The Difference Between "Can" and "Should"

Hello. My name is Jill and I might maybe have a slight occasional problem with attention. Okay, so here's what happened. I got myself all settled in and ready to crochet. I have this thought that I'm going to make a smallish afghan for someone, though I highly doubt I'd be brave enough to give it to them. It's weird and I'll expand next week when all is said and done. Anyway, I knew that was going to be What I Accomplished today, so I didn't have to do my usual wishy-washy thinking.

I grabbed my Kindle, propped it on a Kleenex box (so it was closer to eye level and not neck-wrenching level, see), and worked a bit on a basic granny square. Four rounds in, I pulled it all out. No, I want a rectangle. I know how to do that, no biggie. Except, naturally, you know where this is going, I screwed it up. Yeah, at the very beginning, I added an extra dc. Pulled that out, too. Then I remembered seeing a different kind of start to a granny rectangle and looked it up. ((Do visit her site. Her work is lovely and her tutorials are very well explained.)) Because my work computer system has all sorts of blocks, I couldn't access the site because it's "Personal and/or Blogging." Ha! I can do an image search, though! So, I did and miracle of miracles, there was a graph! Mwahahaha, I win.

Sort of. See, I first did it with my usual "work in the back ridge" method and it came out looking gapey and weird. I was about ready to toss it all aside and just read, but I tried one more time with the traditional method and it worked much better. Once I got the hang of the pattern, it was mostly smooth sailing. Only once did I have to pull an entire row (2dc only - what was I thinking!!) but it was early on and fairly painless. I read and read and crocheted and crocheted. Some people will tell you that humans can only do one thing fully at a time. That might be well and true, but I find this human will zone out and literally go cross eyed if she does 3dc sets unendingly. I have to read. I have to do something that keeps my eyes busy.

These colors are much closer to true-to-life. Just zipping along.

Same room. Same camera. Same lighting. Different colors. How does that even happen?

 

 

I wasn't really thinking about it. I was just crocheting, you know? Life was good. Things were fairly mellow. Then... I stopped crocheting. Let's put it this way. Have you ever eaten salsa that had really good flavor but was a touch too spicy for you? It's really good and yummy and you love it, but the only way to really be able to eat it is to keep eating it? Yeah. Once you stop, that's when the pain hits. I sat my hook down to eat a late dinner and my fingers shook when I picked up my chicken. Oh my ow. I immediately remembered another reason why I like small projects - they don't last long enough for my hands to get angry. Yeesh. Just because I can crochet a promising beginning to an afghan by working nearly six hours straight doesn't mean that I should. Oh, the achiness...

 

Then, as I was leaving, I carelessly tossed my bag to the ground. That would've been fine if my Arizona tea hadn't been in the bag. I heard that telltale PSSSSSHHHHH when the can met the tile. Lovely! I was lucky in that none of the colors I'm actively using got drenched. Of course, the yarn at the bottom of the bag was soaked and of course it's white. Plus, now I don't have tea.

 

As for the pattern itself, I'm not sure I'm sold on it. It's lovely and easy to accomplish, but I will definitely do the very beginning in a contrasting color next time. As it is, it comes across to me as being uneven. While I don't like the thin, taut line with traditional rectangles, I also don't like having ten lines going one way and eight going the other. It's just the way it has to be for the middle to be a full row rather than a chained line, but it squeezes my "things need to be equal" brain. Again, that's my own personal hangup and nothing at all incorrect or wrong about the pattern itself. Clearly, I liked it well enough to continue on with it. In fact, the only reason I quit for the night was because I ran out of the variegated.

 

I'm so very wordy tonight. I haven't really been as active on the crochet front only because I've been distracted by Black Friday. I'm a coupon and sales gal as well, so I've been trying to get my ducks in a row on that fiasco, too. Did you see that Red Heart yarn is part of Walmart's sale? I can stock up on black and white and ZEBRA HATS FOR ALL THE CHILDREN as soon as I find and/or create a pattern. I'm going to go rest my fingers now.

 

Thanks for the visit! I hope your day has an enjoyable surprise.