The Crochet Diaries Entry 2: Kuhl Tetris

In mid-October two of my friends got married and as their wedding gift I decided to make an afghan for them. Since they're both gamers I decided to design a Tetris pattern for them. It's an idea I'd been kicking around for awhile, since the Tetris pieces are in blocks of four.

I started by finding a plain granny square that was completely solid. So many of the granny patterns I've seen have spaces, or tiny corner gaps that would not mimic the look of the Tetris blocks to the extent I wanted. I lucked out when I found the "Simple Solid Granny Square" by Krisite-Beth on my Pinterest board "Grannies & Blocks" (I swear I should never have to buy another crochet book or pattern based on the shear number of things I've pinned).

I then needed to decide on the colors for the different Tetirs blocks. I modeled my design off of those found on Free Tetris, although an image search will show quite a few variations on what color is assigned to what shape. I tried to match the colors as closely as I could, so I chose Red Heart Super Saver's Aruba Sea (light blue), Bright Yellow, Blue, Hot Red, Tea Leaf (green), Pumpkin, and Medium Purple for the shapes and Grey Heather as the background.

Planning out the actual design came next. Using graph paper I laid out my design to find a good arrangement and figure out approximately how many skeins I would need. I drew it a few times, but ended up going with the following layout (slightly wrinkled).

I tried to balance the colors, but keep a fairly random feel to the pattern, again to mimic the game as much as possible. I also wanted to make it look like the game was still going on, so I had one piece appear to be dropping down from the top.

Each square is approximately 6 in. across and made up of 6 rounds. They are laid in a 10 x 12 grid making the total number of squares 120 with the following breakdown.

Red = 12
Yellow = 12
Blue = 12
Purple = 12
Orange = 11
Green = 8
Light Blue = 8
Gray = 45

After making most of the squares I laid them out to check how large the blanket would be and decided to nix the topmost row because it was getting too long, making a 10 x 11 grid. I under estimated the squares size, but I figure it's better to have too much yarn than too little.

For joining purposes I used an invisible seam to again mimic the game as much as possible. The border was very minimal, just a round of single crochets, a round of double crochets, and a final round of single crochets.

Here's the final product. For more information check out my Ravelry project page at http://www.ravelry.com/projects/LizSvoboda/simple-solid-granny-square.

And a close-up.

I have to say it turned out very nice, though I haven't heard anything from the happy couple quite yet. Also, after showing my little brother the afghan, he has requested an 8-bit Mario design for Christmas or his birthday.

The Crochet Diaries Entry 1

I started crocheting almost three years ago.  My preoccupation with the craft, along with a succession of senior year, grad school, and job hunting, has taken me away from blogging, but now that I have some more free time I'm ready to start back up again.  To help me keep on track, I am beginning a crochet diary with this post.

I mainly make afghans because there are so many different types and they take longer to make, meaning I'm busier longer.  Also, they're easy to donate, which is what I usually do, mostly for Project Linus and the PND Auction. Sometimes I make gifts for others, which is what my current project is.

A friend of mine from high school had a baby girl last December and I am finally getting around to making her a blanket. I found this one and in addition to being easy and quick it is also incredibly cute!  I liked the neutral mix Monica used, but at JoAnn Fabrics I found this adorable variegated pink and couldn't resist.

Jiffy Variegated, Weight: 5, Color: Rose Spray

I then mixed it with this minty green and an off-white, butter cream color.

Patons Beehive Baby Chunky, Weight: 5, Color: Quicker Clover; Caron Simply Soft, Weight: 4, Color: Off White

Here's what I've got after 31 rows.

I was a little worried that the mix looked like pickle and pimento loaf or something, but I think I was just staring at it up close for too long.

I bought 3 skeins of the pink and green, but only one of the butter cream because the pattern only called for 3 skeins of each color 200+ yards each, but it isn't enough.  I'm going to have to go back and get another set of skeins because I'm about half way through and have run out of almost all of them.

Review: Judging a Book by Its Lover: A Field Guide to the Hearts and Minds of Readers Everywhere

Judging a Book by Its Lover: A Field Guide to the Hearts and Minds of Readers Everywhere by Lauren Leto

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



This book made me feel like a bad English major. I only recognized about half of the authors and titles that Leto mentions (one bit of advice is to keep paper and pen with you to take notes on all the books she references). It might be the fact that the vast majority of the books are "contemporary literature" and I haven't really read "literature" published in the last 50 years or so. My literary education focused on eras before modernism, probably because I like a linear plot and I am not apologizing for that.

It's just that after reading Judging a Book by Its Lover, I feel that there is so much I missed and now have seriously make up for lost time. However, I've gotten used to reading fun books, or commercial genre fiction (lots of paranormal fiction at the moment), so I'm out of practice with that kind of reading. I've been meaning to stop reading such fluffy books (usually with quite a bit of sex), and start on books that really make me think, but again I place some blame on my English and liberal arts classes for the sheer amount of reading they forced me to do. After all that scholarly reading I just wanted to turn my mind off, and thus fluff books and tv took over.

So I will make a resolution to start reading books that make me think. I'll start slowly and intersperse them with other types of reading as I have wanted to get back into more epic fantasy and there are quite a few nonfiction books that I think look interesting. Let's see how this goes.

On other notes Leto is pithy and acerbic at times while warm and touching at others. I'm sure that her insights into the authors and books would be more meaningful if I had read more of them, but at the same time she is often a little too critical for my taste.



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