On and on and on it goes ....

This year I started with a couple of charity squares. I saw same gorgeous blankets (rav link) made out of these squares on ravelry, and wanted to learn how to crochet them. The pattern turned out to be free, as long as you send in one finished square (or many) for Krochet Krystal to assemble blankets for charities. The only drawback is, they must be made of acrylic yarn, either white background with pastel colored petals, or black background with bright colored petals. Well, I have a huge stash, but not much of acrylic yarn in worsted weight.



These two squares were made with Bernat Satin I had stuffed in a bag, stuffed in another bag. I was surprised to find these colors. I had some really bright yellow and dark purple, and dark blue as well. Anyway, this yarn is NOT made for crochet, don't let anyone tell you otherwise! It's so darn splity, it's not funny anymore. I was going to make at least 4 squares to send of, but after these two I was ready to tear my hair out and scream. You know what that yarn does? It splits and then the same yarn slips through the opened up plies, and tangles up good. The white ball just fell apart suddenly, (it says Satin on the label, it really is slippery) and it was an incredible tangled mess. I could not crochet any further, and was considering cutting it off. But - my son is very patient. He untangled it, like so many other yarns before this one, and just mentioned, that he never had such a bad yarn in his hands. Long story short, even though there is some left over yarn, it will go into the garbage can. Sorry, yarn.
For now my crochet itch got scratched with this little project. Oh, I forgot to say, that I would not have been able to crochet this with the printed pattern, but there are tutorials on Krystal's yahoo group, with lots of pictures, and all that helped me understand it. Once you get it, it's easy enough, it's just that first square. It showed me, how basic my crochet skills are.

One day I'll start a Daisy Flower square blanket. I've not made a blanket in a l o n g time, right?

But in the meantime I've joined a group on ravelry - 10 shawls in 2010! I've read about it on another blog, but joined only after Angelika sent me an invitation. My thinking is, that's not even a challenge for me, since I made 13 shawls/shawlettes in 2009, 10 shawls will be easy enough. And I don't intend to only make small ones either. But the first shawl I chose is on the smaller side:

It's the Haruni shawl by Emily Ross. (Sorry about the ravelry links, don't know of a link not on ravelry). I've cast on and knit some, and while typing this, I look down on my blue fingers. At first I was surprised that this yarn, sw merino felt so stiff. But now I think it's the excess color on it. It might get softer after giving the shawl a good warm bath to get rid of all the excess color. It's a gorgeous blueish colorway, with many different shades of blue. I haven't knit many things blue I think. It feels - funny. I was going to knit all these shawls from stash, and I had to root around it for a while to find a skein with enough yardage to make this one. (475yds needed)
The yarn is Spritely Goods, Sylph Fine Fingering in colorway: limited edition Ryujin (?) it's handwritten and I can barely read it.



I've cast on for this shawl, even though I'm still on my first Chevron Love mitten, and my first Puppy Love sock. I finished some gorgeous handspun yarn (if I say so myself), and hopefully will spin the wheel with my next project soon.
Meanwhile, I'm having fun outside with the pups in the snow, even though the temps are around -25C with wind chill. Happy is definitely a snow dog. So many cute things happened out there, and no way I could capture it for you, but I'll try.

There are still some FO's from last year to show you, some mittens, some scarves, and some shawls, oh my! ;o)

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