Monday Thoughts

I'm writing this on my second cup of coffee this morning, contemplating mainly the yarn projects I'm currently working on and want to make. Not sure if this will get published today (Monday) or not. But hopefully sooner than later.

Some of the current things I'm working on yarn wise. I am crocheting a virus shawl. The initial patten I had found was the Virus Shawl | Virustuch by Julia Marquardt. I could have sworn it was free at one point (it may have been) b/c I have a pictorial pattern for it that I remember getting from there. It's very possible that I'm misremembering. The Julia Marquardt pattern is a paid version, but they do have video tutorial on showing how to make it, so there's that. The Virus Shawl – Sultan Deluxe by Tine Sommer Hansen is free written pattern for something very similar. I've made SEVERAL of these using Hobbii's color changing cotton cakes. Once you get the gist of the repeat, this makes for a very nice, sort of mindless crochet. I am working on one that goes from a cream color through a violet and ending in black. It's an untwisted 4-ply where one of the for ply's changes to the next color every so many yards/meters. Example can be seen here of the cakes.

The next thing I've worked on (and finished) was a Lay Flat Dice Bag by C.B. Williams. I had some yarn I wasn't 100% sure what I was going to do with, but I did stumble across this pattern and enjoyed making it. I did have to adjust the pattern a little b/c I wanted to use ALL of the yarn and not just some of it. I also wanted a lightly larger bag than what I would have gotten  just following the pattern - I noticed that the number of rows doubled in between every increase row, so I just followed suit until I felt I had just enough yarn to make an I-cord draw string for said bag. The cord is a little longer than what I would typically want for the bag I ended up with, but I'd rather it be a little long than have some yarn that was too long to just pitch and too short to do anything with.

I'm currently crochet the Red Heart Crochet Cat Pouch out of some yarn that was gifted to me in some nice bright short color changing yarn. I am also knitting the Sockhead Slouch Hat by Kelly McClure in some yarn from Another Crafty Girl (Strong Sock base in the "I'm Surrounded by Fools!" colorway - based off Skeletor from He-Man). I've altered the hat slightly after the ribbing b/c I kind of wanted a pattern there than it being all garter stitch. We'll see how it looks. I may need to rip back to the ribbing and start over.

There are a couple things on my radar that I want to make, some I don't have the yarn for at the moment and others I do. I want to knock out more of my stash before getting more yarn, so the Embrace Octopus Sweater by Maia E. Sirnes is something I want to do but I dont quite have the yarn for just yet. It'll be fun since I've never made a sweater for myself before. But for things I do have some sort of yarn to make it with the Pure Mesh Pullover by James N Watts, Floral Fade by Stephanie Lotven, and Vittorio Cowl by Janelle Martin are all in my personal que to start working on next.

I still really haven't done much with the crocheted ripple blanked I started back in 2009. It's "glaring" at me from the corner of my bedroom. It'll be finished in due time.

I'm also thinking about the current state of things. Here in the US, there are legislators (predominantly if not exclusively on the state level) that are focusing on (and passing?) laws that prohibit necessary health care for folks of all ages and people from dressing up (donning a persona if you will) and doing story time with children. When have we become more afraid of reading stories to children and affordable health care for all (no holds barred - no qualifying who can access it) than mass shootings? 

I strongly encourage those who live within the US to call their state and congressional representatives about it. If you're unsure of what exactly to say, there are scripts online that you can follow or riff off of when you call them (using key word or words + script in the search engine of your choice). Pro-tip from a good friend who calls their reps regularly, if you're not comfortable speaking to a live human, call after hours / on the weekend to get the rep's voice mail.

Our state and congressional reps work for us, and part of keeping them accountable is calling them and reminding them "Hey, you represent me on the state/national level, this is what is important to me." Let them know what your opinion is, and where you stand on things. Let them know they need to take the steps to ensure fair laws pass, and that the unjust ones get removed from law (at the very least scrutinized). Laws should be informed by the representative's constituents, not big corporations/organizations/religion that sponsor hateful and discriminatory (amongst other descriptors) laws that create more harm than good.