"Best Ever - Show's a Hit"

Since my last post I've been busy with the annual dance show. Most years I've been busy with costume fittings, tailoring & hemming. Then helping with transporting set pieces and props, and decorating the stage. This year we moved up from using the local middle school to having our show at the Whitaker Center in Harrisburg. They have the lights, backdrops and technology that made everything so much nicer. This year was my first year of being an assistant stage manager! Luckily, both my daughters have done stage managing in college, and the oldest is a stage manager for professional opera. I've gotten a lot of helpful information.
Thursday night was technical rehearsal, Friday was dress rehearsal, and last night was the show. So I've been busy at the theatre and not accomplished much in the way of crocheting.

But, that doesn't mean that nothing's happening here in my crochet world. I've managed to work a little on the "It's all about the Purple" Afghan. It's a very interesting pattern called "Old Fashion Fans". You start with a triangle shape as the base of the fan, then work outwards from the base of the triangle and create the fan. Then you work across the top of the fan with stitches that increase in height & then decrease, until you've created a square! Then work several rounds around the square, join the squares and add a final border. The construction was so different that I had to give it a try. This afghan will be donated to the dance studio and raffled as a fund raiser. If you're keeping track, this is the 4th annual "It's all about the Purple Afghan".

I did a group order from Smiley's yarns for our CGOA Chapter. I ordered on Wed, July 4th and got an email on Thursday that it would be shipped, and Friday, the yarn arrived at my door!! Can you get faster service? I don't think so. I also ordered a sampling of yarn, and color cards through a Yahoo group "RA_Yarnsandmore" That order arrived yesterday. I ordered color cards for a lot of worsted weight yarns, so that I can better match colors when planning afghans. I need to find a large 3 ring binder and organize all my color cards. In case you didn't know this, the Red Heart Super Saver color card has a list on the back that tells what single colors match the colors in their variegated skeins. I find this vital, saves so much time in the store, and is the only way to really match colors when buying online. I bought 2 skeins of Caron online, in the color "Off-White". Now, every other brand that has an off-white, the color is basically white. Not so for the Caron, this "off-white" is really a beige/tan shade. I can't use it for what I purchased it for, so will put it in the stash, and possibly use it with a dark green for a masculine afghan.

Yesterday, I played around online and read yarn reviews. Here is the site I was reading yesterday: "yarn reviews" Since I'm allergic to wool, I'm looking for other fibers that will create a beautiful finished crochet project. I then created an Excel spreadsheet with yarns by brand, name, fiber content; and will try to get a ball or two of each and work up swatches and write reviews. The first I'm going to try is Bernat Natural Blends Soy, it is 50% soy, 50% acrylic, worsted weight. I bought 2 skeins (through RA_Yarnsandmore) of a beautiful blue called Tidal, and it is so soft! At 2.5 oz and 134 yards each, I probably don't have enough to make anything substantial, will have to flip through some patterns.