Loose ends

Like I've said before, I'm a bit of a hoarder.  Not 'stacks of newspapers and piles of garbage' hoarder, but more of a 'don't throw away a perfectly good skein of yarn when you may want to crochet an afghan someday' hoarder.  Over the years I've collected a few dozen perfectly good skeins of yarn, just waiting to be used.  I got most of them from garage sales during the 80's and 90's.  

Mom's old business card

My mother was an antique dealer, and when I was younger she would take my sisters and I with her on her garage sale expeditions.  We would always go to the same area - south Minneapolis, where she knew the streets by heart.  The night before our outing she would go through the garage sale ads in the paper, making a list of addresses that we would go to, in order from first to last.  South Minneapolis, at least the older part of the residential area, has streets named in alphabetical order.  Aldrich, Bryant, Colfax, Dupont, etc.  I think that was part of the reason Mom chose that area.

A candid of Mom in her antique-filled kitchen, 2006

We'd leave early morning to get to the best spots first, sometimes before they opened up.  Mom was not afraid to knock on a door and ask to get in early.  She loved the hunt, the excitement of finding something rare and interesting.  She wasn't in it for the money -- if she found something valuable that was significantly under-priced, she'd give the seller more money than they were asking.

While my mother looked for antiques, I would look for other things.  Mainly books, albums, weird odds-and-ends, and craft supplies.  In 9th grade I had taken an elective class called 'Creative Textiles' and learned knitting, crocheting, sewing and quilting.  I can honestly say it was one of the most useful classes I ever took in high school.  

My collection of crochet hooks

About twenty years ago I started crocheting an afghan using my hoarded yarn.  I've worked on it on and off, a little at a time.  Every few years I'll get a bug in my ear and bring it out, do a few squares, then tire of it and put it away.  I chose a simple granny square style, easy to make and pretty to look at.  I decided that I would make a 'crazy afghan' (similar to a crazy quilt), with multiple colors in multiple patterns. 

Sounds great, doesn't it?  However, I didn't figure that every time I used a color, it meant two ends of string to tie off and weave back into the stitches.  Weaving in these ends takes a lot of time.  So far I've got 72 squares made, each with three to four colors, which means about 400 loose strands of yarn to be woven.  Some of them I had already done, there were still about 200 to do.

A few loose ends dangling

Two days ago I brought out the afghan.  I took a look at all of the strands hanging down, and decided to do something about it.  So I grabbed a small crochet hook and began weaving.

This afternoon I finished tying up all the loose ends.  Now I can begin making squares again, nibbling away at my hoarded yarn supplies.  When it's finished, it will become a gift for one of my sons.  Which means that I'll need to make two more.  Let's hope I live that long!

Loose ends all tied up