Last Month in Crochet

For my first project of October I finished a Trade Winds Lap Blanket which I donated to Knotty Maxine's charity drive.

I crocheted two more pumpkins for fall in Premier Puzzle in the colorway Kickball; one from an online pattern and one I freehanded in moss stitch.

I crocheted another pumpkin out of Sweet Roll Vivid in the colorway Glow Worm. Perfect yarn for Halloween!

I made a winter hat while trying Premier Puzzle in the colorway Jacks.

I crocheted a little ghost coaster with Red Heart Super Saver while testing a free Halloween pattern.

I turned three skeins of yarn into hexes while testing them out.

I made a shawl while testing Just Yarn Worsted Value Ombre yarn in the colorway Mustard Ombre.

Finally I crocheted another Trade Winds blanket for myself in Premier Puzzle in the colorway Backgammon.

I used the equivalent of 36-1/4 skeins in October, which brings my year to date total to 408-3/8. If you're wondering about weight, that's about 90 lbs. of yarn. I might go over 100 lbs. before the end of the year.

These are the labels and notes recording all of the yarn I've used so far in 2026. About 85% of the yarn was thrifted, and most of the projects I've made were donated to thrift stores that aid the hungry in our local communities, (one I donated to Project Linus) or I gifted them to family or friends.

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On the Beach

Last week my guy and I went to walk Daytona Beach, which was mostly (and eerily) deserted. This is what our beaches used to look like when I was a kid. It was a beautiful day, cold and breezy but calm. It feels like 2026 is getting off to the right start.

Eight Plus Numbers

When I was looking up the retail on the small lot of yarn plus a tapestry kit I got a lot of surprises. This Red Heart Roll with It Sparkle skein in "Diamonds" was actually a cake that sells $10.99 on Yarnspirations. The lot included two Red Heart Super Saver Jumbo skeins, which retail for $8.99 each, and stuck in the center of the buff color I found a 5.5 mm crochet hook. This is a skein of 100% Icelandic wool, which can be really expensive. It's marked with a price tag of $7.00, and I found it selling for $8.00 online. The needlepoint kit is the biggest surprise of all. It makes a pillow, and hails from the UK, where it sells for £45.00 ($60.76 US). Since it's flamingos I definitely have to finish it if I can. Altogether my eight plus lot retails for $125.04; I paid $21.30 total for the lot with the buy-it-now option and one penny shipping. I indeed got a very nice bargain.

Not So Cheerful

Since I finished the January crazy-quilted tote for my calendar project I jumped back on making the Iris throw, working this time with Bernat Giggles in Cheerful Blue. From the start this skein seemed determined to give me trouble, not anything cheerful, as I had to contend with a big knot of yarn I tugged out along with the center pull strand (I didn't take a pic of that.) This yarn is 90% acrylic and 10% nylon, and come in a 3.5 oz. skein. Not sure why they added nylon to the acrylic, perhaps to make it softer. The color is nice, and it's fairly smooth, but it also splits easily and wants to pucker, pop and untwist, especially when you tear out stitches. Naturally I had to tear out two and a half rows to correct two mistakes, which aggravated me because the yarn was untwisting when I went to crochet it again. To add icing to this terrible cake, I ran out of the yarn on the final row. To keep the symmetry with the other sections I had to pull a compatible color fro...

Thrifty Crochet

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