FO: Hodgepodge

Mostly in the course of a couple afternoons this weekend, I was able to finish my lap blanket for work. Diggin’ the speed of crochet! I’m calling it Hodgepodge because that’s the word that jumped into my head when it was done, looking at all the yarns and colors together, a hodgepodge.

And I love it! It’s homey, and drapey, and warm.

I look at the yarns, and remember where I got some of them, the projects I used them for. There are different fibers and textures, and it’s nice to run the hand over the stitches, feeling the rustic-ness of the wools and the silkiness of the mohairs.

I started with a color palette of grays/charcoals, greens, and purples. But other than that, as you can see, I made stripes of varying width, switched colors mid-stripe so I could use up the yarn, and generally just got on with things. I picked each color with some thought, moving from stripe to stripe, but usually settled on the first possible contender and threw it on the hook.

And it was so quick! Maybe 15ish hours, and a few of that were spent detangling yarn barf, which (up to a point) I find oddly soothing.

Some details…I used a 11.5 mm hook, started with ch 40, dc throughout, except the border with is a row of sc then a row of dc. I ended up using about 600g of stash yarn (yarn deets here). I’m still smiling about that. In the end, it’s about 33″ by 43″. I wet blocked it, but I don’t think it was necessary. I thought the wools would bloom some. But overall, the stitches look more or less the same and, in fact, some of the yarns look a bit flattened and stretched out. I prefer the way it looked before the wet block, more plump. I think a steam block would have been better.

Topaz looooooves the Hodgepodge. Love. The night before I took pictures he laid on it on the couch next to me for hours. And then when I laid it out yesterday to take pictures…

Who me? I’m not trying to lay on the blanket.

Mine. All mine.

Don’t mess with me homegirl.

He commandeered it for a couple hours at least. I didn’t have the heart to move him. Needless to say, I shall have to make him his own Hodgepodge. I can also see making these as gifts, with a more sophisticated / restrained color palette and stripe pattern.

Topaz stayed right where he was all through dinner, which I am also still smiling about as after 2 days of gray skies and intermittent rain, it was a gorgeous day. We grilled and ate outside, enjoying the newly reno’d back patio:

It was blissful! Even the cooking – I culled rosemary and oregano from the backyard for the potatoes, and we ate the first 2 strawberries from the strawberry pot. They were so sweet, I couldn’t believe it! I don’t want this weekend to end.