Saturday, August 21, 2010

Warms Up the Whole House

What do you get someone you’ve been friends with since the 6th grade for her new home? It has to be something special that allows you to be part of everything even though you’ve moved away and can’t frequent the house yourself. It has to be the kind of thing that is loved and useful, that can be used for year. And it has to be something that wouldn’t make sense coming from anyone else. Something like a blanket made with your own creativity, talent, and time; something only you can make. Hence my new project, a crochet zig-zag throw, which I hope will be much beloved when finished.

I picked a pattern from lion brand, but am ignoring their color scheme and creating my own. Instead of plotting out the colors, I am going to just see what happens as I go. I like that, with crochet, feel confident working blind and making things up as I go. Working without guidelines normally give me anxiety, but with crochet I prefer it The wonderful thing about crochet is you can add, change, subtract, re-do, test, and let it flow without worrying about it ruining the finished project. Unlike knitting, which needs a plan; and is painstakingly hard to correct, to me, crochet is a medium that wants to be discovered. You start with an idea and let it build with your mood, and adjust as that mood shifts to find something at the end which is completely unique (and absolutely cozy).

The plan for this blanket, right now, is to slowly build blue stripes into a green and beige pattern until it completely replaces the beige. Executed with various width stripes, the blanket should have a sense of movement and tension. Here’s what it looks like so far!


Sunday, January 24, 2010