My thing I made

Before I show you my thing I made, I just need to emphasise – because this has become quite a big thing in my life – that the secret granny square project involves making 51 granny squares in black. Have you ever made 51 granny squares in a really intense acrylic black so you can’t see where you are putting your hook? If you haven’t, I do urge you to, because it’s always useful to get a foretaste of the things they’ll make us do in Hell. I am eyeing up Partner and wondering if he could be trained to make a few. Would it be wrong of me to go back to the pub next Wednesday, find the excited men, feed them Stella and crochet instructions and have them cranking a few out? Perhaps in exchange for a glimpse of ankle or collarbone? Hmm? Would that really be so wrong? Yes, ok, don’t say it. I know it would.

Because their tension would be different to mine. Such a shame! Anyway, I lay the 20, yes that is only 20 and we are going for 99 in total, granny squares I have created, together in various combinations, and I can see that this will indeed be a very cool pattern (provided I don’t take Partner’s advice, which is, ‘just do half of them and make a feature of the gaps’). So I will crank them out with a good will and by the end I will be saying, black acrylic, that is no challenge. These days I only crochet with invisible yarn and occasionally worms, as otherwise I find it all just too easy and I particularly enjoy the challenge of tensioning the worms around my little finger.

Anyway here is my thing I made. Readers: do you have double pointed knitting needles stabbing you in the bottom whenever you sit down? Do you find them randomly laid carefully along bookcases? Are they in the toothbrush mug? Do you lose them and find yourself knitting a sock with a combination of 5mm, 2mm and 3.5mm and thinking oh, it will all even out? Well I did. So I made a case to round the little buggers up:

Reclining on a furry throw

Look how subtle that outside is. Are you impressed? Are you thinking, Susie is exploring new horizons in her patchwork as normally it is very colourful. Perhaps the inside is blue as well or a very subtle grey.

It is not!

Cheery!

I don't know, I keep buying Knit Pro even though that one broke when I sat on it

It actually looks more impressive when it is empty, but I felt if I took the needles out they would all instantly disappear again into quite unhelpful places around the house and so I left them. It was fun to make. The outside is a job lot of a cotton/ linen mix which I got from a man who sells fabric for excellent prices at Trumpington Village Hall: if I have any Cambridge readers, he will next be there on 30th November until about 3pm and I may pop along to see if he has any tweed for a winter skirt, I don’t know (that doesn’t affect you, I’m just remarking). The inside is leftover tie silk which I bought from Mountain Heirlooms on etsy ages ago – I bought a big box and felt very guilty, but good Lord that box of silk has lasted well.

After I had made this, I actually had an idea for tweaking this design so that it would be rather cool. So I am going to make a few more and experiment. If they go well I will put them in the shop, if they do not, well, I will just look at them sadly.

Now please excuse me. I have a daily granny square target to meet, and I am behind on weaving in my ends!