be off. I frogged it again. Again I cursed myself for having cut the yarn. So. Many. Ends.

The whole thing reminded me of my trials with the Charlotte Wrap. I don’t know that I like, or can successfully make, projects with mixed motifs and flat areas. I need to think about this much more. Perhaps I have just not hit on the right shapes and stitch patterns yet. 

Frustrated by my efforts, I returned, as I so often do to the soft and generous comforts of moss stitch. Moss stitch never fails to delight and bring joy. It can be a quick, light stitch lending drape and ease; it can be a way to play with color; it can be that stitch that you always remember how to start and work because it is just that easy and wonderful. Moss stitch it is.

So I grabbed the yellow and off I went. It’s going quickly and eating the yarn up at an alarming rate. The finished afghan is going to be more of a lap-ghan than a full blanket, but it is warm to work under, so there is that. I’ve been working no more than three stripes of a main color, working in two row repeats, and then a contrast color and then switching all the colors for a new block. I use up about a hank a day, so I think I should be out of yarn pretty quickly. 

I did hold one hank back for the border and I do have some little scraps from the “finished” balls. I have to think about those as I work and figure out what to do for the edge. I better think fast, though, there isn’t much more of this project to go.  

Of course, the ends are unwoven. Go me.