No Fiber Friday For Me

Hello:

At 7:00 this morning the sun rose over the Cascades through just a bit of clouds.  One hour later, the clouds had lowered a bit, but were still just above the lake.

I was working on one of two 6 in. squares I needed to finish for my Arithmancy OWL Afghan for HPKCHC.  My goal for the OWL is twelve 12 in. afghan squares and ten 6 in squares.  The whole afghan will be 20 12 in. squares and the ten 6 in. squares.  I planned to make the other eight squares for classes.  To get the points for making the 50% mark, I need to turn in six of the 12 in. squares and five of the 6 in. by the end of this month.  For my own sake, to finish the afghan by the end of November (my goal), I need to have twelve of the 12 in. squares and six of the 6 in. finished AND all those squares hooked together.

I really need to crank out the squares this month.  So, I was working on number 4 of the small squares and getting ready to head out to Crossroads for Fiber Friday, when my phone rang.  It was one of the schools where I am trying to get some substitute teaching work.  Was it possible for me to come THIS morning and teach 3 periods of Math?  Well, heck!  um... It's FIBER FRIDAY? Does no one respect the need to get together with your stitch buddies for some serious stitching time?

I said, "Yes," of course, put away my hook, and drove out to substitute teach.  I had fun, the kids were great.  When I got home, I finished the two small squares I need for the 50% mark.

One of the fun things for this afghan is that I am trying to make all new squares, not reuse even my favorite squares from the last two years of the BAMCAL group on Ravelry.  

I am making the squares for September, October and November for the afghan.  But that won't be enough squares, so I get to look at the past years of the group from before I joined it for more squares.  And I have already designed one new square (though I haven't written up the pattern, yet).  This is especially true for the small squares, as the BAMCAL group chooses two 12 in. squares each month but only one 6 in. square.

Today I made squares from the 2011BAMCAL.  The first is called SmoothFox Flower Button Granny 6x6. 

This is a very simple square.  I like how the pattern gives the feel of a granny square, but is more filled in,.  I especially like how the the first two rounds look.

Usually, the first round is almost solid double crochets.  This square has a granny first round, and the second round is the solid round.

The other square I hooked today is Antique Pearls Square by Pricilla Hewitt.  She uses a series of triple crochets (trc) and single crochets (sc) but working on the wrong side of the square. 

This is the same motif used it the beautiful center of the Crocodile Flower Square by Joyce Lewis.
The Crocodile Flower square uses a more concentrated grouping of these bumps.

In the Antique Pearls square, this trc, sc, motif is repeated for the border.

It is just a beautiful square.

I need to make one more big square and get these hooked together for the turn in.  I don't really need to have the squares hooked together, but I WANT to get that done.  So, that is one of my goals for this weekend.

Peace,
f1bercat
shaping the planet with pearls.