Ripply Beast

Good lord. Six days since my last post. Apologies. I swear I have so much to tell you (my new camera, the latest Classic I read, the list is endless) but I just don't have the time. Stupid work. Stupid other things taking up my time.

Anyway. I wanted to say thank you so much to all of you who chipped in on the grand debate about what I should do about the blanket I'm making for my Dad and his wife this Christmas. The majority of you seemed to be in agreement that I should really follow what my heart wanted me to do and start again.

And at pretty much the same moment as I decided to start again Heather announced that she and Lucy were starting up a Ripple-along and encouraging everyone to get their ripple on together. Like some kind of dirty crochet orgy.

Hurray! What excellent timing.

And so I am throwing my hat in the ring. I need to get my ripple on anyway but this will give me an extra kick up the bum because I will no doubt feel like I'm lagging behind everyone else.

So here marks the beginning of my Ripple-along Blanket.

There is a drawback to rippling though. And that drawback looms ominously on the horizon like some horrible yarny cloud.

The beginning chain. Yes shudder in your boots people. God I hate that beginning chain. I hate that you have to sit very quietly on your own and count like a counting demon counting all his important demon things. And then once that ordeal is over then you are faced with the foundation chain which involves you sweating and swearing because even though you thought your tension was loose it wasn't really and oh my god this is the biggest pain in the backside ever.

But I took a deep breath and plunged in late one night. I have found that the best way for me to begin that first chain is to not get myself muddled up trying to multiply by 14 and then hope that I can get the right length in one go without losing count. It won't happen. My trick is to just do it in batches of 14 - so I put my head down, chain up to 14, stop, remind myself to breathe, and then it's head down and into the next 14.

This blanket is going to be a bit of beasty. I've made it so that it fits across my double bed. Yep it's a big Ripply Beast. I'm not even sure how big the beginning chain was because it was done in batches of 14 and there's really no way I'm going back and counting. Let's just settle for saying it's long.

What is great about rippling though is that once you've been through the horror of the beginning, the rippling is easy peasy lemon squeezy and is a dream to just sit calmly and go up and down and up and down like a ripply dream.

Which is why, just 4 days after making that first loop around the hook, my Ripply Beast now looks like this...

Hurray! Four whole rows of ripply goodness.

Actually. There's five rows of ripply goodness, I just haven't taken another photo since earlier this evening.

I would tell you what colours I was using, it's Stylecraft DK (obvs) but the piece of paper I have on which I have written all the colours down is on the other side of the room and I literally cannot be bothered to get up of my backside and pick it up. Sorry. It's the truth. I'm a lazy rippling crocheter. Don't judge me.

And look! There's a Flickr group so you can see everyone else's photos as they Ripple-along. Lovely jubbly.

How many days left til Christmas?...