Spinning and Crochet

Our guild is making an afghan to raffle off as a fundraiser for the group. I was able to see some wonderful knitted examples at the last guild meeting and thoiught I'd jump in and help. The only requirements are that the yarn is handspun (wheel or drop spindle) and that it is kept in it's natural color. No limits were set as to species of animal for the wool/or hair and we could knit, weave or crochete the squares any way we wanted. The finished size needed to be 8". I am excited to participate as this is the first group project I am able to be part of as a member. It is also the first useable items made out of my own handspun. I find it totally ironic that it's made using natural colored and no dyeing since I'm all over the dying stuff! lol So here are my 4 "granny squares" done in brown and off white.

It felt so good to crochet again that I may just have to pull out the Irish chain afghan and straighten out that mess and start working on it again. I forgot how relaxing and quick and forgiving crochet can be! There is a huge mistake in one of the squares...but I won't point it out and we'll just see if anyone notices! lol

I'm inserting a couple of pictures of that brown yarn here as there is a bit of a story on it. First...brown is not my favorite color. Well....it wasn't....but I'm liking it a lot right now. lol. I finished the singles for this skein last Monday when the power was out and decided to just start plying it. I had a large block of time on my hands with no distractions and I decided to start the treadle count method of plying. I've heard that there are people who count the treadles and get a rhythm going that way and sucessfully ply yarn that balances. I'm usually watching TV or a movie when I'm spinning so I'm way to distracted to count. I may make a change in the future though. This brown was as close to sock yarn weight as I've gotten so far. It is also the first yarn that was BALANCED....without any blocking. Yep. A miracle. I was so shocked when I pulled it off the skein winder and it did not curl back on itself! It's also so very solf and I really hated useing it for the afghan, but I did console myself with the thought that the rest of the fleece this came from is somewhere in the shed...cleaned and vacume packed....just waiting for me to find it again. lol

Oy! Yellow and Green are going to be very mad at me!*


*If this confuses you...see this post! It explains it all. lol