Crochet-a-long 1

Its a bit miserable having nothing to craft on a dark winter's evening... just a little something, quick to pick up and easy to put down if interrupted by the need to help with homework, so I was delighted to spot this on one of my favourite blogs....

It looked so squishy and lovely and cheerful and cosy...and I've never been part of a CAL (crochet-a-long) before..... it was just too tempting...there was even a kit so I didn't have to think too hard about colour choices....

What could possibly go wrong.....

I was in....I really don't think I could have been any more excited to hear that this had arrived at 'im indoors work address....

..except that the post office tried to deliver it at 7am before the office was open (doh!) so I had to wait a whole 48 hours for them to try again when somebody was in!!  That's a whole 2 evenings of valuable crocheting time.....

Anyway second time lucky and it was safely in my hands...

Look at all that squishy yarn fabulously squelched into an exquisite organza bag....

I was sorely tempted ot leave it be for another evening - just to look at it...but no it had to be opened and squished and stroked and laid out to appreciate all the colour...

Now maybe its the green carpet in the back ground...but something about the colours was a little disappointing. I checked back into Lucy's blog, somehow the colours of her blanket popped and fizzed out of the page .....maybe I'd accidentally got the grunge selection?

I put off starting till the weekend...

Then I had another bright idea! (sometimes I need to stop myself I really do!) I decided as this growing CAL community was an online thing I would try to avoid printing the pattern and I'd be brave and oh so 21st century and simply follow the pattern on line - after all its about time I got to grips with the tablet I'd bought nearly a year ago....

It wasn't to be (you knew that already right?) 

Our internet -wifi gadget-box-thingy decided to throw a hissy fit and only allow one gadget at a time to be connected to the outside world.  I had to form an orderly queue behind those that needed to do homework. Grrrrrr.

I F-I-N-A-L-L-Y got a copy paste of the instructions and first 15 rows of colour pattern off the internet onto a simple word document. Thank you Lucy! So I could get started...

So , first things first....120cm of a "casting on" chain....

Oops.....I'm about 3cm short..

..mmmm do I want to unpick all this and try again? or am I just determined to get going?

Yup ..you guessed it...off and running - after all what's 3cm between friends? 

So need to get my head round this pattern.  Alternating rows of solid trebles and granny clusters, two rows of each colour....just need to concentrate and count to three...better keep a mug of tea to hand...it always aids the concentration...

Its amazing just how much you can get done when you don't get distracted....

...and what a difference photographing it on wooden floor rather than green carpet makes!

I confess I'm fascinated by the colours..they are really zingy- even more so than this photograph suggests.  So here I am at the end of my week 1, with 19 rows done. This morning rows 46 - 60 were published. 

I can't dilly dally round here I've got some crochet to catch up with......