So after learning to crochet this summer, I was left with a bunch of random items like flowers, granny squares, and practice stitches. I decided to take them all apart and put them back together again into a single work. I liked a pattern my Mom had brought home for a popcorn granny, so I decided to turn all my white and rainbow yarn scraps into popcorn grannies. I tried out a “join-as-you-go” method I’d seen online, stitching the squares together as they were made. I discovered the importance of staggering short and long scraps: it turns out that if you use too many short ones in a row, you’ll end up trying to stitch over the tops of 5 different tails and that whole row of stitches will end up looking bloated and distended. (I had to rip everything back out and try again.)
I’m not sure if it was because a) I have a death grip and make everything too tight; b) my two yarns weren’t actually exactly the same size; or c) I didn’t do the join-as-you-go process right, but somehow my square of granny squares didn’t look very squarish. I was almost out white yarn by this point but still had a bunch of rainbow yarn, so I tried to make the edge look better with a simple scallop border that hooked into the chain spaces. The scallop really made the edge look a lot better! I even took the rest of my white yarn and made little feet for the corners. (Note: I barely got the tassels through at this length. It would be wise to make them longer than I did here.)
I still have a tiny bit of rainbow yarn left, but I largely succeeded in my mission to re-purpose all my “homework assignments” and scraps!
