Finished Coles River Kerchief and Rumour Afghan

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is doing well! Things continue to be good here. I'm still enjoying retirement! There had been plans for me to do contract work for a prior employer, but we've decided to scrap that because the organization makes it difficult to hire in non-standard ways. I'm actually happy about that because I continue to be excited about working on my crafts and it doesn't distract me from taking care of Lance. So I'm actually relieved that it turned out this way! 

I made great progress this week! I finished my two main projects and started a new project this morning. My first finish was my Coles River Kerchief designed by Toni Lipsey:

Coles River Kerchief

I even blocked this project, which is something I good at procrastinating at! I like the long, thin shape of this shawl since that allows me to wear it more like a scarf. This was my first crochet project with thinner (fingering weight) yarn and it went really well. I like how soft it turned out and I like the airy look. Here's a close-up of the long lace section:

Coles River Kerchief close-up

I did change the pattern a little bit. First, I could tell I had a lot of extra yarn so I added an extra plain section before the wide lace section. I made that a couple of inches shorter than the previous section, following the progression of the pattern. I also added a couple of rows of plain crochet after the wide lace section. I felt like that would add structure to the end of the lace and also made the end look more complete. I think these were good decisions.

My other finish was my Rumour Afghan:

Rumour Afghan

I was able to use every bit of the yarn for this afghan (I ended with about a foot of yarn at the end) and got an afghan that was the perfect length for me. I used a trick that I learned from someone online to estimate how far I could go before having to bind off. When I got near the end of the yarn, I tied a knot at the middle of the remaining yarn. I then knit the next row. Based on where the knot was after knitting that row, I could estimate how many more rows I could knit. In this case, I was lucky because I ended up only having enough yarn to knit the final row and then bind off when I did the knot test, so it saved me from knitting too far!

Since I finished my current crochet project, I needed to start a new one. I have a lot of knitting WIPs (works in progress) so, for knitting, I have to decide if I will continue with one of those or start something new. For the crochet project, I decided to start a Maui Market Bag designed by Susan E. Kennedy. This is a lot like the market bag I made earlier, but it has a circular bottom rather than a rectangular bottom and I'm wanting to try different patterns to see what appeals to me. So far, I've just started on the bottom:

Maui Market Bag

This is a really nice pattern. It has a lot of detail and includes photo-tutorials. Really nice for a free pattern! I'll have to look into some of the designer's pay patterns after this to pay her back!

That's all for this week!

Nancy