Too busy to blog lately

I've been busy this past week. I did a layout last week for a Sugar Free challenge at Sweet Shoppe. The theme was "Why Can't I?" and as I had just recently gone through my crochet UFO bin, I chose "Finish Things" for my layout

I decided to make it a goal to finish one of these things & I chose the granny square afghan in the middle.

Even though it is the largest of the projects & will take the most time, it is actually the one I am most likely to finish. Most of those projects are UFOs because I get bored with them. The same stitch, the same yarn, over & over. It gets a bit mindless. I can do quick little projects, like the tarot deck bags I used to make, but larger ones, like scarves, ponchos, sweaters, and afghans bore me after awhile, unless there are changes in pattern & yarn.

The granny square afghan works well for me because every round is a different yarn, they are relatively short and by the time I get bored making popcorns it's time to switch to the front post double crochet rounds, that require paying attention & then I'm done with a square before that gets on my nerves. Plus I have the satisfaction of seeing a growing pile of squares in various stages of completion. I prefer a pile of stuff to an ever growing scarf. I get a greater sense of accomplishment.

I had 8 squares completed,one double round and 22 single rounds done. I had started out making entire squares but then switched to doing them round by round in sets, to increase the randomness & because it is easier to have a skein of yarn and crochet 4 single rounds at a time than it is to have this bin underfoot so I can randomly choose 5 colors to complete an entire square.

The idea is to use up the odds and ends of your leftover yarn & you end up with this totally random collection of colors.  I have lots of yarn. That is one several bins of yarn, just the Red Heart no dye lot yarn. So I have to plan the randomness. I take a skein of yarn & make 4 beginning rounds with it, then I make 2 second rounds with it. Every other skein I also make a 3rd round. Once I have a decent number of 3 round sets made I will start adding a 4th and then the 5th. The sixth round is black on all of them.

It has been 5 days since I made that layout. I now have 28 single round sets, 11 double round sets and 2 triple round sets. I do about 2 skeins worth of rounds a day,over the course of about 2 hours, each round adding half again as many stitches as the previous round.  I need 100 completed squares to make the afghan. You do the math. I can't.