Me too! Me too!

I'm joining in on the fun. I can't remember how I found this blog but I do remember I was immediately drooling over all the lovely rippliciousness!

For some inexplicable reason I caught the ripple bug last year. Must have seen a particularly pretty one and I was hooked (ahem). I didn't start one straight away, I just began complusively collecting ripple patterns in anticipation.

Then my dad decided to send me all my mom's stash (she died a few years back) - boxes and boxes of the stuff! It's still coming. Mostly odd balls of this and that but I did find enough Roly-Sport (lovely squishie stuff) in different colours to finally make my very own ripple afghan. I started it on New Year's Day - haven't progressed very far because I'm also using Mom's yarn to make scarves and hats for all the family and I'd like to get them all done this year.

The picture shows one complete repeat. It's a simple 5 up, 5 down, 5 at the points, worked in the back loop ripple. And I love it.

Ripple II : Son of Ripple

Did any of you guys go through a period of mourning when your ripple was finished? I couldn't stop thinking about rippling. I kept finding myself imagining crocheting the next row.Then I would remember that it was All Over and feel sad. I had serious Crochet Angst. So, meet S.O.P. - Son of Ripple...
After several weeks of grooving on hot pink and red together (a la the edging on my first ripple), I knew that was where this one had to go. Pink to red and then maybe (haven't decided yet) a row of chocolate brown or periwinkle blue. I plan to make little red pom poms to attach to the points of each edge. I love red pom poms nearly as much as red ric rac and red buttons!
I wonder how far I'll get through this one before I start dreaming of Ripple III : The Next Generation??

ps If you like vintage findings, check out these cool buckles I found a couple of days ago.

Some Progress

I thought it was about time I gave an update since it's nearly a fortnight since my last (first) post.

Many thanks to those who commented with ripple pattern suggestions, especially jess (who hopefully will read this as I don't know how else to reply to your comments). I read all the comments, followed some of your links, found a few other places to look. Then it was time to leave the house to road trip to chorus concerts and my husband had decided to back up his hard drive which meant I couldn't actually print anything to bring with me and had no time left to copy things down.

Not to be deterred I read through jess's comment again which explained the mechanics of rippling (I knew I should be able to work that out for myself but just hadn't been able to by myself). Then I collected up my yarn and hooks and once the baby was asleep made some swatches.

I didn't like the first attempt so much because of the holes and it didn't ripple in quite the way I was looking for. So I tried again and came up with a ripple I like. I believe it's actually almost the same as jess's improvised pattern except that I'm only doing dcs in 3 stitches between increases and decreases instead of 6.

Then I had to decide what size to make. I've taken the in-for-a-penny in-for-a-pound approach and decided to make a blanket big enough for our queen size bed (we could use more big blankets).

So I've been slowly working on the blanket for just over a week. I've been carrying it around with me and snatching a few moments to crochet where I can. In the car, reading at computer/watching TV, sitting on the floor/ground next to the baby when she's playing happily, sitting outside in the sunshine with baby napping in the stroller (my personal favourite).

I can't move too fast since I need to get more yarn. There are two more colours to introduce that I have on hand (a pale blue and a darker purple) but I also want to get a pale yellow and perhaps another blue too. I think I'm going to get a dark brown to edge the whole thing when it's done but am undecided about whether to get any brown for in amongst the ripples too. Either way I certainly will need to get more yarn soon.

I'm pretty pleased with the way the ripples are looking. I'm thinking that I should start using the random stripe generator others have mentioned since I'm otherwise liable to over think colour placement (which rather takes the joy out of it) or just repeat this first sequence over and over (which I don't want to do, I'd rather have it be a bit random even if I'm not using a big variety of colours).

Now Look What You've Started...

Is it too much to say that rippling has changed my life?! I used to do things - y'know like sleeping, talking to people, laundry, dishes. Now all I do is crochet. This is me on March 27...

I had problems. I saw all the cool ripples everyone else was making. I can't tell you how badly I wanted to play too. It took three days and a ...um..huge amount of swearing before I got to here...

And you should see me now!!! My hands ache, I have pains in my forearms and my house is a mess but I am in love - look at this...
The only thing I seem to have kept up with is feeding my kids and writing my blog. Who cares? Now I'm planning my next ripple!

a late bloomer joining in

Hi everybody, I'm a little late to introduce myself but I didn't want to until I had actually started my ripple. This is my very first ripple even though I've been crocheting over twenty years. I was having a terrible time trying to decide what pattern to use since I didn't have the 200 ripple pattern book yet.

I was reading the reviews for it on amazon.com and there were several compliants of errors in many patterns in the book. Have any of you experienced problems in the patterns in the book?

A couple of days ago I started with Bevs Baby Ripple Afghan thinking the pattern was straight forward enough for this newbie, but after two days of working with frustrating progress I confirmed I still don't like single crochet for big projects. So I switched to Candi Jensen's "RippleEffect" from her book "Candy Crochet" using halfdouble crochet and I immediatley loved it. There is more of a wave effect in it which I love.

You can see the difference between the ripple and wave in the two. This ripple afghan going to be a gift for one of my daughter's newest mommy girlfriends. I'm already thinking about other ripples I want to do, this is addictive! I'm excited to be part of this great group. Happy Rippling everyone!

cross posted on my blog

Ripple-ly Challenged

On Sunday, I spent almost 8 hours trying to get my ripple to ripple. I've had this problem before and was the original reason why I stopped trying to ripple the last time. But this time I think I have it!!!

I'm only using two colors to mimic the colors of the Navajo moccasin.

I will chronicle my crochet journey on my blog as well. I love all of your colors. Beautiful!!