Squares, squares, everywhere

In May I started my job at the daycare. I don't drive, so it was a bus ride to and from work every day. Somtime in late may or early June I started a bus project. Granny squares.

The basic granny square is so simple and easy, yet there is so much you can do with it! Variations on the colors you are using, plus sooo many variations on how you can make it. (Some of them much less simple.) And they can also be put together to make anything from afghans and scarves to bags and hats and sweaters. I am making an afghan.

I love the book "200 Crochet Blocks" by Jan Eaton - it has some really neat varieties of squares, in all levels of difficulty.

But, anyway... These squares that I am making are all the basic granny square design, using a variety of colors.



I chose granny squares mostly for their portability. You only need to bring one ball of yarn and your crochet hook and you're ready to go... No lugging around the entire afghan. It's a project that can fit right in your purse and go anywhere with you. Ideal for something you're carrying on the bus every day.
At night I empty the completed squares into a bag in my apartment, switch out the balls of yarn in my bag, and I'm ready to go for the next day.



I'm up to about 160 squares, which is probably about a third of the total I plan to make for this blanket. (I want a big snuggly blanket!!) And I've lost my crochet hook. It is an "I" hook, which is not one I usually use, and... I only had one of them. So until I get a chance to go buy a new one I am unable to keep making squares. At this rate the blanket won't be ready until next summer!

Voodoo Challenge

Long ago I joined a site called Ravelry. If this were a real blog with other knitters as readers I wouldn't have to explain what Ravelry is, buuut...
Ravelry is basically an online community for knitters and crocheters. You get to make a profile, and you can post any knitting or crocheting projects you are working on or have finished or think that maybe someday in twenty years you might possibly get started on. You can post all kinds of photos of your projects. You can keep track of your yarn stash, and what sizes of knitting needles and crochet hooks you own. Etc., etc. You can look at other peoples profiles and send them messages and comment on their projects and mark there projects as something you might make some day.
And there are groups. There are any kind of knitting and crocheting groups you can imagine, and if you can't find a group for something, you can make it.
I am in a group called Silly String and one of the things the creator of this group does is to post crocheting challenges. This basically involves her posting some theme or idea or item or whatever, and anyone who wants can join in and use this theme to inspire their own creativity. The current one, and the first that I've joined, is a swap-challenge which means that on top of the original theme you are assigned a partner. Your partner tells you some element or color or other trait that further defines the challenge for you, and you then use this to create the object. At the end, you send this customized creation to your partner.

So, the challenge that I have just joined is a Halloween challenge (we are supposed to aim to get the finished item to our partner by Halloween.)
Voodoo dolls. That is the basic challenge, and then we were asked to each describe an element that we would like included in our voodoo doll to personalize it.

The person I am partnered with requested that I include a pencil - either within the doll, or somehow incorporated into the outside of the doll, in order to help her unblock her creativity for drawing. :)
I am very excited about this challenge and I think it is going to be a lot of fun.

I have been browsing photos of traditional voodoo dolls, and they all seem so rough and coarse and just... make-shift. Made of a lot of found objects, and not very realistic.... I think I am going to crochet the main body of the doll with some kind of twine or hemp string or something. This would maintain the roughness of the idea... A voodoo doll ought not be cute and cuddly. Especially not a Halloween voodoo doll! The rough twine would certainly banish any opportunity of it accidentally becoming cuddly. The face will take some fiddling, I think. I will most likely use buttons of some sort for eyes.
I'm all about the buttons.

Hello!

Welcome to my new blog!! I am new to blogging, and slightly intimidated by it, but I think this will be a good opportunity for me to challenge myself and keep myself on track with my artwork and creativity. I have a tendency to get distracted.

It is late, and this is basically just a hello post and an opportunity for me to see how things will look on the blog and make it easier to fiddle with looks, so I won't actually go into any real blogging with this post, but.... hi!