The Crochet Rescue

Do y'all remember this crocheted afghan that I volunteered to assemble? It's finished ... well, as finished as I can get it. The panels were not the same length. There wasn't enough yarn. And one of the darker brown panels was missing, with no yarn to make one. Sigh. But I did the best I could! I love the popcorn stitch; it looks so old-fashioned, like my grandmother's house.

Here's a close up of the edge. The large diamond panel has the popcorn stitch. I added the joining stitch, (really 2 rows of interlocking chain stitches) and placed the dark strip on the edge of the afghan, easing the two into each other as best I could. Sometimes there was as much as a 2" difference in length.

It has a really rich texture.

It's wide enough to lie on the top of a full-sized bed, so it's a good-sized throw. I've called the lady to arrange to deliver it to her.

And fast on the heels of that project, another one landed in my lap today. At our prayer shawl group, one lady brought in an unfinished throw. It's a bit of a mess. A 90 year old lady succumbed to Alzheimer's, and could not finish it. The colors are nice (none of that shocking orange, lemon yellow, and black that you sometimes get in crochet work!!), and the stitch looked interesting, so I took it on.

There's a subdued diamond stitch, imbedded in the pattern. I really like it. Two things I do NOT like about this pattern: 1) each row is cut and tied off on the end. I refuse to do this! and 2) the pattern instructs me to only crochet in the back yarn of each stitch, which is a bit of a pain, but I'll do it so that the pronounced lines of stitch are maintained. It is a nice touch. You can see this in the top white rows, below -- the lines of front loops are standing out.

And ... making sense of the pattern that came with it. I like mysteries :)

The worst thing is that the ends of the afghan are not straight. She was not consistent with ending her rows. I will probably add a panel on either end to tidy it up. We'll see. It will add length to the throw/shawl, which would be helpful, as it's a tad short.

Rescuing crochet projects, that's what I do! Anybody else have an abandoned crochet project out there that needs to be finished up and given a new lease on life? (But, NO GRANNY SQUARES!!!)