Friday, April 17, 2015

Flash from the Past - A Spring CAL

Hello everybody, long time no see!
Good-ness! I have missed you all dearly.
Between going back to work full-time and trying to fit in some traveling,
this poor blog and my lovely blog friends have been neglected.

My work week has been recently reduced to 30 hours,
so now I can pay some attention to that which I love that's been pushed aside.

In light of this reduced work load,
I thought it would be fun to celebrate this new freedom with a CAL,
which is really an old CAL with a little twist.

You are all invited to Crochet-A-Long!

This crochet-a-long will be in five steps over five weeks.
The first week's post will be posted Friday, May 1, 2015.

Here's a glimpse of what's to come:

5 steps over five weeks will be as follows:

Gathering tools and supplies
Week 2 - Granny Rose
Week 3 - Leaf Row
Week 4 - Granny Row
Week 5 - Joining and Edging

You will need the pattern and it can purchased here.

The posts will include photos of each finished step and additional tidbits.

The pattern was originally for pillow, but the CAL will be for an afghan.
In any size you choose!
(Of course, you could still make a pillow if you would like.)
Mine will likely be a size that would suit a baby girl.

The first post will be to gather supplies, but if you want to use the same yarn that I am using,
 then the photo below indicates the yarn color names. 
I use Stylecraft Special DK and it is shipped from Deramores in the UK. 
In Utah, it takes approximately 2 weeks for the package to arrive upon ordering.
And today the yarn is on sale for $2.60 for a 100 g skein!!!
(Shipping is free for orders over $50)

the pattern in my Etsy shop is written for worsted weight yarn,
 but this blanket is made with DK (sport weight).
Please make your first granny square and adjust the amount of yarn needed for DK.
You can also unravel your first square and measure how much yarn is needed for each square,
in order to calculate total yarn needed for the specific size of blanket you would like to make.

That's just a little tidbit if you like to plan ahead, but, of course, you can use any yarn for this project.
This could even be a great stash-buster!
(Oh and my favorite part of a CAL is to post the photos of your projects. 
You are invited to send me links or photos to astri.bowlin@gmail.com and I will post them.)

I hope to connect with you on May 1st!