Do you know that feeling you get when you are in the middle of creating something amazing? You are enjoying every stitch, and can't help but look at it over and over. It feels nice, it looks great, you feel so proud of it... But the more you look at it, the more you think that something seems off... Maybe the squares aren't lining up quite right, or the tension of the stitches appears to change. So you look at it even more, trying to convince yourself that you're being paranoid. But then you see it.... That one mistake that is offsetting the entire project that you have spent so much time and energy on. And because you are a stubborn perfectionist, the realisation that hits you like a mach truck is that the only course of action from here is to sit and unpick all that you have done, taking your work back to the last point at which it was correct... It is a cold and lonely feeling.
I have been here twice. The first time was with my Rainbow Ripple blanket. My rainbow ripple was the second large project I ever started, and as yet it is still incomplete. The plan is to incorporate four repeats of a rainbow gradient of eleven colours, with each colour having four ripple rows. This means that each gradient has 44 ripples, and each ripple takes me about an hour to complete. So imagine my horror when I was just a few ripples from completing my third gradient, and I notice that for some reason, the edges of this gradient are not lining up with the edges of the previous two... It was much narrower here. What had happened was that the first two gradients had been completed with a 5 mm hook, and for some reason I picked up a 4.5 mm when I continued with the third gradient. Since then I have considered many ways to rectify the mistake, but the only way I will be truly happy is by ripping back the entire third gradient, and starting again with a 5 mm hook. As such, the rainbow ripple has gone into hibernation until such a time as I can face it again...
After this disaster, I swore that something like that would never happen to me again. I downloaded the hookers journal from the Crochet Crowd website, in which I made notes about each of my projects. What size hook I was using, the shade, dye lot and samples of the yarn I was using, links to the pattern, etc. So when I was looking at my TH Club blanket last night, I was incredibly annoyed to notice that the squares that I had previously joined together appeared to be wonky. It seems that due to the way I finished the last two rounds of cream, each and every square had three sides of 15 stitches, and one side of 16 stitches. Annoyed wasn't the word. At a time when I had previously been feeling very happy with myself because I had just finished the squares for pack four (and so was this much closer to being up to date) I was suddenly feeling absolutely rubbish. Not only did I have to un-join all 36 squares, but I then had to undo the last two rounds of each and every square, to correct the miscount on that one side that the join was on. Un-believable.
That realisation was last night, and since then I have corrected 12 of the affected 36 squares. Now I have to correct the blue and the purple blocks. Before I leave to do that though, I want to leave on a happy note. So look! Look at the 12 squares that I got right first time! Pretend that they (and I) are absolutely amazing, and they are not representative of the mere 25% of squares that I actually got correct....
Can I cry now.....?
Well, I am still waiting for my lobster clasps to come so that I can make my stitch markers. I'm beginning to feel like they'll never arrive! In the meantime, I have mostly been working on my sister's wedding blanket. It's coming along nicely, and I have managed to join the first row of panels together. I will post photos in the next day or so, when the Sun comes out (yeah, right!!) and I can take advantage of the natural light.
In the meantime, I have done a lot of work on one of my long suffering WIPs - my rainbow ripple blanket.
Yeah, that is me, at my yarn meet, with my rainbow ripple. I have been working on it for about two years now - I started it straight off the back of my son's Creeper blanket, but once I started working I just didn't have the time to pick it up any more.
The design is simple - A (UK) double treble stitch with an increase/decrease pattern to create the ridges and valleys. I picked up the pattern for it at Attic 24, and I have been working on it for so long now that I can almost do it blindfolded. That is....as long as I pick up the right crochet hook. You see - the rainbow ripple has a problem, one that I am not yet sure how to solve. I picked up the wrong hook! The first two gradients were done in a size 5mm crochet hook, but for some reason it was a 4.5mm hook in the WIP bag with the blanket. So when I have gone to pick up the blanket to start the third gradient (there will be 4 total) I have done the gradient in a slightly smaller size. This has had the effect of giving the blanket an hourglass shape - It is narrower at the bottom than at the top!
I am not entirely sure how to rectify this right now. The way I see it, I have three choices.
1) I can frog it back to the second gradient, and redo all my work in a 5mm.
2) I can continue until the end in the 4.5mm and hope it eventually stretches out through use and with a border.
3) I can switch to a 5mm hook after the third gradient, and hope that there is some way to block a blanket as large as this one, and try and stretch it out.
It will break my heart to have to redo all of the work I have put into the third gradient. This blanket is large enough for a double bed, and each row takes me over an hour with 280 stitches in it. As it is only for home use, I will try and find a way to stretch it out - so I am leaning towards the third option. It's just going to bug the Hell out if me in the meantime! And I don't even know how I will be able to block something so big. But I'm not going to give up on it!!
