Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Warm Up America - The Pile is Still Growing!

Yep, my little stack of crocheted and knitted squares is still growing! I now have 31 in the pile; only 18 more to go and I will begin the process of sewing them all together into an afghan. The afghan will then be sent to the Warm Up America Foundation to be donated to a homeless shelter or hospital.

I've been using yarn given to me by Rose Rich a couple years ago when I was visiting her in Utah. I love being able to put that yarn to good use! Of course, I also have lots of stray skeins, partial skeins, and various sized balls of yarn hanging around from past projects, or projects that I never did get to. I'm digging into it all.

I got tired of the crocheting the same patterns (the ones provided at the Warm Up America Foundation's website), fun though they are, so I started looking around for more stitches to try. I dug up an old (unfinished, natch) afghan project I started a long time back. The pattern I was using is in a booklet called "63 Easy to Crochet Pattern Stitches - Combine to Make an Heirloom Afghan." The 63 patterns all make squares so I've just been modifying them to make a 7" x 9 " rectangle instead. It's been really fun trying out the different stitches.

I've found I can easily crochet at least one piece per evening, if I'm watching television; sometimes I will do more - just depends on how much time I spend in front of the t.v., which usually isn't a whole lot.

I've never actually joined a bunch of squares into an afghan before, so that may prove to be a bit of a challenge in spite of all the tips given at the Warm Up America Foundation's website. It'll certainly be something new to learn.

Any suggestions??


2 comments:

Helen said...

I'm working on a pile too, although I'm not as far along as you are! I was hoping to find some directions on how to join the squares together with crochet, and outline around the edges, to make a sort of "window pane" effect.

Deborah W said...

Helen, that sounds lovely. Let me know if you find something! I'm not sure what I'm going to do - yet! You can emamil me via my blog - and send along your email address, too. We'll keep in touch!