attack of the killer squares!

this is indian grandma. she likes to take naps on the floor. when i was younger, i thought, "grandma is dead!". but, now i know better. though, some day, we might mistake her death for a nap, and leave her sleeping on the floor all day ;) she also likes to copy me. last winter, when she visited, she started a granny square. it grew and grew. it eventually became a small lap blanket. since i wanted to crochet with her, i started one too, but did not have the steam to work on these endless rounds of double crochet, as the square grew larger. so, i made 18" squares, sixteen of them, and slipstitched them together into a nice big afghan.

i brought my finished afghan home at christmas to show it off to indian grandma. when i came back to visit again, about a week later, she had started her own version of my afghan. she even ripped out the extra rounds of the oversized square she crocheted last winter. i like to tease her and call her a copy cat, but, in all her grace, she vehemently denies it! she's a hoot!

when i come home to visit, i get an incredible urge to crochet with acrylique. the only place to buy yarn in town is the superwalmart, and when you are having a yarn craving, you will slum it. a sweet friend of mine gifted a copy of interweave's knitscene magazine.

so, while gazing at all the wonderful acrylique at wally world, i found a nice fat skein of redheart for some slippers from the magazine. this colourway is called bananaberry, and reminds me of the tropics. so far, i've only finished one slipper, and it's modeled by mom ... see her pretty christmas socks?


speaking of socks, what am i knitting? well, i'll give you a hint ... i'm knitting from my new book knitting vintage socks. i'll take a better picture later, because i think i have to rip back to before the heelflap. oops.



for following the pattern, i created my own chart. even using a post-it note, i find it easier to glance at a chart vs. reading a short sentence.

i've also been making steady progress on my jo sharp throw. i'm on strip #7 out of 8 strips. i still think i will run out of yarn on one of the colors, but i am convinced that if i knit really fast, i will beat the clock and finish before the yarn runs out!

ps ann budd called last week! really! i had called interweave about the beret. i knitted. i thought there was a mistake in the decreases for the swirl top beret. well, it's a mistake in the pattern, confirmed by ms. ann budd. the pattern should read, "decrease EVERY round".