Remember that pic I showed you a week or so ago? With the dumpling’s blanket? Yeah, it’s a lot bigger than that now:
I’m really quite pleased with it, all things considered (like the fact that this is my first crochet project ever). I measured it yesterday and was shocked to realize that I’m over halfway done. Plus, the tape measure revealed – to my utter delight – that my design is almost exactly half of my needed length. So it should end up being symmetrical which is a damn near miracle, given I didn’t really start out with a plan. So yay! Looks like I’ll have this project wrapped up pretty soon!
When I started this project, I just grabbed two colors of yarn that I thought were pretty and would go well together. Since I had no idea how much yarn I would need, I thought I’d just buy it as I went along.
BIG MISTAKE
If you are thinking about doing your own crocheting project anytime soon and have stumbled upon this, please let me be clear that it was a horrible idea not to purchase all (or most) of the yarn I’d need before I started. I mean, my excuse is reasonable, I truly didn’t have any sort of first guess as to how much it would take. But! Buy first, return later. That’s my new mantra because….
I literally just bought the last ball of that guacamole color in the entire DFW area and I am thanking my lucky stars that I was even able to find it and wouldn’t have to rip out half of my project. But I don’t have it in my hands yet, so I’m still not resting easy.
You see, when I first bought the yarn, I purchased the only available ball of the guacamole color that that particular store had. They seemed to have plenty of the turquoise, but just the one guacamole. I didn’t think anything of it though – they would restock right? A few days later, when it was clear that I would definitely need more yarn, I went back to the store to pick up two more balls of turquoise but found the guacamole was still not available. AGAIN, I didn’t think anything of it – they probably only get shipments in once a week or something, right?
After working a lot on my project and measuring and calculating and realizing that I truly would need at least one more ball of guacamole (I mean thank goodness that I randomly decided to do the largest sections in turquoise!), I sat down to scour the stores. Much to my horror, guacamole wasn’t available. Anywhere. It sort of seemed to be in stock at another Michaels nearby, but when I physically drove to the store, I didn’t see it. I got back online again at home and was able to find it online in that particular store, available for store pick up. Hooray! When I changed the quantity to 2 (rather be safe that sorry), the website told me that the item I selected was no longer available. OH NOES!!!!
So yes, it seems that they had just the one single ball of guacamole left, which I immediately purchased for in-store pickup. (I actually made a separate purchase afterwards of more turquoise, but I didn’t want to risk that one last ball being sold while I was busy fiddling with my shopping cart!) I’m still nervous that they won’t actually have it after all. I was in the store not 45 minutes prior and couldn’t find it. But hopefully by this afternoon I’ll have all the yarn I need to complete my little dude’s blanket!