Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Another Day, Another Project

There was a time in my life that I may or may not have compulsively bought scarves.
It's not like I need them (southern California? puh-lease), but I like the woven comfort wrapped around your neck, the fringe, the color, the patterns...
They're pretty versatile in my book.
I like to make them too.
This has been on my to-do list for a while...I really wanted to make an infinity scarf with bright bold colors. I've recently started crocheting again (easy Christmas gift) and I wanted something in this crazy season to be just for me. So this scarf was born out of boredom, a dash of selfish vanity and a little bit of whimsy.
Like all good projects it had a catch- I didn't crochet one big long strip to stitch together at the end when I was done with my colors. No, that would be too smart, right? Instead, I wound my yarn around all the way and crocheted in one big circle. Which would be cute except that I had ONE TURN in my loop. So it wasn't  a circle, but more of a mobius strip.
I could live with that, right? Well...when you do that, you're adding onto BOTH sides of your yarn: your top becomes your bottom and vice versa. Which wouldn't be that big of an issue until you start adding another color and what you had originally wanted as three color-blocked bands becomes five stripes. At this point I was so far along in my improvised pattern (and had already taken out twice before) that I readjusted the mental expectation and went with it. I have to say I was pretty impressed.

Perfect for gallivanting in snow.
I played around with the stitch I used- I'm pretty sure it's a fake stitch or something else half-assed, but at least I was consistent with it. Start in loop, loop one yarn over your hook, push through next stitch, grab yarn over hook, pull through all three. 
I used a fairly large crochet hook because I wanted something big and bulky and I really like the volume I got here. I would totally do this again- other colors, other stitches, maybe no mobius strips this time.

Speaking of scarves, I saw this post over at Lovely Undergrad (where were you when I went to college?) and decided to give it a try too. I'm not a big poetry buff and I was worried about a good Shakespeare quote when it hit me. I really wanted a Scripture verse (or something close to it). I turned to my grandmother and vaguely sent out the request for something to do with: "Love....or marriage. You know, like a wife? Or mothers and daughters? About love...?"
Smooth.

But she came through and gave me Proverbs 31. How elegant do I feel, armoring myself against the day, wearing my goals and my hopes and dreams in becoming a great woman, wife and mother. It was perfect. So I followed the tutorial, grabbed a Sharpie and scribbled my way across my scarf. 
Thank goodness my coffee table is black.
The result smelled really bad, ya'll. Like 6th grade science projects and too much rubber cement. But it wore off after a day and I wear this ALL THE TIME. You could do something fun like song lyrics or wedding vows, too!

1 comment:

  1. At this point I give up hope of ever seeing my LARGE crochet hook again. Seems to have found a happy home with you. And good news -- I won't take another bar exam, so no need to crochet for sanity again with an obnoxiously large afghan. I'll stick with quilting and you can crochet away with your NEW large crochet hook.

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Mrs. E