Test Swatching

With my leftover Just Yarn from my bargain yarn experiment I decided to swatch the three free patterns I printed out for next year's calendar project.

The first was the Twilight Shells pattern, which I really thought was pretty and a strong contender -- until I realized I had to crochet nine double treble stitches to make each shell. Double trebles are what I've nicknamed double trouble, as you start by yarning over three times and then hooking through four sets of two loops. Not only is the stitch attention intensive -- you can't blink or you'll drop a loop -- but because it's so tall it's a monster to keep the proper tension. After the foundation row the whole project is nothing but double treble.

I'm not a masochist, so I'll pass on this one.

The next pattern I swatched was the Easy Peasy blanket with the straight rows of granny stitches. It does live up to its name -- you just make granny stitches on top of granny stitches -- but I felt like the pattern needed some corrections to eliminate the bunchiness. Also, as I guessed, it was boring, so I also passed on this one.

That left me with the ripple blanket, which I thought really would be the one. Only nope. After the foundation row the pattern calls for working single crochet stitches (tedious) in the back loops only (ala that dreadful shrug pattern I abandoned.) I had trouble with the instructions, too, which resulted in a messed up second row.

If I can't even swatch a pattern without difficulty I think it's better to throw in the towel.

While I was putting away the patterns and samples in my swatch notebook I thought about that scarf I just made from a skein label pattern. It used alternating V-stitch and double crochet clusters, which made it easy and kind of mindless while keeping it interesting. I liked the results, too, although I made it with variegated yarn, which I'm not planning to use for the calendar project. I went ahead and did the math to figure out how to adapt it to a king size bed cover, which it does work for, so I decided to swatch it in my leftover gray yarn.

The result was nice. I liked crocheting it, and after the foundation row it becomes mindless as before, and as with the scarf the variation of stitches kept my interest and attention. The only problem I have with using this pattern for next year's calendar project is the stitch definition, which is a little muddled in the solid color yarn (for some reason it didn't matter to me when I used it with the variegated yarn.) I might make a sample piece in multicolor yarns to see how it would turn out with more solids and color changes between rows before I finally settle on this one.