I finished these socks recently:
The pattern is from Cookie A.'s Sock Innovations. They were dead easy to knit, and I like how the ribbing, diagonal lace panel, and plain stocking stitches work together to warp the self-striping when the socks are worn. Which is just as well, because I've tried no fewer than five different patterns on this yarn and hated the knitting, or the results, or both, for all of them except for this last (sixth) attempt. This yarn was The Yarn That Didn't Want to Be Anything for over five years. It probably doesn't help that the stripe colours and the background colour remind me of sweat socks from the mid-70s.
If the socks were over-thinking materials with pattern, this bath mat had me over-thinking the execution:
The pattern is the Doris Daymat from The Happy Hooker book. I've been wanting to make this as a bath mat for years, but could never wrap my head around estimating the yarn quantities for a finer gauge and a different mat size. I finally had a "duh" moment, found a baby blanket estimate in Ann Budd's handy crochet brochure, and everything worked out swimmingly. (Okay, except for the edge distortion you can see in the photo, but I'm trying to pitch that to myself as "whimsy" because I can't bear the thought of taking it out and doing it over with fewer stitches on the short edges.) I already have another one on the go. Incidentally, the flowers can be detached and reattached easily for those times when less funky decor is required.
Lesson learned: don't make things so complicated that execution paralysis sets in. When in doubt, try it out.
The pattern is from Cookie A.'s Sock Innovations. They were dead easy to knit, and I like how the ribbing, diagonal lace panel, and plain stocking stitches work together to warp the self-striping when the socks are worn. Which is just as well, because I've tried no fewer than five different patterns on this yarn and hated the knitting, or the results, or both, for all of them except for this last (sixth) attempt. This yarn was The Yarn That Didn't Want to Be Anything for over five years. It probably doesn't help that the stripe colours and the background colour remind me of sweat socks from the mid-70s.
If the socks were over-thinking materials with pattern, this bath mat had me over-thinking the execution:
The pattern is the Doris Daymat from The Happy Hooker book. I've been wanting to make this as a bath mat for years, but could never wrap my head around estimating the yarn quantities for a finer gauge and a different mat size. I finally had a "duh" moment, found a baby blanket estimate in Ann Budd's handy crochet brochure, and everything worked out swimmingly. (Okay, except for the edge distortion you can see in the photo, but I'm trying to pitch that to myself as "whimsy" because I can't bear the thought of taking it out and doing it over with fewer stitches on the short edges.) I already have another one on the go. Incidentally, the flowers can be detached and reattached easily for those times when less funky decor is required.
Lesson learned: don't make things so complicated that execution paralysis sets in. When in doubt, try it out.