Granny Squares

From One Project to Another..

/ jennanana / 3 Comments

Hi, friends! It’s been a while since I posted last, but that’s because my Christmas/Winter break has been crazier than I thought it would be. And because of that, this post is going to be a bit drawn out, so sorrryyyyy.  I was looking forward to being lazy most of the time, catching up on TV shows, reading books I’ve actually been wanting to read, and spending at least one entire day sleeping. I sound like a bum. But anywho, I would say that I was only partially successful with those goals. I did spend at least one (almost) whole day snoozing and cuddling with the man.  I watched the whole 2nd season of the Walking Dead in only 2 days (while working on a huge crochet project I’ll talk about in a minute..) It took me just about 2 weeks to get through the audiobook of A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. Apparently the movie has been in the works for a while now so I decided to read it before the movie comes out and I must say it was an entertaining read! I’ve only made it half way through Kira-Kira by Cynthia Kadohata. It was the 2005 Newberry Award winner and I’m trying to get a hold of and read past winners; a task that will help me in my library career. Hmmm what else.. Christmas was nice and relaxing for the most part. Nothing too exciting to report except that my boyfriend knows me way too well and got me a watch, DD coffee, AND A TALKING HEADS VINYL.  Amazing. He rocks. New years eve was fun. We got all snazzed up and celebrated with some of his friends and had a great night. All in all my time off from school and work has been great and I don’t want it to end. EVER. However, we have one last hurrah before returning to the real world. Matt’s birthday is January 8th so we’re driving down to Memphis tomorrow to celebrate. I’ve never been but we’re going to gorge ourselves on amazing Barbeque and Blues music, and make a visit to Graceland! Yay Elvis! Pictures will come. You can count on it.

Other than all that, my fingers have been busy (not with typing blog posts, obviously) with a lot of crochet projects! Some of the things I’ve been working on: Baby booties for my cousin’s new baby, Ruby — PomPom bookmarks — small Christmas gifts (mug cozies, head bands, etc) — Sushi amigurumi which I’ll post about soon! — and two afghans. There’s more but I don’t want to list everything. But yes, you read right. Two afghans. One for a friend; it was supposed to be a house warming gift 8 months ago but I’ll save that for another post. The other is a birthday present for Matt. Hey, men, you know your girlfriend loves you when she crochets/knits you an afghan! So he told me back around September that he really wanted an American Flag blanket and if there was any one thing I’d crochet for him it would be that. I got to work looking for patterns and came across an image on Ravelry but since I’m the cheapest of cheap, I didn’t want to spend the whole $5 for the pattern so I used the image as a template and figured out how to do everything from the stars to joining it all together. I’m not quite finished yet, but almost there! And since he already knows what he’s getting, here’s a sneak peek at the blanket!

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I’m very happy with how cozy it’s becoming and I’m positive he’s going to love it. And if he doesn’t, he can shove it. =D

As for the Granny Square Scarves, they’re almost done! I have maybe 3 more to make and they will all be donated! I’m glad that’s almost done with because it’s a time consumer, but I know they’ll be appreciated. As soon as everything is donated I’ll post about my after-thoughts and some photos.

Well this turned out to be a longer post than I wanted, so I’ll stop now. I know I promised a lot of posts so we’ll see if I get around to them all! I hope everyone’s holidays were splendid! Tell me how they were; I’d love to hear about it! Happy almost weekend =D

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Regarding a Slight Change of Plans…

/ jennanana / 1 Comment

So this collaborative leadership project is nearly coming to an end. I’m happy with the outcome for a couple reasons: 1) People ended up getting involved, and 2) Not tooooo many people ended up getting involved. That sounds bad, so let me explain… I was afraid that this project would have gotten so big that I wouldn’t have been able to handle crocheting everything together all by myself. But I got just enough granny squares (so far) that it’s enough for me to handle. So for that reason, I’m happy with the outcome.
As for changes in the project I have decided to nix the battered women’s shelter donation. First off, my donation would not have been big enough to make a bug impact, and secondly, it would have been a hassle to make a donation. I probably wouldn’t have been able to donate them directly to the shelter and I didn’t even have all of the information on the shelter! So I was super excited when another donation option fell in my lap…
At my library every year we set up a mitten tree. People can donate mittens, hats and scarves to the tree and everything gets delivered to an organization for needy families in the community. Perfect, eh?! So I’ve already put together 3 scarves and wrapped them all cozy like around our tree. Yaayy! I plan on adding them to the tree as I make them. This makes me very happy that it’s one less worry on my part.
So all in all I think things are coming along swimmingly, as I presented my project to my class last Saturday, so that portion is all done. Now it’s just a matter of combining the squares into a mish mash of scarves and putting them around the mitten tree!
So many thanks to everyone who has donated, and even to those who wanted to but didn’t.

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A Call to my Crochet Hookers: Part 2

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Hello, hookers! I posted a while ago about my Collaborative Leadership Project. I just want to give a quick update on the progress I’m making with it!

I have started sitting in with the crochet group at my library and they seem to be excited about the project.  A few members have learned to work in the round and have expressed interest in making some squares as soon as they get it down pat, which is great! I’ve also received a small number of squares from some of my co-workers at the library and even some friends who crochet, so a huge THANK YOU to everyone who has helped and who plans to help out!

I’ve stated that my deadline to submit squares was December 1st, but I am going to push it back to December 15th, maybe even a few days more.  I want to make sure I get as many squares as I can for this donation of granny scarves! I haven’t started assembling them just yet, but as soon as I do, I’ll get some more photos up. But for now, here is the first batch of donations! Yay! These were only the first four I received, so I have a small stack on top of these. So THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to everyone helping out with this! Keep them coming

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A Call to all My Crochet Hookers

/ jennanana / 5 Comments

You may or may not know, but I am in Grad School for Library Science. One of the classes I’m in this semester is a leadership course where, surprise, we learn how to be successful leaders.  Throughout the semester, each of us has to come up with and present a Collaborative Leadership Project.  I’m not entirely sure if we’re required to actually follow through with the project, but I feel like my “do good” meter is running low so I actually want to follow through on my plan.  I knew from the start I wanted to incorporate my hobby of crocheting and use the resources available to me (my blog, colleagues at the library, and the crocheting community) to do some good.

So here is my call to action:

I’m hoping to collect as many granny squares as possible from anyone who has the time or wants to do some stash busting.  Every granny square I collect will be joined into scarves, and if this turns out to be bigger than I expected, they will also be turned into small baby blankets.  Once I conjoin the squares, the scarves and blankets will be donated to a local women’s shelter on the South Side of Chicago.  I’m hoping to get a nice big batch by December 1st, 2012 so that during the month of December when I’m not busy with school work I can work on joining the squares and donate the scarves and blankets by the beginning of January. Chicago should be in for a cold winter (though considering what we had last year, ya never know!) so I want to make sure these women who deserve some love and care get that love and care.  I’m referring to this project (for now…until I come up with a more catchy name..) “The Warmth of a Granny Scarf”

So as I said, I’m calling out to my fellow crochet hookers! I’ll list the requirements below and the mailing info. Please help me out with this. Granny squares are so simple and even if you only have time to make a few, it will still be a big help!

  • Use medium weight, 100% acrylic, machine washable yarn. If you can’t use this yarn, that’s okay too. Like-squares will be joined together.
  • Feel free to use any color(s) you want! The more color the better. Make them solid, or use multiple colors in one square.
  • Only do four rounds, as the fifth will be the joining round.
  • Use a 5mm/H gauge hook.

If you don’t know how to make granny squares, don’t fret! I’ve found some really helpful patterns and step-by-step instructions from some awesome blogs. So go check those out for some ideas.

Once you have a nice stack, send them to me:

Jenna Harte
2730 W 97th Pl
Evergreen Park, IL 60805
 

Thank you so much in advance to everyone who participates. If you’d like to enclose a little card or something I’ll include that in my package when I drop off the scarves. Otherwise I’ll include your name (unless you’d like to remain anonymous) in a note.  Please pass this along to anyone it wouldn’t otherwise reach and let’s see how many squares can warm the hearts and souls of these women.