The little ones

My amazing yarn ball winder arrived and I have finally been able to roll all the skeins I bought last week! (read: Vinny rolled my skeins. I have no clue what seemed so appealing to him about rolling yarn but I wasn't going to argue).

Before:


After:


I purchased 3 different types of yarn, both of which are 50 grams, fingering weight yarn. One large orange skein is a 100% superwash merino wool made by Malabrigo Yarn. My white, brown, and yellow skeins are made by Regia, which is 75% superwash wool. The rest of my skeins are by Happy Feet, which is 90% superwash merino wool and 10% nylon. My favorite to work with is Happy Feet, because it's so soft and easy to control on the hook. I wish I could've purchased the beautiful hand-dyed wool from Purl Soho, but I can't cough up $15-$20 per skein. All of my skeins cost between $6-$6.95 (except for the orange, it was $18. But it's double the yarn amount).

Here were the original colors I was going to work with. The green was going to be placed very sparingly throughout the blanket to give it some extra "pop"...


But then disaster struck...

Stupid ol' me didn't know that you had to roll the yarn from the hanks (the long-twisted skeins of yarn) into balls, or else they would end up in a tangled mess. So what would have been beautiful green yarn for my blanket (pictured below)...


... we ended up with this monstrosity:


I was able to salvage as much as I could, but the rest is doomed. It is so tangled and knotted in a bajillion places it can no longer be recovered.

So, no more green for my blanket :(

Luckily while I ordered my yarn ball winder, I also threw a few skeins of Palette Yarn into my shopping basket. I found a pretty shade of purple, called Hyacinth, that will substitute the green. For only $1.99 per skein, how I could I resist? I don't enjoy it as much as Happy Feet, but it'll certainly do.

Here are the colors I am currently working with, all rolled up into cute little balls:


As for actual progress, I've only made about 14 little squares ("two-round squares"). I have made more, but those ones were not good enough and have been thrown into my rejects pile. It is tedious to make sure you have the correct gauge, so that's been slowing me down a little. Luckily I'm really starting to get the hang of it now, so I'm sure I will be speeding this up pretty soon. Also, I'm having a great time doing it! Here are the little ones:



My cousin Jaime is also visiting this week, so that's put a bit of a halt to my crocheting. However, she's been quite a dear and has given me some time to squeeze in a few squares here and there. More updates to come...