2011 BAMCAL - January

I joined a crochet-along on Ravelry!  I've never done an anything-along so I thought I'd give it a try.  I joined the 2001 Block a Month CAL figuring a block a month I can do pretty easily and hopefully not get bored or overwhelmed.  Since I joined in late March I am already behind.  Each month there is a 12" block, a 6" block and a 12" filler block.  I've decided to do all three each month and ultimately make 2 afghans.  I have 2 color schemes, one for a a child's blanket using the 6" blocks and some of the filler blocks and the other using the 12" blocks and the bulk of the fillers in a more mature color scheme.  I finished the last of the January blocks last night.

January 12": Maggie's Square

I did this square twice.  My original plan was to do all the blocks using only yarn in my stash.  That didn't work out so well.  I ended up at Jo-Ann's buying way too much stuff.  Anyway, I decided on this color scheme for my "adult" afghan.  This block includes all the colors I will use in the afghan.  I  like the way it turned out.  Maggie's Square is a fairly simple pattern but has some great texture in it thanks to the alternating rows of X stitches and SC worked in the back loops of the previous row.  I learned one new stitch - the X stitch which I think I will likely incorporate into my crocheting when I work without a pattern.  It gives the finished piece a nice little detail.

January 6": Flower Button Granny Square

I made this square twice with different weights of yarn and different size hooks and I could not get it to measure more than 4”. Using medium weight yarn as called for in the pattern and an I hook I did Rounds 1-3 as written. Then I repeated round 3 once and added a row of double crochets between rounds 4 and 5 using the same pattern as round 5 but substituting DC for SC and HDC. For the last round I did round 5 as written except that I added an extra chain in the corners (3 CH total).  I like the way it turned out, for the most part.  It's a nice, pretty, simple pattern.

Enough Love to Go Around

Oh, Lordy.  This one was a bit of a nightmare.  It is a beautiful pattern but so hard to follow.  I ended up frogging all of the green and starting over using the rewritten pattern posted by a user named Tiffany.  It still wasn't 12" so I added a row of DC, 1 row of TRC, CH1 followed by another row of DC and a row of HDC (as written).  I did the row of TRC, CH1 because I really didn't want to work on it anymore so I tried to think of a good way to increase the size of the block without actually having to do so many stitches.  I was really frustrated.  I think it turned out ok, In fact I like the way it looks even though it still isn't perfectly square.  Once I stitch it together with the other blocks I think it will be ok.  It's pretty but I don't think I would make this block again.  It was hard to figure out the pattern the way it was written but once I understood the pattern is wasn't difficult to work.  It was just so frustrating I can't imagine wanting to work it again anytime soon.  I'm a little disappointed because I really liked the look of it.