Year of Projects, Year 2: Rerouting

(This post is part of my Year of Projects, Year 2 series.)

This week, my goal was to try out some potential motif patterns for the bedspread I’m planning for my mom’s milestone birthday in February.  My sister’s bedspread took about 5 months to finish, and I’m assuming this one will be more complicated, so I want to get started soon.

My sister’s granny square blanket, with colors inspired by the New Orleans Saints.

I started a Pinboard of potential vintage patterns earlier this week.

It’s been really hot here, so I’ve mostly been crocheting with mercerized cotton.  My first two swatches were a bust.

My first attempt, in Galler Yarns Parisian Cotton in Orchidee.

The first pattern I tried was the Marguerite.  Each hexagon is 40 rounds (!).  If you’ve ever tried a pattern from this era (1914), you know that there are a lot of details left unexplained.  I ended up cutting the petals short by about 6 rounds, just to see if I would be able to figure out how to create the petal effect.  I don’t think I did such a great job, and in any case, it would take too long to make each motif on my deadline.  I’ll have to tackle this pattern at a future time.

I did find another hexagon pattern in the same vintage booklet, Priscilla Crochet Booklet Bedspreads.

Figure 34, Hexagon for Bedspread.

After 6 rounds, I wasn’t overly excited about this one either.

Now, I’m thinking of switching gears entirely.  Instead of a vintage pattern (with the added stress of translating/interpreting the instructions), I may just use something from this wonderful book I picked up at Vogue Knitting Live.

There are a lot of lovely lace motifs, and everything is charted.  Hopefully by next week, I will have narrowed down my options for my mom’s bedspread.

Just so I could feel as though I accomplished something this week, I made my first two granny squares.  I sat right next to the air conditioner and used a partial ball of Lion Brand Wool Ease from my stash.  I think the colorway is called Sage, but the label is long gone, so I can’t be sure.  Both were based on patterns from The Granny Square Book by Margaret Hubert.

Dogwood Flower.

My Ravelry project page is here and the pattern page is here.

Ferris Wheel.

My Ravelry project page is here and the pattern page is here.  It was nice to use up some stash yarn and to crochet with something a bit thicker after a week of thread.  I’m glad I finished my first two grannies – only 50 more to go!

For more Year of Projects posts, visit Come Blog-A-Long on Ravelry.

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