Thrifty Crochet

While on vacation I wanted to work on an easy crochet project that I could pick up or put down whenever I wanted, so I picked the Glorious in Green pattern from the Make in a Weekend Textured Lap Throws booklet by Rita Weiss. I did not choose to make it in green yarn, but went with this colorful Premier Puzzle bulky yarn in the Marbles colorway, which reminds me of summer. The finished size of this throw is 36" X 56", which to me is a wrap, but okay. There are four rows to start and then you repeat rows three and four for the rest of the project. I crocheted the first four rows on night one, mainly to get a feel for the pattern. This one is easy to memorize. I took the project with me on my birthday road trip, and this is how much I got done in the car (not quite half.) I spent the next night working on it until I got tired and went to bed. That night I got within 7" of finishing the throw. I think if I wasn't on vacation and setting it asid...

I didn't get a chance to post about my last yarn haul from Premier back in June, so let's take a look. These are the yarns I ordered; the Premier Puzzle in Marbles is for a weekend throw project; the Premier Parfait Chunky Glitz is for a holiday present project. I also ordered a mystery box because 1) they were in stock and 2) I love them. I'm already falling deeper in love. :) Now you saw the baby bird I've already made from the Parfait XL Pom Party, and the rest are almost all new to me yarns. I'll have fun experimenting with these.

When my dear friend B asked what I wanted for my birthday, I said the same thing I always do: a card. Of course she ignored me, and then this arrived at the end of June. A Premier Yarns Surprise Box! I've always wanted to get one of these, so I'm beyond happy. Let's look inside. I'm already in love. The box contained these nine skeins and cakes. I really was thrilled because there's a lot to love here. I don't know what I'll make with this, but it's going to be gorgeous. After making a throw with it last month I am a big fan of Premier Puzzle yarn -- and I had no idea it came in solid colors (you've already seen me grab the grey for my weekend throw project.) I'm also a huge fan of Sweet Roll yarn. The one on the right is the same colorway I used for the Iris throw; the one on the left is called Pistacho Ice Cream, and is so pretty I might have to buy more of it new (if it goes on sale!) I even got some fanc...

Rather than blindly make another star throw, I decided to let fate tell me what I should do for my next project, and chose six patten options (actually fifteen; the booklet contains ten patterns.) Then came the pretty mystery dice I recently purchased. I rolled a 4, which was this booklet of bulky yarn throw patterns you can supposedly make in a weekend. This was a lucky roll as I need to review this booklet for my $10 or less series. I chose the Warm and Wonderful pattern because it requires on 7 skeins of #5 weight bulky yarn. I don't have a tremendous amount of bulky yarn in my stash, and I really want to see if I can make the throw in one weekend. Here are the bulky weight skeins I pulled from my stash for the project. I'm going to finally use some of my thrifted O'Go Colorama wheels, the last of the Herschnerr's mill ends, a Premier Puzzle in a solid gray that I was recently gifted, and some other complimentary colors. The palette is very ca...

The blooming flower throw I made from Premier Puzzle and Hobbii Amigo Chunky yarns did take five days in the end, but I probably could have easily finished it in four. I just decided not to rush the big finish. This throw gave me a bit of a hard time, which is probably why I ran out of yarn about 24" from the end of the final row. I added on some Loops & Threads Charisma in off white, which is a weight 5 but a tiny bit chunkier, but the only bulky yarn in my stash that would work colorwise. One does what one can, and it's not a gift but something to remind me that keeping at it is worth it in the end. I think. Thoughts: I do like the Premier Puzzle yarn quite a bit, as well as the Hobbii Amigo Chunky. Both were soft and glided well for #5 yarns. The Puzzle yarn had a couple of factory knots and one 12" frayed section that I had to cut out; the Hobbii had no frays and only one factory knot in five skeins, which is pretty darn good. The variegated Pu...

As I mentioned yesterday I thought I'd give this Blooming Flower Blanket by Liz Salazar for Premier Yarns a go with my Premier Puzzle yarn and some Amigo Chunky from Hobbii. The pattern is another one that was oddly written, in that the maker has to keep precise count of each round of stitches, but the repeats have sorta-kinda place references rather than the exact stitch count number. "Dc to the center of the petal" rather than the exact number of double crochets. This makes you have to guess or (like me) fix the pattern in your head by creating your own count. I had to frog and restitch one row three times to figure out the place reference/exact count problem, which did not make me happy. Altogether I frogged five or six rows in addition to that one that was particular troublesome, which killed my momentum. This is how much I got done in one night after wrestling with this pattern. The stitch counts on the solid blue row are wrong again. I was trying ...

For my next crochet project I'm going to make another starry-shaped throw to try another pattern, this time in bulky weight yarn.The pattern is the Blooming Flower Blanket by Liz Salazar for Premier Yarns, and calls for five skeins of Premier Puzzle. Since I have only two Premier Puzzle skeins I'm going to use my Amigo Chunky from Hobbii in colors that should look nice with it, and make it stripey. I am still working on the sea green Ocean Tranquility throw for a friend, and the Azalea scarf, too. I'll likely finish the scarf this month but the throw will take longer, especially with all the additional complications my summer has already acquired. It's good to have lots to crochet, but after I finish my two long-term WIPs I think I'll go back to doing one project at a time. It just suits me better to finish one thing before I start another. Image credit: The second image in this post came from the free printable Blooming Flower Blanket pattern o...