Why? Or... Intro to a new project

Ok. Here's the scoop....

On one of my lists, I had posted about my current projects. Not all of them - but the most active ones... The lace shawls, and the crocheted bear afghan. It was a knit list that I was posting on....

Well, someone commented that the bearghan was cute, and wondered if it could be converted to knit. I replied that basically, it was just granny squares, joined in a way to take on a teddy bear shape, and that it could just as easily be knitted squares. Then, I got off this silly machine, and jumped into the bathtub. Now, the bathtub is my retreat. I don't worry about anything, I don't think about anything in particular - just let my mind wander. It's my meditation time.... Well, my mind decided to formulate some ideas about a knitted bear afghan... And it also reminded me that the basic difference between teddy bears and toy kitties is the ears.... Well, look at most of the patterns out there... Sewing patterns that have a basic body, but different facial features, and ears, and you can make bears, puppies, kitties, bunnies.... All from the same basic pattern.

So... A plan was born.... Then, on that same knitting list, someone else wondered if I had plans.... And I do.... So.

I'm going to write it all up here.

I've made a button, look over there on the side ------>
So, whenever I post here about the afghan, I'll send out a notice on that announcement only type yahoo group. Why? Well, because of a few things....

-This will take time to make.
-I have a short attention span, and work on more than one project at a time
-I have never written a knitting pattern before
-I am a human being, with other committments and interests
-I think there are others who want to check this out.
-This is not exactly a "knit along", but you can all knit along with me... because I will take notes, and maybe (likely) will attempt to gather it all together as a free pattern when I'm done.

Now, the first thing I'm going to do, is share my yarn choices.

Today, I'm going to do my usual weekly shopping, and I'm going to buy some yarn for the kitty 'ghan. I plan to buy big balls of Red Heart yarn. Apparently, the Walmarts here have some sort of deal, that they get big 454 gram balls of yarn to sell... that you can't buy elsewhere. BUT - other yarn companies do have "pounder" balls. So... Take it from there.

I'm going to buy one big ball of grey, and one big ball of black. The black I can always use....

I may need to buy more later - won't know until I get there :)

I have on hand, from making the cro-bear-ghan, a fresh (or almost - it only was used for the eyes) a 6 ounce 170 gram ball of white.

I will be calling the white the "tummy colour", the gray the "body colour" and the black is "stripe colour". I would expect that I will likely need more of the grey... Maybe I'll buy two balls today of grey.... I'll have to see how much I spend on groceries...

I'm going to end up with a grey tabby. I would suggest, should you want to knit along, that you could make an orange tabby (white tummy, peach or pale orange body, and rust stripe) or a yellow tabby (white, yellow, deep yellow or rust for stripes) or a brown tabby (beige for tummy, medium brown for body, dark brown stripes) or a solid colour cat - ignore the stripe colour entirely, and tummy optional. If you want to knit a bear (I'll provide feature detail for bear later....) you could go with browns.

In the original cro-bear, the examples used all sorts of colours - I'm funny that way, in that I like "real" colours for some things.... I wouldn't be making a blue or green or rainbow kitty.... My crocheted bear 'ghan is being done in browns....

I'm also Canadian, so I'll likely be talking in metric, but will try to give US needle sizes, too....

I might, depending on time, try to give some optional squares.... I have some ideas..... I'll explain more once I get started on this :)

As I warned, I won't be posting daily about this project, but I think I'm excited enough about it, that I will not let it go on too long, or become a UFO.... :) So, sign up, and I'll send announcements letting everyone know when I mention this project on the blog :)