Your Daily Crafting Community

A friend of a friend in the crafting group I was in years ago, brought in a woman's entire stash-including unfinished projects- for our group to divvy up after her death. I spent four days swatching and figuring out the woman's stitch plan for a crocheted afghan that was about 3/4 complete. I used all the yarn I could find that matched her project in the stash, then finished it, only to donate it to a nearby retirement home.

It was fantastic fun, despite the practical drudgery of the swatching and frogging.

I'm planning to donate the new project to a nondenominational help agency for parents and kids under five. (I feel so sad that I have to specify nondenominational, but it's the twenty-first century and assumptions can be awkward later.) If it goes to a toddler, the texture won't be an issue. If it goes to an infant or newborn, I'd be very worried about it.

OH. DUH.

I've now figured out how to check texture that I can't feel with my hands. Do you know the trick my step-grandmother taught me about picking fabric or materials for baby items? Rub the fabric/yarn very gently on the closed eyelid. If it feels scratchy there, it's NOT appropriate.

YES. The yarns feel almost the same on my eyelids.

With a little quick visit to the kitchen scale, I've got enough of the sparkle to make 24 blocks with plain white, and 24 blocks with the sparkle white yarns. It'll be a rather subtle scrap effect, I hope.

Then, to soothe the anxiety, I did a whole bunch of fussy, theoretical math to guestimate the finished area if I make all of the round-one squares with the yarns I've chosen for those-- I should have enough of all three colors (barely) to finish twenty-four more squares which are 4.5" on a side, which will barely be enough to make all 48 of the orange and white combos into full blocks.

It'll need rounds two AND three to bring it back to having the centers on point, but the yarns are much less predictable and thus will be far more scrappy.