Sunday, August 28, 2011

Back to the squares.

Ashamedly, Babette has been in progress for over 3 years. How could that be? Well, I probably haven't worked on Babette for over a year. When I see pictures of other peoples completed projects, I get all excited and want to pull my squares out and work on them.

Before, the first problem was organization. Where were the finished squares? And my J hook? And my pattern? Was I really using a J hook? That looks huge. (I look it up on Ravelry). Now, how does one...crochet? Never mind that the squares are made entirely of chains and double crochet, how do you DO those things? No idea. Up come the YouTube videos, and I never get started.

I'm not using the recommended yarn or colors, so I haven't been following the elaborate square color chart to construct my color combinations. But then what happens is I worry. At this point my completed squares are a result of my haphazard color mixing. From now on I will supplement that style with squares created according to the pattern. How about that!?!

For my own reference I am circling the number of any squares I've done according to pattern on the massive grid.

I've laid out all my squares according to what's in grid 10 but it's just occurred to me that maybe I won't need to make grid 10. If it turns out that this blanket is gigantic, which it will be (I'm making the squares in worsted instead of fingering weight) maybe i only need to do grids 1-9 because 10 is tacked on to the end and could add an extra foot or more of length. I was aiming for a Babette that would cover a full/queen bed.  Grids 1-9 are fitted together to make a rectangle so removing #10 would be easy.

I organized my Babette squares and yarns month ago during a stash sort. So organization is no excuse for lack of progress. After much discussion with my friend C, I have a plan.

The pattern calls for 126 squares, broken down as follows:
Four-Rounds          49 (19 complete)
Two-Rounds          50 (10)
Six-Rounds            16 (2)
Eight-Rounds          7 (3)
Ten-Rounds            2 (0)
Twelve-Rounds      2 (0)

So, 34 finished squares, plus 2 1-round and 6 3-round squares that aren't really squares since they're not finished. 126 - 34 = 92.  If I crochet 2 squares a week it will take me 46 weeks, 6 weeks for finishing/edging/assemblage, and I can be done by Fall 2012. I think finishing will take a lot longer than 6 weeks. If I manage to finish more than 2 per week I can shift more time to the end for finishing. And who knows? Maybe I can start connecting the squares before I have them all done.

My plan now is to blog each completed square going forward. Here are the squares completed in the last two weeks. 2 per week, so I'm on target. Hooray!


 


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