Parallelograms

I'm still hunkered down at my Mom's and since I had her and and her crafty abilities held captive, I decided to try my hand again with crochet. Mom taught me the double stitch which is pretty much essential if you want to do anything crocheted. My previous efforts had left me with one parallelogram shaped blanket and a wonky dishcloth. Apparently, my fingers must either add or drop a stitch somewhere along the way. Stitching the same number of stitches in each row is pretty much impossible for me unless I count each one, an impractical solution since I'm usually interrupted by phones, kids and other domestic catastrophes.

I decided to try another dishcloth as they are small and can be easily completed in an afternoon or in my case, during that blessed block of hours known as nap time.  And now that I was familiar with the double,  I figured my project would come together that much faster. Single crochet is sturdy but SLOW. I pilfered some forgotten cotton yarn from my mother-in-law's stash (boy would I like to have a go at that woman's stash!!) and set to work practicing my new stitch.

Things went swimmingly for about six rows or so before I noticed that blasted parallelogram-like shape taking form. Crap! As I began yanking out row after row, my Mom, who was smirking at me from across the room gently removed the hook from my hands,  re-stitched my rows, and sat next to me so she could actually see where I was dropping and adding stitches. It turns out I was forgetting to chain at the end of my rows (Duh!) and starting my crochet on the first chain when I should have been starting on the second. For those of you who don't crochet, you probably have no idea what I'm talking about. But let's just say if Mom would have sat next to me 10 years ago and watched what I was doing I could have turned out normal shaped afghans and perfectly square dishcloths. Heck, I might even be doing sweaters by now! That's right Mom. I blame you :)

I was planning to break out the sewing machine and finish a dress for K but I think I might just pick up my hook and my pilfered yarn and try another dishcloth while I watch the rain roll in over the mountains. This desert girl doesn't get to see nearly enough rain. Maybe I'll try the fancy pattern I found on the back of the yarn wrapper and make the most rockin' dishcloth this world has ever seen. Everyone will want to scrub their plates with it but they won't be able to. They can't go pick up an identical one at Wal-Mart or order one off the internet. There will only be one, just one, and it will be uniquely made by me. Super cool.