Excerpts From My Personal Crochet History

Thought I would share a few pictures of crochet projects that didn't quite meet my expectations. I don't really have a sense of color and what works together which is kind of a hinderance to a crafter unless one wants to follow a pattern to the letter which for a cross stitcher like myself is usually my first choice but other crafts lend themselves to personalization and creativity beyond what the original designer intended. Below you see my failed attempt at creating a Trip Around the World afghan based on my love of Amish style quilts. I decided somewhere along the line that a Trip Around the World quilt might be a little bit of a pain in the butt to make since my quilting skills were lacking and in my defense this was the late 80s or early 90s and solid 100% cotton fabrics weren't so easy to come by and if I did find them they definitely weren't cheap, so I bought me some Red Heart yarn, a Leisure Arts Afghan leaflet and proceeded to make a faux Trip Around the World quilt, sorta. We refer to this afghan, which yes, does lay over the back of the couch in the living room as the Big Ugly or the Hideous Ugly. It is a constant reminder that I am a bit clueless about afghans, color, and faking a quilt.

A few years ago on the Crochetville BB there was a 63 Squares afghan crochet-a-long. Once again my lack of knowledge in the area of color shows it's ugly face. I love bright, tropical colors. I live in Florida so these colors are appropriate. But somehow my bright, cheerful afghan just had this horrendously not going to work on any level feel to it. I saved these squares, I have a lot of this bright yarn and who knows maybe one day I'll get back to it and make my Tropical 63 Squares afghan but baby, we'll be "wearing our sunglasses at night" for sure.

Here is a little garland I crocheted to put on my little tiny cross stitch ornament tree. I envisioned delicate snowflakes and a ribbony flowing kind of drape. Since I used Peaches & Creme kitchen cotton, I ended up with bulky, chunky, the complete opposite of delicate, snowflakes.

Also on the Crochetville BB, there was a Grandmother's Flower Garden afghan crochetalong. I pulled out my Rubbermaid bucket of Red Heart and got to work making crocheted hexes which would then be the flowers in my afghan. I could never find a center color that worked, this yellow is way too bright. I took the picture on a cloudy day or believe me that yellow would be blinding you, trust me. I also couldn't decide on a garden path color to run between the flowers, frosty green, dark green or a white to appear as though a stone path were wandering through the flowers. I don't feel comfortable choosing my own colors because my instincts are almost always wrong. And if you didn't believe me, look real close at these pictures and you will see, one absolutely clueless crocheter when she goes off the pattern.

Crimes against crochet, the evidence is here.....