8 Tips for Completing A Large Crochet Project

We’ve all been there. You find the perfect project, you buy all the yarn, and you start to make it. You’re excited, ready to go, optimistic, idealistic, ready to plow through this project.   It's going to be great. 

And it is great, for a time, then it starts to suck. From there your disenchantment grows until finally you would rather do the dishes than ever look at that project again. 

Finally you pack it away, vowing to return to it, knowing you probably won't. Even now, years later, you occasionally think about it and a pang of guilt runs through your chest.

I just can't complete a long term project you finally admit to yourself as you start on you 20th dishtowel. "At least I can finish you," you whisper sadly into the cotton yarn.

WAIT! Don't lose heart, it happens to the best of us, and there are some techniques that can help you maintain interest in a long project.

1. Slow and Steady - Just decide that the project is going to take a while and work it one row day or 10 minutes a day. There are two great things about this method. First, you will usually end up doing a bit more than the one row or the 10 minutes, and therefore you progress more quickly than you anticipated. YAY! Second, even if you only do the bare minimum, you will still make steady progress and all progress, even slow progress, is good.  

I've been working this chevron afghan for my niece one row at a time.

2. Pick a large project that is made up of smaller projects and then just focus on completing the small individual projects. Before you know it, the smaller components will accumulate and you will be well on your way to having a completed large project.

These african flower squares are fun to make.

Mile a Minute Strips don't take very long to make and are fun too.

When in doubt, you can always rely on the good ole granny square.

3. Use a variety of colors.

A work in progress is a living, growing entity; changing with each stitch that is worked into it. When you are working with color, this process much more apparent. Each new color changes the entire look, feel, and personality for the work.

4. Keep Your Eyes on the Prize

Print out a picture of the finished project and look at it each and everyday.

5.  Do projects that start quickly like a corner to corner afghan. This early progress is very encouraging.

6.  If you work well under pressure and it is a gift - tell the person about it.

7. Use a stitch that keeps you interested! This is definitely an individual choice but I find the bavarian stitch captivating.

8. Post a picture of your work on a facebook crochet group page and get encouragement to continue.  

With all these said, maybe you find your joy and inspiration right now in creating small, beautiful projects. Go with it.

Now go on and make something, anything!

Day 38: Bunting for Lou and Trixie

The happy bunting I made for thee girls is finally complete.

I made the triangles using this great tutorial from Attic 24. Mine are five rounds, because the of the number of colors I was using, instead of the seven Lucy uses. 

Now you must block these suckers because they come out all wonky and lumpy at first and you need to straighten them out.  Here's a picture of a poor misshapen one before a good ole fashioned blocking. 

I attached them using a chain and a single crochet. 

I chained 42. The number was chosen because it is how old I will be on my birthday next week. Think about where you are going to hang it and use whatever amount seems appropriate. 

Then I put a single crochet into a corner chain of the triangle and in each stitch along one edge. 

When I reached the end of the triangle I chained 4, another arbitrary choice, that is just the number of kids I've had. If I had to so it all over again I would probably do 2 chains between the triangles. 

Once I reached the endI felt like the single chain seemed a bit flimsy so I turned and did another row of single crochet in each sc across.

Then in theory I would have hung them up if I was taller or had a taller step stool so instead I hung them along my bed but Trixie did not like that one bit. 

No, not one bit . . . 

So I put them away to await Andrew's arrival and worked on today's granny. 

Day 23: Think of the Goslings

I'm always caught in a terrible conundrum where I hate self-help books, but I really probably need a self-help book, or two.

I hate those books and their trite advice, but I am always a mess and sad and I need someone to tell me what to do so that I can be better and normal and happy.

Then  The Private World of Tasha Tudor came to me in the mail one day. It turns out I had ordered it by accident.  There was not  a lot of Tasha Tudor in Coney Island I guess, because I had never heard of her.

She was amazing.  She believed that she had lived in the 1830s and that she would return there after death. When she was a child she made her own  clothing, without a pattern, and it turned out that the clothes she was creating were from that period!

I feel like she might be teaching me something about living intentionally, which sound self-helpish, but makes sense to me.

One quote of her's has become a bit of a mantra for me:

"When I'm working in the barn or house I often think of all the errors I've made in my life. But then I quickly put that behind me and think of waterlilies. They will always eradicate unpleasant thoughts. Or goslings are equally comforting in their own way."

What about the goslings? Think of the goslings. I say to myself when I find myself leaning into a dark place.  Oddly enough it has been helping.

Here's today's granny:

Day 16: The C2C Craze

We woke up to snow! OK. . . a small dusting. But it was still exciting to watch Trixie stick her finger in it an get a delighted / confused / slightly scare look on her face.

This looks a bit like snow to me.

I don't know if you can see it in the picture but has a sheen to it, like it is covered in crystal powder.  Just like snow.

I've been crocheting for 30 years but I'm relatively new to the online crochet community.  I just joined a few facebook groups and one thing is for sure -  EVERYONE is making corner to corner afghans.

Of course I had to look into this incredibly popular crochet phenomenon.

It is a technique which uses the Crazy Shell Stitch and, as the name suggests, is worked corner to corner on the diagonal.  Here is one that I started last week with left over sock yarn.

While it is not a new technique, the corner to corner afghan has experienced a marked resurgence in the last few years.

Why is this pattern so popular?

It's easy!  Once you get the technique down you only need to know how to do a chain (ch), a slip stitch (ss), a double crochet (dc).

It's fast. Since you are starting at the corner it starts growing really fast.  The quick early progress is really satisfying in a way that other afghans are not.  Although, I must confess, as I approach the middle my work it has slowed down significantly and so has my enthusiasm.  But it will speed up again with the reduction in stitches, so there is that to look forward to. 

It is also easy to customize using various colors. I've started a Pinterest Board to show some examples.

(Excuse the dog hair in the picture. Now that is all I can see, but I am too tired to try to take the picture again. Oh no. I just saw another one. I'm going to stop looking at this picture now.)

What are you waiting for? MAKE ONE!

Red Heart provides the most popular tutorials for the corner to corner afghan.  You can find a link to the written pattern here and the video tutorial here. However, word on the street is that you should use the tutorial done by Mikey from Crochet Corner if you are a beginner. You can find it here.

This is a project that is definitely worth a try.

Day 15: Good Day

This blog is starting to feel like a diary. Oh well.

Dear Granny Square,

I don't even know what  to write about today.

Today feels like a heavy day.

It is Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday.

It is my very sweet husband Andrew's birthday.

It is the birthday of my dear, dear, friend, Ron Gonzalez, who died in a plane crash.

It is also the anniversary of the day our friends and family surrounded us with love as we buried Jacinta.

I'm glad you all were born, even if we had to say good bye

Not you, Andrew. I'm never saying good bye to you. Don't get any ideas.

It is a good day.

Day 13: Premenstrual Granny

Here is my PMS Granny, enough said. 

In other news: Each granny is getting a tag and a number so that I can keep track of each one.  The plan is to eventually pin them to a huge piece of burlap and hang it on a wall so that I can see a full year of domestic drudgery rendered in granny squares. I think it will be beautiful if I have the stamina to complete it. 

Anyway, I got these really cool, old-timey looking stamps from Amazon.

Then I made some tags. 

After I did them I realized that the tags are facing the wrong way when they are just hanging naturally so I'll have to redo them eventually. Oh well. 

Day 11: Tornado Warning

I almost died in a tornado today, At least I feel like I almost died in a tornado today. You see, when your dear friend is the 1 in 45 million to die in a commercial plane crash and your child is the 1 in 7,000 to be diagnosed with a chromosomal abnormality called Trisomy 18; disaster begins to feel like it is hovering against your back, and your back is always hunched over for maximum invisibility and it still hurts because grief is physically painful.

When our cell phones starting buzzing today with a tornado warning because a funnel cloud was spotted a few miles away, I was sure I was going to die. I completely freaked out, but only on the inside. On the outside I snapped at the kids to get into the hallway, I dragged mattresses there to cover ourselves with, I quizzed Lou about tornado safety as I goggled that very topic to refresh my own memory. I told them not to worry, I told them that everything will be OK.

On the inside I prayed to a god I'm not sure that I believe in anymore. I worried about my legacy.  I suffocated on the fact that I have done so very little.  I wondered if it would be quick. I imagined myself hunched over the kids, "hold on," I told myself. I hoped that the people who love me would make granny squares out of sock yarn so that my kids would still get one afghan each at the end of the year. I have promised them that.

 Finally, looking at Trixie who is laying on her back mumbling to herself, I snapped back into the present.

What do you want your last moments to be like, I asked myself, what should you leave them with.  I tried to think of some quote to share with them but all I could think of was, "life is a sexy little dance, and I like to take the lead" from  the opening credits of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.  I wanted to share Anais Nin's  assertion that "life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage," because I want my kids to be brave. I couldn't think of the Nin quote so I went simple.

"Let's play a game while we wait."

And we played a round robin alphabet game that Hambone suggested and I looked at their faces and just felt happy to be there, with them, in that moment.

Yay! I'm still here.

Day 7: First Kiss

When asked for a kiss Trixie will do one of two things, stick out her cheek or hit you in face.  Never will she actually give you a kiss, so that is one milestone I have been waiting for.  I feel like I have been waiting for a sweet baby kiss since we lost Jacinta.  Then today, after throwing a huge fit because I objected to the sundress she had chosen to wear, she comes to me saying "issss, issss." "You want a drink?" I respond trying to guess what she is saying. She doesn't say anything  but  she trots off to the kitchen with my behind her, gets her cup and I pour the some juice.  Later when are chillin' after doing our chores she starts up again "isss, isss," she says, coming at me with her arms out. At first I dodged her because we are in the process of weaning and every time she comes near me she wants to nurse.  But she was insistent so I quickly relented and let hee near me. Instead of assuming the position and grabbing at my clothes, she cupped my face in her small, really cold hands and planted a huge kiss on my upper lip, complete with moisture and smacking sound. It was worth the wait.

Day 6: Baby It's Cold Outside

It's freakin' cold today!!!!!  But a roaring fire and beef stew helps. 

Day Three: Jacinta

Today's square is different. It is made out of thin tatting thread with a size 13 needle. I made it using the pattern Butterfly Garden by Chris Simon and it doesn't match the other 6 inch squares I plan on making every day this year.   But this one has a back story.

When I was about 12 weeks pregnant with our third child we found out she had an extra 18th chromosome.  Not good.  We were given two options, terminate or carry her.  They told us we could lose her at any time. They told us she probably wouldn't make it through labor.

 I really thought I knew what I would do.  I remember asking how quickly we could schedule the termination even before we got the results back. But when they called and told us that we were having a girl and that she had trisomy 18 my certainty dissipated. Even though I had left the Catholic church many years before Jacinta I still prayed to Mary for a sign. I begged her, mother to mother, to show me a definitive path, to tell me what to do.  Then I started seeing butterflies. In retrospect I guess seeing butterflies in spring is not that unusual, but to me, at that time, it felt like those butterflies existed only for me. I started counting them, promising myself that if I counted 18 butterflies in one sitting it would be a sign from God, the universe and everything else that I should carry Jacinta to term.

The most I ever counted were 14 but I wanted her, and I loved her, so we continued on with the pregnancy. When I saw this butterfly pattern I thought to myself, now you can get your 18 butterflies. Thank you, Chris Simon and your sweet little butterfly pattern.

Day 2: Project Drudgery

There are very few things as relentless, as mundane, and as soul diminishing, as housework. OK, maybe I'm being overly dramatic, but seriously, my kids want to eat every single day, several times! The clothes just keeps getting dirty, over and over again. Dirty dishes, toys, dust, and dog hair are constantly reproducing.  Oh, the drudgery! It never fucking ends. You are never, ever done. But I secretly love it too. A bed full of neatly folded clothing calms my nerves and I find great comfort in an organized pantry.  I've finally had to come to terms with the fact that I have a love/hate relationship to domesticity.

This projects is a mediation on the drudgery and the joy that is domestic labor. In 2014 I will make a granny square every day. No matter what. And in the end I will, at the very least, have 365 granny squares. I'm really excited to have a visual representation of daily work, because unlike dishes or laundry, I will be able to accumulate the material outcome of my work. A huge wall of granny squares!!!! I can't wait.

Here is day 2's square. It's made out of sock yarn which is my favorite yarn to work with. It's so thin and soft and comes in great colors. I'd recommend it for many different projects, not just socks. 

Day 1

It is New Year's Day so naturally I'm hung over and sick. But I still managed to make a granny square and my resolution remains intact. Here she is, my first granny of 2014.

I wanted to start the year off with a bright, happy square because I'm hoping for a bright, happy year.

Only 364 days to go .  .  .  .