The Lunatic Fringe

Started back in November, and all but abandoned for the last several months, the Squared Away Throw is now complete. I powered through the final third this past week and spent a big part of yesterday cutting and knotting fringe.

I just completely lost interest in this at some point, and set it aside with hopes that it would call to me again. It never did. Earlier this week, the blanket and I had an "it's not you, it's me" conversation and decided to end things amicably. Without going into the sordid details, I can report that we will be living apart and that we wish each other the best.

Part of our tension stemmed from, well, tension. I could never get it right, with the result that this throw is 50" x 32" rather than the pattern's "60 x 39". Not such a big thing for something that doesn't have to fit a body part, but still quite annoying and yet another reminder of the importance of mindful swatching for achieving the proper gauge.

I'm also not convinced I got the start-of-row triangles correct. They're sloped and wonky-looking. I noticed that this edge doesn't appear in any of the pattern photos (including mine!) -- so maybe it's intentional. Or, more likely, it just can't be helped because of the way the increases and decreases work when fitting triangles and squares together.

This project combined two things I'm not all that familiar with: crochet and entrelac construction. Trying to figure out where stitches went (or, indeed, what constituted a "stitch") was tricky at first. And learning to think on the bias was weird, too. Oh, and a third thing: Tunisian stitch. Crocheters always tell me how much faster crocheting is than knitting. But my nights in Tunisia showed me that this technique is like crocheting in slow motion.

My friend Staci has an excellent tutorial on the basics of Tunisian crochet if you want to learn more. I referred to it more than once.

 

Don't get me wrong -- this is a really cool technique and I'm glad I've added it to my bag of tricks, but I don't know that I'll be doing it again anytime soon. I think this turned out well enough, and I'm glad it's done. Time to move on to other things, which, when the yarn arrives, will be this.