In my ongoing attempt to empty my bins of yarn I knit this small baby blanket. I had a free pattern that I really wanted to use but I didn’t have the right colours of yarn. I found a similar-looking pattern, also a freebie, and thought I could make it work with the yarn I had.

I really liked the pattern created in both the pink and the white. I still have some of the yarn left, but not enough for another one.

Now I need to decide what to do with it – a donation or save it for my hope chest (hoping for a great grandchild).

I had yarn left from the previous afghan I made but not enough of any colour to form a pattern. I decided to do one large granny square to use up the yarn. It turned out reasonably large and will be nice to cover a lap. It will be a donation.

I adapted this pattern from one of Mum’s afghan patterns. I wasn’t able to manage the stitch used in the pattern but I used the pattern as a reference for colour changes. Since I didn’t have enough yarn for the changes the pattern called for I substituted a few colours into the scheme.

I made another afghan using this shell stitch pattern (which I kept for myself). The note on the pattern listed a number of stitches to use but this is much narrower than the one I made for myself; I probably didn’t update the note when I finished mine.

However, the piece is still a good size and I don’t think I’d have been able to managed the colours and rows as well had it been wider.

This will be a donation in honour of Mum’s birthday in November.

Mum started a very intricate tablecloth for me but she never had the opportunity to complete it. I inherited it and always intended to finish it; I had all the crochet cotton I needed, as well as her pattern and crochet hook. It sat in one of my bins for many years.

Eventually I dug it out and tried to pick up the pattern where Mum left off but I had no success. The crochet hook was so small and, although I understood the pattern, making it work was difficult. My tension was so far off Mum’s that I knew my blocks would never align with hers so, again, I set it aside.

About 18 months ago I decided to take Mum’s work apart and start over. Taking the project apart wasn’t easy but I was able to get a lot of cotton yarn from it. In some cases I was able to preserve some of the original blocks. I went with a simple granny square pattern with a large central square and smaller squares around the edges to get the size I wanted.

My intention was always to add those few preserved blocks of Mum’s to the piece. When I had the size I wanted to cover our table I added Mum’s blocks to the corners and the sides. I thought they would look good just dangling around the edges. I was wrong – so I added another round of my own blocks intermingled with Mum’s.

Although the tablecloth isn’t as square as it should be I’m happy with the outcome. From the pictures you will be able to tell which were Mum’s squares and which ones I added. The colour in the full photos is off; the colour is more accurate in the close-ups.