Project II.i - Giardino

Project II: Giardino Inception: Monday, 16 October 2006
My cousin just had an adorable baby girl (who happens to be the first great-great-grandchild of my immigrant ancestors - if that makes sense. At any rate, she is the first American great-great-great-grandchild of my furthest-back-root on my family tree, my bisbisnonno Luigi.) to whom I would like to give a homemade Christmas present.

The plan is to make an amigurumi octopus out of Baroque Homespun, which I purchased on sale at Michaels. (Yes, despite countless visits to and oglings at Article Pract, I am still too cheap to buy nice yarn.) I like the overall look and feel of Homespun well enough, but it can be a pain to crochet; the stitches often look split in two.

As I've mentioned, I'm not nearly proficient at crocheting in rounds, so I've been practicing whenever possible. I started crocheting this on the way to class Monday and am proud to announce that I am capable of running down Telegraph while crocheting.

I started out on Monday with 8 sc, increasing by 8 each time until I reached 40 stitches and it became apparent that 40 stitches were at least ten too many. I had at this point been able to form a nice blob that looked like either a pot made on the first day of high school ceramics or a gumdrop. Ripping it out was thus far the highlight of my week. The carnage, however, was extensive, as splayed out atop my backpack.

Once I stopped playing around, I actually got something accomplished today: the body, crocheted in single crochet rounds of multiples of six stitches (6 - 12 - 18 - 24 - 30 - 36 - 36 - 30 - 24 - 18 - 12). Furthermore, he was named Giardino, in honor of The Beatles. I have now to decide how to proceed with the legs, buy some stuffing, and determine the appearance of his face.