THE BABY BLANKET IS FINISHED, AT LAST

 Just a short post today... I finished the white baby blanket and finally have something to show for after such a long time of hooking and ripping.  I came close to throwing in the towel several times when I got frustrated but decided to have another try when I was more rested. 

 It's a good thing that I used white as I had to get two more skeins of yarn. The other baby blankets I crocheted before all used only three skeins of yarn. I had a bit of hesitation to do the border and had a few mistakes but I just kept going as it wasn't affecting the border too much... 

I learned a lot from my mistakes. The acrylic baby yarn I was using seems to be stretchy and probably not a good choice for a beginner like me as it made it harder to see the stitches clearly as the yarn would split often. A worsted yarn would have probably been easier but not as soft.  Anyway, it's done. 

We're having some balmy weather and it was windy today so the snow is melting fast and there's a lot of puddles on the road.  Only 8 days to spring 2021.

Thanks for stopping by for a visit. I hope everyone is in good spirits and doing well.

Hugs, Julia

PERSEVERANCE FINALLY PAYS OFF

 I was inspired to pick up my crochet hook after my last blog post about a young boy named Jonah who is a prodigy at crocheting. 

I found this lovely crochet pattern for a baby blanket on the internet but there were no written instructions.  The creator of this pattern kept saying to look at the captions for directions to everyone who was asking for a written pattern... but the captions were as confusing as the video and it was no help to me. It looked easy enough until I tried to crochet it myself.  I wasn't the only one who found the tutorial difficult to follow as the lady talked too much and worked too fast for a beginner like me but she does amazing work. Take it from me, rug hooking is much easier.

The front posts stitches make up the diamond pattern. The yarn is white but because of the lighting, it looks more like a cream color which I would have liked but had to use white in case I would run out of yarn so it would be easy to match.

I tried so many times to make sense of it and kept getting in trouble by forgetting to pick up a front post stitch that would screw up the whole work and had to unravel two rows repeatedly. I wasn't advancing very fast but I was determined that I would not give up on this pattern.  I was especially having trouble on each end of the rows. 

Every day I thought, surely, I'll be able to have something to show for on my blog but  I had to unravel it again and again. I knew the pattern well enough but kept making silly mistakes when my mind wandered in the repetitious process. 

Now, I finally have gotten a handle on it and I still make mindless mistakes but I catch them much sooner and I'm finally making progress with hardly any unraveling.

Like many of you, I'm waiting for spring to arrive. Only 26 days till glorious spring. Hang in there and stay positive and don't forget to give thanks for what you got. It could be taken away with the blink of an eye. 

Thanks for visiting and leaving a comment even though you don't crochet.

Hugs, Julia