Rippling Poolside...

I think I'm finally posting to the right blog!!

Slowly but surely it is getting done. I've already got several more in my head and some yarn bought for Christmas gifties.


I love to sit out here while the kids are swimming. Give me my project, some iced tea, a cd player and some bug spray and I'm set for the afternoon. Of course I do swim too but not the marathons the kids can pull off.

Can't stop me now... *Updated*

Friday, June 22
Well, seeing as how the two most recent posts belong to me, why post a third when I can simply update this one. Here is the new ripple. I pulled out all of the N hook work from photo's below. Being the lazy crocheter that I am, I left the chain and crocheted into it with my favorite K hook. The beauty of it is is that I can pull it as far as possible, and the chain row gives beautifully. There just isn't any resistance. It's truly lovely and has been a good lesson.

Further more, I *love* the painterly homespun yarns. The variations on the colors are simply gorgeous. I can't get enough of working with them. I'm doing wider rows of the painterly colors because the variations are just so stunning that I don't want to stop. :D

Well, I'm off to eat this fresh brownie before it cools too much. Happy rippling everyone!

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I told you i'd hunt around and find something to ripple. I dug into my mom's stash and found some homespun. She is in the process of putting together a granny made of homespun, so she had a few balls of blue laying around. I found most of a scain of this gorgeous painterly brownish color.

I'm not sure I like it. I did out some math, did some swatches, with a K, and an N hook, to see how many rows I can get per scain. It'll take less yarn working with the N hook, but the swatch with the K hook held together a bit better. Because the stitches with the N hook are so loose, it's making the chain row seem really really tight even though it's not. I don't know how comfortable that'll be to snuggle up under. The only other thing I've done with homespun is scarves because it so soft. I still had this same issue, but didn't worry about it because I'd add tassels and stuff.

I dunno. What do you guys think? Should I continue, grow my homespun yarn stash and just go with it? Or try and work something else out? I love the feel of it.. it's so luxurious and soft... but I'm so frustrated. :\

Ripple 3 Finished... Must ripple more...

Well, here is the newest to my ripple family. I've finally completed the rainbow ripple. I think it's beautiful :D Sorry for the crummy picture quality and stuff. Seeing as how I'm on crutches, there is only so much artistic ability I can put into these pics without being able to clean up and get around and things. :)

This ripple was completed with a size K hook, using Red Heart Super Saver yarn. I used Susan B's Easy Ripple pattern. The bed it's laying on is a full, to give you an idea of the size. It was meant as a throw, but as you can see, it's a wee bit bigger than that. :) I'm not even entirely sure of how many foundation chains I did...

I'm planning on giving this to my girlfriend Patty today. She's my best friend, and I've yet to make her anything crochet related. She didn't even get a scarf for Christmas this year! So she'll be the first recipient of an original Rissymur ripple. :) I hope she likes it...

My next ripple project is a throw for my friend Katie, and then one for my Mom. Katie's will be with homespun yarns of blues and browns. Mom wants one in greens to match her bedroom. I can't wait to start rippling again! *hunts around for some new yarn to ripple*

Finished ripple!

I finished my (first) ripple on Saturday, and boy am I happy to have finished it. For a number of reasons: I only learnt to crochet 3 months ago, so it feels like a major accomplishment to have finished this; I'm ready make something else, with some different colours; I was getting impatient to see the finished thing; and it was getting too hot (it's wool!) to work on this!

Here's a post with more pictures, and here's one with some statistics - ha ha, geeky I know. But surely, I'm not the only one doing that sort of thing? Or maybe I am... ;-)

Wave Ripple Completed!

Well, it's official.....my 2 spoiled kitties have their 'Wave Ripple' (albeit in a smaller version) to snuggle up on. I used Red Heart super saver for the first time and had my doubts while crocheting with it, but all I can say is WOW, after washing it......it softens up beautifully. Naturally, softy soft is very important to my 2 recipients. :)

I did reverse single crochet all around the 4 borders to give it a finished, yet durable edging and I'm very pleased with the way it worked out. Thanks to Michelle for the corrected copy of the pattern!

Calling all Crocheters - Can you Spare a Square?

I hope you all don't mind me putting a post here about the following but it's for a very good cause. I am part of the ripple along and I do ripple away my time, but I've been asked by Shelly from This Eclectic Life to be a part of a project to crochet granny squares to make afghans for kids with Cancer. I put out an invitation to you all to make one square and send it to Shelly at:
Shelly Tucker
P.O. Box 2241
Denton, Tx 76202

I just made 10 of them myself and sent them off to Shelly so her volunteers can assemble them into afghans for the kids at Camp Sanguinity!

Stripe blocks

Has anyone tried making a ripple afghan by making several afghan-wide strips, and joining them? I mean, like, say you're making a 150 cm wide by 210 cm long afghan, and you could chain for the entire width but only crochet the first 30 cm or so, and then bind it off and start a new strip, then when you had seven of them, you could just join them together. It occurred to me that that might be a nice way to avoid having an enormous warm afghan on my lap if I want to continue working on it over the summer. Mine's only about 50 cm long so far, but it can get a little warm sometimes. :)

I'm still new enough to not really know how one would actually join the strips seamlessly (and I've never made any granny blocks or anything), but ... although I'm really enjoying seeing my 'ghan progress, it's toasty! :)

Another Ripple Started

I have already started a new ripple, I couldn't keep myself.

This is what I've done so far, I still have 5 more colours to add.

I'm loving it so far, I've been inspired by so many of all the ripples I've seen here.

All the colour combinations are so lovely, I hope mine will look good in the end with the colours I've bought, only time will tell.

Still on target

I am still (somewhat) on target for my one afghan a month plans. Even though I am working on 2 afghans this month, the super secret ripple (can't post it to my regular blog) is about half done:



Ripple in our high school colors using Wool Ease. Very soft!

This other knitted feather and fan is about 1/6 done.



100 Afghans to Knit and Crochet, by Jean Leinhauser and Rita Weiss. A very good book! This one is knit, so I thought I would start on it this month, even though it is really the one I planned to do in July. This one is done in Caron yarn; 4 huge skeins (2 of each color) and even though I am a good way into it, I still have this much yarn left:



My Wednesday buddies were giggling at how huge the skeins are. Kind of freakish huge like the monster zucchini on Aunt Purl’s Blog. But just mock away "guys" because you will not be laughing when you see how nice this baby turns out.

I am using a feather and fan pattern from the 100 Afghans book I previously mentioned. I started out using the size ? needles that were suggested, but I didn’t like the density of the resulting fabric so I upsized a lot and am doing it on US 10 1/2s instead. Better flow.

Nothing much more to share, except that we are into the sweaty head session here at my home. When I sweat, it is all in my lower back and my huge noggin. If I don’t dry my hair after washing it, it will never dry. If I dry it then there is at least some chance that I will have a few minutes of dry hair in the day. Sometimes I can actually squeegee (using my fingers, not an actual tool) water out of my hair. Gross, huh?

Peace!
Susan (aka ZenKnit)

slow and steady wins the race

I put this aside for a bit but I picked it up again and i'm loving it :)
Looking at everyone's ripples has definitely helped me pick this up again. All the ripples are gorgeous!
I feel like the blanket is taking forever, though. I have maybe 2 feet out of about 7 :( But I'm going to keep at it because one day I want to have a ripple as beautiful as all the other ones that are posted here :)
Oh, and I just discovered the Flickr group for this. :P

Rippling through....

Yo. Here's my progress so far, this sits on my lap while I work on it, and it feels sooooooo wonderful! It's hard to believe I'm not yet half done!!! Guess I will need to buy more cotton yarn ;)

Round Rainbow Ripple Finished

Finished size: 52.5". Two skeins each of Caron Simply Soft Brites 3 oz. in 6 rainbow colors, I needed 3 skeins of the purple (aka Grape). Total of 15 3 oz. skeins. H hook.

The pattern is Aztec Sun from the Leisure Arts booklet, 40 Favorite Ripple Afghans. I modified it a little bit to accommodate the stripe pattern I used. Basically, I followed the pattern as written, starting with 3 row of pink at the center, but changing colors every other row until I reached the second sequence of fill in points (yellow parts on my blanket). I wanted all of them to be yellow so I made the second set of fill in points 3 rows earlier than the pattern called for and fudged the rest.

It's a baby blanket for a family member. I really love how it looks, the colors were so fun and happy, and I know it will be super soft after it's washed. I'm spraying it with water and letting it air dry to block it.

My latest ripple, using up homespun, pattern from web. I'm randomly working in the blues and reds, because I have alot more tan than I do any of those. So far, I think its pretty, and really soft!

Something Different and Useful

Since the ripple afghan re-do is going rather slowly for me, I put the ripply skills to good use and made this dishcloth last night.

These tickle my fancy for all the right reasons: they used up bits of thrift-store crocheting cotton that no-one wanted; they are quick; they are useful; they are environmentally friendly; they are pretty; they are cheap.

Four re-usable, washable, pretty dishcloths for 50 cents and a few hours work. What could be wrong with that?

(two strands of contrasting thread/4.25 mm hook/soft waves pattern/39 chain beginning /1 row in dc, 2 rows in sc rep until roughly square /sc edging)

Nearly there...

In an effort to spur myself on to more rippling action, and to finish this beast of a blanket, I am posting here today! I have been such a bad little rippler lately. I have about 20 color bands to work, and then I'll be done...so why can't I seem to get this thing finished? It's not the seemingly daunting task of tying ends in, because I actually enjoy that. It's not the fear of the anticlimax of completion. It's just plain and simple distraction, folks. That's it. I am one majorly sidetracked girl right now!

I'm really not sure about the whole, women-are-good-at-multitasking thing. I certainly don't seem to be able to pull it off. Maybe it's just too many tasks. I mean, everyone has limits, right? But hey, right here and now I'm going to recommit myself to finishing this blanket! I will finish this afghan, if it's the last thing I do!

#3

So here are a few pictures of #3. I'm not loving it yet(I think that is a common problems with the multi colored one). I'm hoping that when I get a bit more into it I'll like it more. I keep talking myself out of frogging it. I chained 219(plus a few extra for safety), size G hook, using lots of Caron SS. I've not measured it since it was two rows tall, but it does just slightly hang over my queen size bed. I'm going to just go until I run out of yarn ( if I don't have enough I'll just pick up a few balls at Wal-Mart...although I hope I don't have to)
Thanks for all the nice comments everyone:)

Black & Red Ripple is finished

I managed to finish this yesterday, never again will I crochet in acrylic yarn when it's hot.

It's about 95 x 90 cm, used up all of the yarn I had in these colours.

I have two more ripples planned, a blanket for me using cotton yarn & I have an idea for a pillow using up more of my stash, but the pillow yarn is wool, so I think I'll wait until autumn to start that one.

wear your ripple

My ripple in Manos Del Uraguay is comming along. I'm starting to run out of some of the colors so I think the end is near.


I had to share this. The new summer Knitty is up and they have a ripple skirt. It comes in adult sizes too, go check it out.

The end!

The ten pound ripple is complete! It actually weighs "only" 7lbs, but it's lap size, so that's a whole lot!


Fatcat was perplexed...

On to the next ripple adventure...

Hi Everyone!

I have my ripple afghan going strong. I'm using Susan B's pattern and am enjoying it very much. The yarn is RH Super Saver, many different colors. I'm just sort of throwing in colors as I go with no set pattern of stripes. It's so much fun to watch this unfold. Love seeing everyone else's ripples. There is more on the horizon, especially a round one. I just love the looks of a round ripple.

I also have Jan Eaton's 200 Ripple Stitch patterns book and am eager to do several in there, both knit and crochet. So many ripples, so little time.