No more cross-stitch

I have finally sold my cross-stitch fabric on ebay--2 pounds worth.  I haven't cross-stitched in several years since it takes such a toll on my eyes.  The cross-stitch pattern books and cross bars were the first to go (to the Salvation Army), followed by most of my DMC floss (see the blanket I made in my second blog post).  Now, even the cross-stitch fabric is gone.  I only have a few incomplete skeins of floss, the cross-stitch organizer boxes, and floss card holders left.  I was planning on giving the floss card holders to the person who had purchased my cross-stitch fabric, but that would have increased the shipping cost quite a bit, so I decided not to do so.  I'll have to think of something I can do with them.

Crocheting a Gift

I learned to crochet when I was about 10.  I recall making a brown granny squares bag as one of my first projects, as well as worm-like bookmarks.  Where did they go?

I still enjoy crocheting, and still like granny squares.  Here are pictures of a more recent project of mine, which was given away as a gift about a month ago.  The multi-colored portion consists of granny squares made from cross-stitch DMC floss.  I don't cross-stitch anymore since my eyesight is not as good as it used to be, so I used the floss for this project.  My initial plans were to make a baby blanket, but the granny squares turned out to be, in my opinion, too heavy for a baby blanket, so I decided to assimilate the granny squares into a blanket large enough for a twin bed by sewing a blue border and tassels around the granny squares.

Some computations:
I used 2 skeins (of different colors) of floss per granny square, and was able to make every square in a unique color combination.  There are 15 X 15 squares (i.e. 225 squares), so a total of 450 skeins of DMC floss was used.  In order to make 225 different squares by choosing a combination of 2 colors per square, I would need only 22 unique colors of floss:

Combination(22, 2) = 231 > 225

I am very sure I had far more than 22 different colors of floss, and made an effort not to duplicate color combinations.

Materials used:

1)  2 skeins of cross-stitch DMC floss per granny square.  Each square is about 2.75" X 2.75"  (7cm x 7cm).  Total of 15 x 15 squares.

2)    knitted fabric for (blue) border

3)  blue bedsheet for backing

4)  white, pre-made tassels

Time taken: 4 months

Size:  5' X 6' (1.5m x 1.8m)

Tip: I found it convenient to connect the granny squares in a diagonal manner:

My First Post

This is my very first post on my very first blog. I'm planning on posting my thoughts about my crafting projects here.  This way, I can have a crafts portfolio to flip through when I'm old and have arthritis or can't see well enough to make anything.  It is possible though, that when that time arrives, I won't be able to see well enough to read my own blog. :)