Yarn ends

 A couple of days ago I was chatting with a friend about crocheting and knitting. I mentioned that my mother had left a bag of squares to be made into a small afghan. These are a collection made from all the odds and ends of yarn she had, the crazy quilt of the afghan world.  I've been trying to find someone to finish the project because I didn't want to just toss them. I realized that if I wanted to reduce my stuff by a bag of squares, it had better be me who did the finishing.  There are 24 squares. I tried arranging them in various ways and finally decided that there really needed to be 25.

Did I mention that the squares were knitted? I can knit, sort of.  I prefer to crochet because there is only one loop on the hook at a time. Knitting, to me, is something like herding cats. These squares are not just knitted straight up and down: they are knitted from corner to corner which supposedly results in a more even square. I've never knitted squares from corner to corner: it always seemed like too much bother.  My main goal is to finish the afghan so I can find a home for it. Still, it would just look wrong to have one square knitted differently from the others. I headed for YouTube.  Almost every time I look something up on the internet I marvel at how easy it is to find information and I'm so grateful that it is. I spent some time watching videos, some several times before I gave up on them. Eventually I settled on one and began to knit the twenty-fifth square with the only yarn and needles I have. Neither the yarn nor the needles are a match for the other squares.

When I finished the square was larger than the others. Online I found a way of crocheting the squares together. I tried it several times and couldn't figure it out. I gave up and decided I'd use a needle and yarn to put them together.  The result looked ugly.  I took out the stitching and while I was at it decided to pull down the oversized square and knit it up again.  I also went back to the video that showed how to join the squares using single crochet. This time I was able to pick up on the placement of the yarn that I missed before and I began to attach the squares to form strips.  The work isn't brilliant but it is at a place where I can live with it.

The square I made needs to go in the middle. If I could place it somewhere less conspicuous I would but it is just different enough that it would stick out and there is a difference between sticking out and standing out.  It's still a bit larger than its buddies and I'm hoping that won't make too much of a difference. Finishing this afghan wasn't even on my to-do list three days ago and I've spent a good deal of time on it in the last three days while things that were on the list have gone undone. No matter: one of the great things about being retired is, in most cases, things will wait until tomorrow.