My non-random placement of randomly placed squares

I am (now really) nearing the end of the Summer Throw aka Projek Bohemia V.2

There goes Tommie Cat

I was checking it out for size, out  on the floor and over the bed, and decided that the hooking will Stop Just Right Here, and posted about it on Ons Hekel, when my friend Hilda said I Must Please blog about my seemingly non-random square placement (I explained my line of thinking to her previously and she totally got it when she saw the photo).

(The size is right - the left and right rows hang over the sides of a Q-sized bed).

Now first - I have a Gemini mind.  

Left and right.

Mad colourful and monotonechrome.

Cool and warm.

Noise and quiet.

Order and chaos.

And so forth.

You should see my whole brain profile...it's almost square. Not really dominated by any one quadrant.

See?

So where I wanted to make a blazing technifullcolour blanket, it also had to be ordered.  I can never get random placement right because I have Rules.

Cool must be offset by to Warm.

Tints by Shades.

Hues by Tones.

I make myself crazy with moving squares and stripes around until I get the right order, and then still That One will jump our at me and I will see it ALWAYS.  It's not in the right place.  

I hate it when I look at other "random"  blankets and I see dark squares clustered together and it's not balanced on the other side.

I might also be a bit OCD about this.  

So, here's how I went about placing the squares on this blanket (I had a simpler try-out with Projek Bohemia V.1):

Balancing precariously on matress on quite a high bedstead, hence a distorted blanket

Starting out with nr 1, right in the middle of things. 

Then (2) added two contrasting squares, either sides.
Then (and here I wasn't thinking, coz I used the pink) on the other two sides (3).

Now I needed to fill in some corner gaps, so in went the neutrals (4).
And here I ran into trouble, because I LOVED the green (5) and wanted to use 4 here, so it went next to the previous cool colour...horror. 

Okay, flank it it with yellow (6).

Can't use orange now, because I just used it in the edges, so I cringed and went for the lime (7).
Okay, corner gaps, so back to the blue (I loved the blue as well) (8).
Brought in some warmth again with pink (9).

Flank it with turquoise (10) because that will look lovely.
It's been a long time since red, so...red (11).

And so on and so forth.  

And even so, with my rules, I had to break my rules.  

The same with the joins - the idea was to join the squares in very contrasting colours, hence the lime with navy, orange with taupe, green with pink.

And again, I broke the rules.

I'm not entirely happy with the navy-lined orange, but there's no way I'm going to undo anything now (contemplated that for a few minutes).

In retrospect, I could have left out the neutrals.  But then I also didn't want the throw to be too girly, because my poor, suffering husband has to live with it every day as well.

What I AM happy with, is the symmetry, or the balance. I must have balanced colour placement.  It irked me to add the rows on either side to make it hang over the bed (but I didn't want to add it on all four sides).

See, it will fit.
(That bookshelf?  It's the Still To Read.  Giving me nightmares).

So.  Now it's done and nothing is going out or in and I'm working on some border samples.  

My sistah says I always overthink these things.

Can't help it :-D

(So shall I add a row or to of SC in red or navy before I start The Edge? Just to mark the transition??)

When my Mzansi makes blankets

Last year some time, Carolyn Steyn was challenged to make 67 blankets for Mandela Day.  She responded by organising an event that yesterday tripled the Guinness World Record for the largest crocheted blanket, covered the terraces in front of Pretoria's Union Buildings and aim to hand out thousands of handmade blankets this winter!

In a week that South Africa was not the happiest place, this was something good to focus on.

Thousands of knitters and crocheters had worked on beautiful blankets, to give away to strangers, to people in need, in crisis.  Everyone who has made a blanket knows that you don't do it in a just a few days, and that, for me, is the greatness of this event, that thousands of people had been willing to put in the time and the effort, from grannies to school girls, corporate yuppies to the Sharks rugby team, this is was a collective effort that makes one happy.

When my Mzansi makes blankets, we go big. 

Today in The Times. Photo: Peter Morey

It started with unpacking and stitching the blankets together
Photo: Carolyn Steyn

Breakfast tv was there!

My friend Kotie quickly walked over, as this is almost her back yard

How amazing is this!  Filling up the terraces.
Photo: Peter Morey

Fantastic aerial view of the Union Buildings and gardens
Photo: Peter Morey

The blankets are still being counted, as some were received yesterday on site and more will be received until July.

I wish wish wish I could have been there!

Visit the FB Page for 67 Blankets for Nelson Mandela Day here.

The hellohart team posted a beautiful selection of 67 blankets plus their favourites.

And remember our yarnbomb of ±630 blankets at the Voortrekker Monument last year, plus other record efforts in South Africa?

What I made with Moya - A yellow lacy scarf

When I received my gift pack of Moya Yarn, I didn't immediately have a plan with the Canary yellow yarn.  I chose it because it looked lovely, and I knew something would come up.

And so, something did.  Easter break was approaching,  as was our upcoming 3h roadtrip for Ironman South Africa and I would need something for my hands :-)

I've had the image of a loose, little lacy scarf in mind, more of a kerchief than anything else, so I took some internet patterns with me, as well as two of my Japanese crochet books.

First off was a pattern from this book:

Pretty, but it wasn't going to have the right, drapey feel. 

Second try was this one...

...great idea, but now I though another yarn would be more suitable

So I settled on this one:

...I would wear it the other way around though!

This pattern is from this book, that I bought from Pomadour24's Etsy shop

She stocks all kinds of incredibly looking books - I want to buy more and more and just sit on the stoep and look at all of the pictures.

In the end I only started out on our way back!

Passing a wind farm near Humansdorp

I took some time hooking in the car and during a pit stop at The Heath, just outside Plettenberg Bay. The boys played on the mini zip lines, the dad recovered his sore and tired body with some craft beer, and I cooled down with home-made ginger beer under the humongous trees outside. 

Nearing the end I realised my edge might be a tad more ruffley than the pattern indicated...but seeing as that my Japanese doesn't really extend much beyond konnichiwa to read any of the descriptions on the pattern, I declared it totally acceptable and ruffled on:

Having a look at the shape - mmm....can do with a good block, and the symmetry...well yes, the symmetry isn't 100%, but hell... worse things happen in the world and it will be draped loosely.

(Taken on a FOGgy morning)

Relaxed and stretched out, let's play with the asymmetry then :-)

(Taken that same bright sunshiney afternoon)

And I could wear it to church the next morning, cool and foggy again!

I love how it brightens up grey and will surely use it often during our rainy winter. 

I used Moya Organic Cotton in Canary, with a nr 4 Prym hook. 

Dewa mata!