Crochet Underway

Spending some quiet days at the in-laws' over this long holiday weekend has granted me time I needed to get familiar with this new Tunisian crochet thing. I do think I'm getting the hang of it -- mostly. I'm at the point where I'm alternating between two types of rows, so it's basically an endurance exercise at this point. I hope my thumb holds out.

There are some quirks I've picked up about this entrelac pattern. The bind-off row for each square works better when I go up a hook size. You can see these rows folded over a bit on the upper right of the pale green (Silver Sage) squares in the photograph. Before I started going up a size, I could barely get the hook through the stitches to start new squares. That problem seems solved.

I also can't for the life of me figure out why the triangles in the first row are all based on 10-row motifs, while the rest is all based on 11 rows. Is this why I was having such bad tension issues earlier? This strange mismatch had me doubling up on stitches that we're picked up in some sections. Everything is 11-to-11 now, but I wonder what will happen at the far edge? I suppose I could read ahead and find out, but I think I'd rather just enjoy the mystery of anticipation at this point. In the meantime, I soldier on.

The picture of the American Beautyberries is here merely because they're gorgeous. My father-in-laws' are always so beautiful -- ours are rather anemic and rangy by comparison. I read in a book that we recently acquired at my library about edible garden plants that, while not particularly flavorful, Beautyberries are edible. I thought they might make a nice jam or jelly, and the book says you can, but the color disappears. Pity.

Hope all enjoyed a lovely Thanksgiving weekend. I sure did.