Cat Mad Crochet

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

Dammit it all if winter doesn’t seem to be over here. I’m not best pleased, let me tell you. I hate spring. My allergies are already hopping about and very excited to my make my life miserable.

Give me the cold.

Give me the snow.

Give me the barren trees devoid of flowers producing noxious pollen.

Alas, I cannot change the weather with ranting. If I ever develop the ability, it will always be six more weeks of winter until I want the apple trees and tomatoes to start growing. At least the weather has the decency to rain today. I do not need that glaring orb of warmth looking at me right now.

In real world news, I am now the host for Pittsburgh’s Contemporary Craft’s monthly Crochet Club. We meet from 4 to 6 on the fourth Thursday of the month. If you find yourself in the area, drop in and say hi.

So I finished the Melt the Ice hat.

I think it came out nicely. I used the original pattern as a template but made lots of changes. I increased the ribbing section to be about six inches long instead of four. I used front and back post stitches to do the ribbing in the round. I feel like this is a stretchier, more effective ribbing. I did not do waistcoat stitch for the body of the hat. I used fingering weight yarn, and the idea of working between the single crochets made my old eyes very unhappy, so I did standard issue single crochets. I put in a little 4 single crochet v-stitch section at the front and back of the hat and ran the decreases on each side of this on every other row to create the point. I made an actual tassel instead of the little braid. I used fingering weight yarn and a 3.75 mm hook.

I’m happy with it.

I am still working on Adia’s scarf. I really thought I was almost ready to start the decrease, so I measured the remaining yarn only to find I had about twenty grams left before I get to start decreasing. (I’m using half of the yarn on the increase section and half on the decrease section to create a narrow scarf/shawl/mini-shawl thing.) I worked two more stripes, one in yellow and one in brown. I trotted off to measure the remaining yarn, confident that I was ready to start decreasing, only to find I had used but a few grams. I worked another stripe and a half before bedtime last night. I hope to finish up more tonight. After I finish four more stripes, I’ll weigh the remaining yarn again. I have serious issues estimating how far yarn will go. I’m sure I’m going to end up working like a dozen more stripes before I start decreasing.

Hannah’s wrap is coming along. I added another ball of yarn to it, so I think I only have this ball and the next to go until I start the border, which will be tiny shells. Of course, given Adia’s scarf, I could have one ball to work before it gets to length or seven. Who knows? Anyway, I’m working on it, so that’s a good thing. I haven’t woven the ends, but, quite frankly, I bet you knew that.

I am still making circles because I need to be reminding that this too shall pass. I mean the orange horror and his minions here. Let there be no mistake.

Please, Universe, let this pass!

I started my circle project with a bunch of different colored yarns and then cut most of them out because I realized how busy the end product would look with circles worked in a lot of different colors. Instead, I kept a blue shade, a deep purple, a deep gray blue, and gray. I thought the little pops of color would be more aesthetic than tons and tons of colors. But here’s the thing: I think I underestimated how much damn yarn I would need to make circles for four whole freaking years. (Yes, a life theme. If I was a novel people could write essays about the meaning of my consistent yarn woes.)

I also underestimated how much mental reserve I would need to weather this mess. No one talks about that in those stupid prepper videos. They talk about how much water a person needs each day or how much rice to put back, but no one discusses how to not lose your freaking mind realizing that half of the country you call home is made up of people Herodotus would have written about as the weird people walking around with their heads up their asses.

Anyway, circles. I keep making circles.

What do we do? We swim. We fucking swim.

Keep your head above water, folks.