Charlotte's Universe - Part 14 and final rows.

 Hello !

I have finished this CAL!

Just so you will know, I have completed the CAL over at the Look What I Made website.  You can find the beginning of the CAL at this link.  She has lots of other patterns and CALs as well.  Well worth the trip over there.

I have been working on this CAL since November 2021.  I finished it on Feb 23, 2022.  So it took me just over 3 months.  Not bad, considering it has 7421 yards in it!

Here the stats on the remaining rows... 

Row 122 & 123 - Used some old Sayelle white yarn (worsted weight) - 96.63 grams.

Row124-125 - Red Heart Paddy Green - 120.5 grams

Row 126 - Red Heart Orchid - 82.3 grams

Row 127 - Paddy Green - 91.7 grams

That finished Part 14 of the CAL.  Then, they supplied a few bonus rows, and since I had enough yarn, I went ahead and did them... 

Row 128-130 - Orchid (purple color) - 275.3 grams.

I did one last row, because I felt it would finish off the edge nicely -

Row 131 - Paddy Green - 42 grams (this is a single crochet row, just to give a frame to the blanket).

All in all, it is 4043 grams & 7421 yards (approximately) 

I'm pretty proud of it. It's the largest thing I've crocheted, so I think it's quite an accomplishment.

Please let me know if you have ever done one of "Look What I Made"'s patterns, or if you have finished anything over 7000 yards !

If you convert the grams to pounds, it's almost 9 pounds of yarn.

I used a J hook, and I think if I did it again, I would have went down to an 'I' hook, just because some of the stitches are a bit looser than I would like, but I do like it a lot. Learned new stitch patterns, and have something that is plenty big for my bed!

Charlotte's Universe Parts 11 - 13

 Wow, it's again been a long time between posts.  I have completed three parts of the Charlotte's Universe CAL.  It's now through Part 13. !! 

It's getting so big!  It will fit on our Queen sized bed, with enough to hand over the sides a little too.  

Last I told you, I had finished Row 95.

On Row 96, I continued with white, using 69g.

After this row, I weighed the afghan, and it's 2300 grams right now!  That is over 4200 yards ! And I still have more to go!

Row 97 & 98 was more white and used 124 grams in these two rows together.

Row 99 & 100 was more Paddy Green. Used 131 grams.

Rows 101, 102, 103 I used Orchid (light purple). These flowers took 224.7 grams.

Rows 104 through 107 was more Paddy Green. 238.4 grams.

Rows 108 and 109 are white again.  Used 95.3 grams.

Here a photo at about this point.

See that nice row of purple flowers ?  I like the design, but it leaves these large holes ... which I don't like.  Good thing this will be a bed spread and will have a quilt underneath it.

On Rows 110 & 111, I was back to the light purple (Orchid) color.  Used 109.2 grams.

This was the end of Part 12.  At the end of this round, the corners were empty as the preceeding rows did not fill in the corners. Part 13 will fill in the corner triangles.

Here's what it looked like at this point.

If you add up the weight at this point it comes to 3222.6 grams which is approximately 5914 yards !

Wowza!  It certainly fills my lap while I am working on it.

I continued and have finished the corner triangles.  I tried to use up some of the yarn from the inside rounds, as I had small amounts of those left, and I wanted to leave my larger yardage yarns for the outside border.  

so... here we go on the triangles (Part 13).

Row 112 & 113 is "Roses" - a hot pink color - used 9.1 grams for the 4 corners.

Row 114 is Lilac - used 8.9 grams

Row 115 is Grass Green - 10.3 grams for all 4 corners.

Row 116 is Amethyst (dark purple) and used 13.7 grams for all four corners.

Rows 117 - 119 used a really dark Green (no label for this one, but it is darker than Paddy Green).  This used 33.1 grams.

Row 120 used a tan (Buff) color yarn, nd used 17.4 grams.

Row 121 used "Warm Brown" and 20.1 grams.

and that completed the corner triangles. - 3,335.2 grams of afghan so far.

I will be starting part 14 soon, in the next day or two I think.  This will probably be white or green.  I am thinking one row of white, and then green and then purple again.  We'll have to see how things go.  I think I have enough white to do one more round, and then that will be it for the white.  But I have a bit of the Orchid color left, and I think 2 skeins of Paddy Green.  So much of the last borders will be Green.

I like to think mom would have liked this pattern. She was always a fan of purple. :)

Charlotte's Universe - Parts 9 & 10

 I have  finished 2 more parts of this Crochet-A-Long (CAL).  The rounds are taking quite a bit more time, and more yarn.  I don't have all that much left of the yarn I started with, and the only color that I have enough of right now to do a complete round is white.  My next couple rounds will be white, but I am going to have to go buy some yarn to supplement so that I can maintain the same color scheme.

This is how much I started with:

  

This is how much I have left after Part 10.

This is taking a bit more yarn then I expected.  I probably should have decreased a hook size, and that would have helped a little bit.  

So here is my record keeping for each row.

For Rows 82 - 86 I used Paddy Green.  

    61.98 g for Row 82

    80.34 g using up a 2nd skein

    and 114 g of my 3rd skein that I had.

I changed to Lilac (purple) for Row 87. Used 97 grams for that round.

Row 88 I used the dark purple again - used 32 grams.

Row 89 - This is a tan / Buff color. and used 61.75g,

Row 90 - This a slightly darker brown called "Warm Brown".   Used 69 grams.

On Row 91, I used 46 grams of the same brown.

Row 92 - Went back to Paddy Green, and used most of what I had left of that skein.  so approx. 102 grams.

Row 93 is the Roses - and I used a light purple color - possibly called "orchid" but not sure as it didn't have a label.  Used 118g on the Roses round.

Row 94 was Paddy Green again - used 47g

Row 95, I used 23 grams of Paddy Green.

And the last row of Part 10 is Row 96.  I switched to White as it was all I had left of in a quantity that would complete a full round.  I have used 69 grams in this row, which is a plain dc (double crochet) round.

Here is 1/4 of the afghan.  It's getting quite large, so I'll have to figure out a way to get a full picture to post.

And here's a close up of the last few rows . . .

I did go ahead and purchase some more purple and green yarn at the store today.  I would really like to complete this pattern in total, and not stop short.  I'll use my small scraps as I can, there is some shorter sides coming up, but not sure how much of the small amounts I'll be able to use.  We'll have to go row by row :)

Next, I know will be a couple rows of white, then some green, and purple :)

Then, well, we'll see.

Charlotte's Universe CAL - Parts 7 and 8

 Hello again,

I have been working steadily on this crochet-a-long, but it seems to be going slowly.  Each round gets bigger and bigger, so it takes longer as well. My time has also been a bit more limited recently, but I am happy with my progress so far.

Last I posted, I talked about Row 68.  I haven't taken very many in-process photos, but I do have a few.  I have kept track of some yarn usage thought. I'll list them here and place photos as I am able.

For row 69 & 70 I was able to continue using the dark purple. 

                Row 70 used 47.7 grams of dark purple.

 Row's 71 &72 were done in Leaf Green and used 64.1 grams of yarn.

Row 73 was done in a Lavender yarn, and used 78.1 grams.

Row 74 was done in a variegated yarn that had pink and browns in it, and used up 42 grams.

Row 75 used a medium tan yarn, and used 82.5 grams

Row 76 used the leaf green yarn again and used 25.9 grams.

You can see in the above photo that I have started Row 77. You are able to see the difference between the Leaf green and the Grass Green.

Row 77 through 81 used the grass green yarn, and used up a total of 188.4 grams of yarn.

Row 82 I changed to Paddy Green yarn.  Used a skein of 61.98 grams, and started on a second skein in the middle of Row 83 using a skein that had 80.34 grams in it.  I haven't finished that skein yet, but soon.  I am sure I will have to go into another paddy green skein before I'm done with this color, as the next few rows in part 9 will be this color before changing to a purple again.

After Part 8 was completed, I took a wide angle shot.  This takes up most of the floor in my living room now. Approx. 5 - 6 feet square (this is a guess, I haven't measured it yet.)

Charlotte's Universe Progress - Part 6 finished.

 

I've made a bit of progress on my Charlotte's Universe CAL.  Last time I posted, I had finished through Row 42, which was the end of Part 4 of the CAL.  I have just completed part 6 last night.

I used the Medium "Leaf" Green on Rows 43-46, which was only short rows, as they form the base of the triangle for each side, and used 71g of yarn for those rows. 

I then did 2 rows white, 2 rows light green (nearly using that up! - I used 28g and only have a few grams of light green left now)... then another row of Leaf green before finishing the triangles with white.  I am hoping that the white isn't too stark a contrast once this is finished, but it may be a good accent point too. Only time will tell.  

As each round gets larger it will use more yarn, so I have to be careful on color selection so that I have enough to finish each round before running out of that color of yarn.

I framed these triangles in white - using up a couple of white partial skeins on these triangles and the framing. This will firm up the edges nicely before continuing on. . .

So that is Part 6 completed.  

I did start Part 7 last night as well. The first row is the dark purple - and that one round, Round 68, used up 48grams.  Hoping it will last for 2 more rounds before going to the next color, which will be Leaf Green, and then a Medium purple for a row of flowers.  I should be interesting!

Knitted Slippers

 HI Hi.

The past couple of days, my crafting time has been taken up with knitting a couple of pairs of slippers.  These are small slippers, but they were fun.

The first pair is a women's size approx 5 /6.  I used a pattern found on the Bernat website called "origami slippers".  I like the overall look, and I was able to change the pattern, so I didn't have quite as much seaming, but there was still way too much seaming!!  

The second pair of slippers I got the pattern "Aunt Maggie's Slippers" on bevscountrycottage.com.  I omitted the "toe" section as the sport weight yarn I used made a much smaller gauge, and these slippers turned out more child size then adult size.  They will be put into next year's Operation Christmas Child box.

 

These are only about 5" long, so they are very small.

Charlotte's Universe - Parts 2 - 4

 Hello again,

I have been furiously working on my Charlotte's Universe afghan.  

The last I shared was only the first two rows. Here is what I've done so far.

This is the central flower - part of part 1

The pattern mentions that this inside flower tends to cup a bit due to the chain stitches being too small, so I went ahead and added 1 extra chain in those areas.  I really liked how this turned out.  I didn't take a picture of the back, but it sure is interesting, and I don't think I've ever done a motif quite like this before.

This is part 1 complete.

This one was fun too.  I decided to continue with the light green as the background, bringing in the dark purple again so that those back post stitches really pop with the outline of the light green.  I can see this being a square all on its own.

This is part 2 - where it got interesting!

In part 2  - the instructions have you add triangles to the sides of your square.  I used primarily one yarn, so I didn't have to cut and weave in ends every row.  I added only one row of the dark brown to bring that color out from the center as an accent.  These triangles also have bobbles, which I don't particularly like to make, but I powered through and I have to admit they do create an interest in this piece.  I'm loving how the colors are playing together.

This is part 3. squaring it up again.

On the first row of this part, I used the same pink variegated yarn from part 2, but then added another dark purple row before continuing with the background light green color.  I had to redo sections of this, as I kept forgetting to do the ch8 loop to make the little flowers ... so I had to tear back almost an entire round *sigh*.  However, had I not done that, it would not have looked right, so I am glad I tore back and fixed my mistakes (there were multiple!).  

This is Part 4 finished !  

I again added a round of the dark purple and some light green.  There won't be much light green after this, as I am running low, but I then added the medium green (leaf green is what it's called on the label) before doing the two rows of flowers in the hot pink.  I was really scared I would run out of the hot pink before finishing the second round for the flowers (it's a two round repeat, 1/2 flower the first round, then the other 1/2 of the flower the 2nd round).  I actually only have about 5grams of the hot pink left !  I started with 105 grams !! So a full skein for those two rounds alone.

Here are some of the usage stats that I am starting to keep.

Round 41 & 42 together = 101 grams.

Round 41 = 54 grams and Round 42 = 46 grams.

Round 40 = 22 grams (Leaf Green)

Round 39 = 17 grams

Round 38 = 42 grams 

I am not sure why the big difference in grams in rounds 38 - 40 .... maybe because some rounds have dc and some have more chains or hdc or sc??  I will continue to keep track so that I can estimate if I have enough of a single color to complete the next round. This should help me in determining what color to use next.

Right now - after part 4 - this weighs 509 grams.  

It's starting to get pretty big - about 35 inches square.

I don't think I mentioned, although I showed you the pictures - I am using old Red Heart and Sayelle Acrylic Worsted yarn.