I’ve been busily swatching away on my dad’s sweater – and I think I’ve finally heeded to that little voice inside my head that tells me “Keep it simple!”

I think I must have swatched at least 20 stitch patterns at this point, and nothing was screaming ‘dad’. Moreover, a lot of them were not particularly fun to knit. Pretty, but maybe not something I’d want to do for a whole sweater. So, after all that, it came right back around to good old stockinette stitch, with some nice cable details. Easy does it!

So, now comes the fun part – doing a full gauge swatch that I’ll measure for yarn requirements and use to calculate the stitch counts of the sweater. Then the process of knitting it can finally begin. The yarn is ready and waiting.

To soothe my itchy fingers while my swatch is being blocked, I’ve begun poking at my yarn with a crochet hook again! My last attempt – really, my first successful attempt at crochet – resulted in a very ugly but quite even granny square blanket. This time, I’m going for something a bit more ephemeral. Random flowers!

Kim, our resident crochet expert, has quite a collection of interesting crochet books on her desk. I really want to learn as many neat stitches as I can, so I grabbed a motif dictionary and set about working my way through it. The motifs get more difficult the further into the book you go, which I like, so once I’ve got the hang of one section, I just move on.

The only thing that’s really hampering me right now is that I’ve got a really bizarre assortment of crochet hooks – I can’t find any ‘normal’ sized ones. So, these are made with a K hook and Full Circle Bulky – not the ideal choice for crochet flowers, but they’re big and puffy and I think they’re pretty darn awesome!

I’ve got a wild plan now to use up stash and work through this book, hopefully ending up with a neat looking blanket or something after all is said and done. I think Palette, maybe – I do happen to own every color of Palette ever made. That could make for a very cool blanket indeed! Either that or Chroma. I was so chuffed with how impressive Chroma looked in my granny square afghan that I’d love to try it in smaller doses. I think the sky’s the limit! I’m really having fun playing with crochet.

But let me tell you, as soon as that swatch is dry, I’m casting on for my dad’s sweater! Crochet is a fun flirtation right now, but I’ve waited way too long to get that sweater going.