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!

Tagging Grannies

The tags on the grannies came about as a way to keep my squares neat and orderly.  In practice, however, the tags emphasize and compound the drudgery aspect of the project.

It is always my goal to tag the granny on the day it is made but this usually doesn't happen. While I have kept up with daily granny production, I have been unable to reach my goal to tag them each day and taking pictures of them. So, at the end of the month I am always franticly cutting, stamping, stringing, and tying tags.

And so a new tradition is born - the end of the month tagging and picture taking extravaganza.

I do love taking out my tag making supplies: twine, card stock, stamps, ink pad.

I recently developed a system for stamping

Then I tie a tag on a string to each granny

Day 151: Five Months Down!

Here she is. The final granny of May 2014.

Another month down 

So that is fives months down and seven to go! 

I love watching the grannies accumulate.

Stack o' grannies!

At the end of the year I plan to pin all the grannies to a sheet of burlap and admire them. I tried it with this month's grannies just to get a sense of what it might look like and realized three things. (1) I need to iron the burlap, (2) it is not going to be easy to get a good photograph of all the grannies together, (3) These grannies are going to make some ugly, mismatched afghans when they're attached.

Got some planning to do.

Day 142: Thursday's Granny

Day 19: Lazy Sunday

Today is my favorite kind of day.  I got to just putter around the house working on this and that.

Fingerless gloves (I'll post more about these when I finish)

Granny triangles 

And of course, today's granny. 

I researched spinning wheels because I really want one, but then I realized that there is no way we can afford one. 

Then I started researching spindles and fell in love. 

I watched youtube videos of people dying yarn and dreamt about what colors I would use.

I sat behind Lou and guided her hands as we made chains over and over and over again. 

And then I let go, and eventually, she got it. 

Behold - Lou's first chain. Or her first bracelet, as she calls it.

Trixie got inspired. 

Day 17: Teaching Lou: Lesson One

Lou approached me very seriously just before Christmas.

"In colonial times kids learned to knit when they were 4 years old.  I'm late because I'm six. And you know what else?"

"What?"

"You'll be very interested in this," she said in an ominous tone.

"Really? What is it?" 

"They were also allowed to drink BEER." She shouted the last word and stared at me with her gigantic brown eyes waiting for my response.

"WHAT?" I yelled dramatically, pretending to be appalled. 

"That is pretty inappropriate, " my 9 year old interrupted, looking up from his homework.

"Well, since I know you won't let me drink beer, can you at least teach me to knit or crochet,"  Lou chirped. "We know I'm ready now."

"Well, that is the least I can do." I answered. 

And there was. the moment I had been waiting for, the moment one of my kids showed an interest in learning to crochet. Finally I could pass on a skill that enables you to take a simple hook and yarn and create fabric.  It still feels like magic to me. Plus, when the shit goes down, I am certain that crochet will be on the list of valued skills. Maybe not at the top, but at least somewhere in the middle.

I got Lou a basket and filled it books , needles, and balls of the happiest,  brightest, yarn I could find and after the holidays we did our first lesson.

She didn't get it. Sitting there with the yarn and hook in her little hands, Lou tried over and over to put the yarn over the hook and and pull it through.  She just couldn't figure out tension.    

I wasn't much help. After 30 years of crocheting, it is an instinct, and I was having trouble teaching it.

"Let's take it up again tomorrow."

And as those things go a few days passed before I grabbed some purple yarn and a hook and called out to Lou, "come on, let's do this." 

When she saw what I had planned her face didn't brighten as I expected it to.  "Do we have to?" she asked sadly. 

Then she explained that she was no good at crocheting and it was too hard and she couldn't make anything and it wasn't any fun and she just wasn't good at it and she couldn't make the yarn look like owl which is what she wanted to make because she really likes owls and she wasn't there when we all got to see one on the road.

Back up, mama, I said to myself.  She thought she was going to make something her first time picking up a hook and yarn and I hadn't anticipated that.  

"Come watch me crochet and let's talk about what a craft is," I said returning the yarn and hook to her pink basket.

As we sat on my bed with my basket full of sock yarn between us, I explained to her that a craft is a skill that in acquired over time.  

"It is the time and effort that makes it valuable and precious.You can't just pick up a hook and yarn and make a scarf, you have apprentice for a bit like I did with my mother. You know what the first thing an apprentice does?" I asked 

Lou looked up, intrigued.

"They roll up yarn for a bit before they get to touch the hook.  You need to get the feel of yarn in your hands."

So, our first crochet lesson was really not about crochet at all.  

And Lou watched me finish a granny and she learned to roll yarn and I finally got someone else to roll up my yarn for me.  

I just love watching little hands at work.

And by the way, here is today's square - I almost forgot all about her.