two little projects

Yesterday I finished the Barbie Dress (pattern 781) that I had started on Tuesday. When I cast on the dress I thought it'd be a quick little project - boy was I wrong! Turns out that dress uses a lot of yarn and takes a lot of time. I should have guessed that from the beginning when the first instruction is to cast on 162 stitches for the skirt! Yikes! The bottom part of the skirt is straight stockinette so it's inclined to roll up; if I were to do it again I'd start with a few rounds of garter stitch to straighten it out. Following the pattern directions, there should have been more purple reaching higher but when I ran out of purple I decided that the drop waist would start a whole lot sooner. Round 19 of the decrease shaping - with all its K3tog TBL and m1 K1 m1s - was nearly the death of me. That's enough of playing with dolls for now! Phew!

With the dress finished, I moved on to crochet a square to fulfill a promise made to SIBOL. This is for their "One Heart from Around the World" blanket. The challenge had been posted for some time and it turned out that they were extending the deadline hoping to get a few more squares. I checked my stash, I had just enough red worsted, so I signed up for one square. Of all the squares I've crocheted this is not my favourite. Those really long double-triples in the bottom corners just bug me, as do the stitches worked two rounds below at the top centre of the heart. As well because the centre of the square is worked as a ring of seven chain stitches, it leaves quite a hole in the centre of the block. I used the yarn end to tighten that ring to narrow the hole but if I did this square again, I'd use the adjustable magic ring instead.

Now that these two little projects are wrapped up, it's back to socks. I cast on my second Huron Mountain sock last night. Gavin's had a migraine for the last couple of days, and it's still "buzzing" in his head today, so it looks like a quiet weekend for us.