It's Fugly and it's Finished!

I HAVE FINISHED MY FUGLY BLANKET AND I LOVE IT!

This took me four months to hook up and it was a real learning experience. It was really fun to just grab a ball out of my scrap bin and add it onto the growing blanket. I methodically weighed each scrap and ball on my handy scale and recorded that on note cards to enter onto my project page on Ravelry. My yardage ended up being 2620.1 yards although that is a bit of a guestimate since most of my scraps did not have ball bands, but I think most cotton yarns have similar weights and yardage per gram - so I am pretty comfy with my guestimate. (You can read the list with all the weights and stuff on my project page on Ravelry.)

Sometimes I would try and place colors next to each other - and sometimes I would "need to work with pink" and would just add pink yarn where ever it landed. I started out thinking I would just use up my scrap bin, but I ended up running out pretty quick, so I found myself crocheting wash cloths on my lunch hour and then going home that night and hooking the rest of the ball onto the blanket!

Emma enjoyed me placing a blanket out on the grass for her and she had some nice rolling around on it. Any time I lay out a knitting/crochet project she has to come over and lay down on it. It's funny. I appreciate her being so kind to my knitwear though. She only ran off with one hat and no damage was done. And she's just the cutest little model!

I did a test run for possible future picnic's and the size is really good. I can sit here and have a nosh with Emma no problem. I think my hubby could even squeeze in! Nice! :)

Here's a shot of the denim blue border in single crochet. I think I did 6 rounds but it might just be five. I have a hard time counting rows still and I didn't track this as I went. I just added rows until it told me it was done. The corners have three single crochet into the corner stitch for the turns. I think a darker border would probably look better (in hindsight) but this color is more pet hair forgiving - so I call it a win.

There is also a little bit of pucker from my border - but not enough to really bug me. I suspect going from Extended Single Crochet to Single Crochet may have been part of the problem here - but I like the slightly denser fabric around the edge of the blanket.

I did crochet blocks of color together in areas which left ridges all over the back. I decided they bothered me too much and went back and sewed them all down. Not very pretty - but like I said. LEARNING EXPERIENCE. Also - It's called a fugly blanket - so yeah. No pressure to look pretty.

The size is perfect. I can wrap it around my shoulders and it just reaches my feet. Since it's all scrap cotton I can wash and dry the crap out of it. If I stain it I can bleach it. And it sleeps like a dream. I finished sewing in my last stray end last night and within 30 minutes after I did that I was sound asleep under it in bed. Just love it.

Fugly Update

I thought I would update on my Fugly blanket this week. I spent a couple hours last night weaving in the ends and tacking down the fugly seams I created when I crocheted chunks together. Today I pulled my blanket our and measured it and took a few pictures. It's currently 56 inches by 52 inches (142 cm x 132cm). I feel like if I make it too much larger it will hit "blanket" or "afghan" level rather than throw. I wonder if there is a real division in the those or if that is just my feelings? Anyway - I don't want a HUGE blanket. I want a mini blanket for throwing over my shoulders in bed at night or wearing on my lap while I knit. My internal voice told me I was there.

My next challenge is picking out the color I want to edge it in. I THINK I have it figured out now, but honestly I have changed my mind three times this morning already, so.... Yeah.

My only requirement is that it be in my stash. I have a whole bin of cotton - so that's really not an issue I don't think. This whole blanket is an experiment and since I have declared it FUGLY from day one there really is nothing I can do to it to make it worse. That really takes the pressure off.

In other news, my weekly weight in was pretty successful considering how much I consumed over the 4th of July holiday! I gained about half a pound this week and I was pretty happy with that since I was sure it would be much worse.

Another blessing is our heat wave finally broke. We hit 102F (38.88C) yesterday and it was over a week of temperatures like that. Last night we had storms roll in and today we are a bit cooler - so yay for that!

Is anyone doing the Stephen West KAL that starts next Friday? Lord help me - I signed up for it! I don't work with small needles  - like ever - and I am thinking if I am lucky I will be knitting this up on a size 4, but the yarn states size 1-3 needles so I may end up smaller than I think. Uffda. What have I gotten myself into?!?! My other concern is that this KAL will only be halfway over when the Olympic Games starts and I have a project geared up for that as well! So.... Yeah. We will have to see how this goes!

Crochet some fugly

Last weekend we had my Mother in Law over to celebrate her 60th birthday. I always like to have a little project to work on while we sit and talk so I grabbed a ball of yarn from my cotton yarn scrap bin and started to do a little crochet. I try to do a little bit every once in awhile just to keep the ability. I am really new at crochet (Made my first washcloth in November last year) and I cannot read instructions yet. I will get there eventually, but for now I just do some simple practice bits.

I knit up the left over yarn from my headband I knit last weekend. This made a pretty nice sized square. Then I thought I would just add to it with different colors and just keep using up yarn practicing.

Add a little chunk of teal and a bigger chunk of navy. So far not too ugly. I was really enjoying how this hooked up and loved that I was burning through some left over scrap cotton. Crochet is really fast and you can really burn through the yarn.

Here it is Friday and suddenly the blanket (because that is what I was going for after the first couple squares added on so quickly) has turned into something a little big fugly. I am going to keep going even though I am pretty icked out by the product. I keep thinking how awesome a cotton blanket would be for the camper, and if it's really fugly then I won't mind throwing it on the ground to sit on at a campsite or what have you. Also - it can go right in the washer and dryer when I am done - so there is that too.

I confess - I had the thought that maybe I should make it into a Dog blanket. Our dog loves her little blankets and curls all the way under a blanket at night. (She has her own bed and own blankets.) So in the back of my mind I have that little thought process. I also have the thought that I can always bleach the crap out of this and mute the colors quite a bit. Some of the cotton yarn is very soft though - so I fear it would destroy that yarn a little.

Anyway, It's been a fun experiment. I wish crochet didn't hurt my wrist and shoulder so much. It's really addictive how fast you get product (It's 27 inches long by 16 inches deep right now) and I could really get into it if it didn't hurt my body so much!

I think my next crochet project will have to be something pretty like the blanket that Knitting Nix is making. I love her happy colors and how NOT ugly her end product is. I have a lot of stash just begging to be used.