Works in Progress

Hat Donation!

Another 25 or so little baby hats got sent off to the UIC Hospital! Photos taken in my laundry room to protect cat-dander-free integrity.

Smaller Afghan

I had some leftover pink and purple from other projects, not enough to just toss aside, and all of the same weight. Made alternating stripes with the two yarns, and bordered the whole thing with some fancier yarn that I had a fair amount of (I think I bought it thinking I would make something big, I used to have several skeins, but it ended up just supporting other projects). This picture makes the blanket look big, it's actually only about 4 ft x 2.5 ft (roughly).

Large Afghan

Another large afghan, primarily in purple, with stripes of various colors (mostly other yarns that I had just a little bit left of).

T-Shirt Scrap Rug

When I finished making the t-shirt quilt a couple months ago, I put all of the shirts in a garbage bag, with the intention of taking them out to the dumpster. And then my conscious kicked in, and I just couldn't bear to throw away an entire, full garbage bag of fabric that I KNEW I could do something with. So, I sucked it up and ripped the bag open again, and commenced making this rug from the scraps.

My grandma taught me how to make scrap/fabric rugs when I was very young (my first rug is still in my present bedroom, still in use, just a little one next to my bed), before I had learned how to crochet. She started the project, handed me a crochet hook, and taught me the basic single crochet stitch. Which, after finishing that rug, I promptly forgot, not to make the connection between yarn crocheting and rug making again until I was about 19.

First you tear or cut all the fabric into strips, with slit-holes on either end, which you use to loop the strips into one long strand. Then, you commence with the crocheting (using the largest hook you can find at your craft store), being super careful to add enough slip stitches on the ends, and to keep your stitches loose enough that the rug can expand without folding up on itself. Since I had so many shirts, I started with the black ones in the center, then moved on to the navy ones, the coloreds, and the white/greys. The blacks and navies tend to blend together, if I had to redo it, I would probably separate them.

Donation 2- May 31, 2013

I didn't count how many blankets were in this one- several! Ran them through the wash with a load (30?) of little baby hats (not pictured), which also got donated. Blankets got distributed through Project Linus (drop off point- Vogue Fabrics in Evanston), hats went to the UIC Hospital (via a coworker).

Yellow Baby Afghan

Another little baby blankie, made of yellow and yellow-toned squares. Most of the yarn was given to me by my grandma, who works with a couple of knitting charities in Wisconsin (they agreed that she could give me some of their free yarns as long as I was donating and not selling- "what difference does it make if it goes to a baby in Illinois instead of a baby in Wisconsin?"). However, it's free yarn, so there's no guarantee there will be a lot of the same color. I looked at what I had sitting around, and put together all the yellows I had, and then added 2 more small skeins fresh from JoAnn's, to round it all out. I used one of the skeins I bought to connect all the squares, and then the other to border the whole thing (but only had enough left to go around once).