I was talking to my mom last night on the phone. She's starting chemo again on Wednesday this week: 1 round every 3 weeks for 3 rounds. Her uterine cancer spread again, this time into her liver. My grandma had liver cancer and she died from it. Grandma was 63. My mom is only 59.
Anyway, Mom mentioned how cold she's been lately because she's not feeling good, very tired and weak, which is not like her. So I told her that in about a week, she'd be getting a package from me: a new blanket that I made. She liked that idea and said she can use it at home on the couch, or maybe she'd take it with her to her treatments. I told her it's a good size but still it would be easy to travel with (I estimate it to be about 6'x4'). So as of last night, I realized it was time to get cracking on this thing. All I have left to do is finish the tassels on this.
Since it's a stashbuster, here's what it's made out of, on a J sized crochet hook:
--2 skeins of Poems 100% wool in #588--Love love LOVE this yarn
--Half skein of Red Heart Super Saver yarn in Cornmeal (#0220)--"Cornmeal" is just about the perfect name for this color
--3 skeins of Plymouth Yarn in Boku (#17)--Really enjoy the texture of the Plymouth and Ella Rae yarns: the Plymouth is a sturdy, strong yarn while the Ella Rae ends up, finished, much prettier than you think that texture would work
--2 skeins of Plymouth Yarn in Vizions (#103)
--2 skeins of Ella Rae yarn in #204
--1 skein of Tartelette yarn in #731--A fun ribbon yarn that ended up being a variegated yarn and I didn't realize it when I bought it
--2 skeins of Berroco yarn in #2816
--partial Lion Brand one pounder in Denim (#110)
--partial Lion Brand one pounder in Pastel Yellow (#157)--This is the same yarn I used for my minions.
The pattern calls for 70" lengths of yarn to be woven in and out of the widest (DC) rows, not the thin (SC) rows. The lengths are doubled and woven to go in and out of 2 DC's at a time. I started doing this with a light yellow yarn in the Pastel Yellow rows first. I didn't like this. I guess my tension was off, because my woven yarn lengths looked puckered and tight, and nothing like they do in the finished pattern.
BTW, the pattern calls for only three colors of yarn, so you can easily see another change I made right there!
