Some yarny talk

First I'll report that I'm now 13% done with my postage stamp binding. I've even turned a corner! A little progress every day will get me there.
But today is all about yarny talk. I picked that up from one of the YouTube channels that I follow. Pamela has a nice channel and she opens by inviting listeners in for some "good ol' yarny talk". She's also Southern so that's a bonus. I've used 2 of her patterns so far for a pocket shawl and the cheer leader doll outfit. 

Today's yarny talk starts with finishing a second Divine hat. I love making this hat. It goes so fast. This is the second one with this yarn. I made the first one with J (body) and H (brim) hooks. I made this one with I and 7 and it fits me better. Both will be donated to a breast cancer oncologist office. I had a good bit of yarn left over but not enough to make a 3rd hat. I remembered this shawl that I made in August from the same yarn so I pulled it out and added 3 rows to the bottom. All that was left was that tiny bit of yarn and I'm cool with that.
I really hate leftover yarn and always look for something to do with it. Fortunately, in this case, I had not delivered the shawl to the donation center yet.

My next chemo hat is this one. I bought 3 balls of this yarn at the Hobby Lobby clearance in June. I think I paid about $1.50 for each skein! These are going to make some classy hats. I have the same yarn in some bright colors for more playful hats. The yarn is soooo soft that I think they will be perfect chemo hats. The oncologist office is near my doctor's office. I'll be seeing her in late November to follow up on some tests so I'm going to see how many hats I can complete by then.

(Side note, I got my first set of labs back today and all I can say is "Yay vitamin D"! If only I had knows about vitamin D years ago I could have solved so many problems so much earlier.)

Back to yarn. 
Do you remember when I started doing crochet and I said "I'm not going to stash yarn". Yeah, I didn't really believe it either. Our fabric stashes are really valuable especially when we need something quick to finish off a project. Well, that works in yarn too and I do have space, soooooo......I buy clearance yarn.

This blanket 36 x 49 and made with Premier Serenity Chunky yarn. I planned it for a dialysis patient blanket and I wasn't exactly sure how big of a blanket I could get from the 11 balls of yarn that I had. Like all of my yarn, I bought it on clearance from somewhere. Corner to corner is so perfect for this kind of blanket because it makes a really squishy blanket and crochets up really, really fast. it also makes it easy to size as I go.  I started in one corner and kept increasing both sides until I used 4 balls of yarn, then I went straight up (increasing only on one side) until I had 4 balls left. Genius right? Yes, indeed, if it had actually worked. Take a look at the upper right corner.

See how much extra gray marl there is there? That's not Serenity Chunky yarn . I had no intention of buying another ball online to finish it. That one ball might have cost more than all the other balls combined.....it was that much on sale.
Off to my stash to get some white and gray worsted weight. I figured I could blend white and gray and that it would work well enough.

Then I found this Bernat twist and it was PERFECT! I don't even remember buying it but I'm guessing it came for Joann. I think I paid about $1.20 for it. I remember going in there once and bringing out a whole bag of yarn for about $20.
That was all the justification I needed to take advantage of a big sale at Lion Brand. They had a lot of yarns about 70% off. I put a ton of it in my cart and then reduced it to enough for 2 blankets and 2 wheelchair shawls. The next week they had a general 35% off so I bought yarn for 2 specific projects that I wanted to do for myself. One is a blanket done is squares for a travel project and the other is a sweater/duster jacket.
I'll take a moment now to comment on Lion Brand customer service. The first order arrived yesterday and there were 3 balls of yarn missing. I emailed them around noon and received a shipping notice for the missing yarn within 2 hours! That's great customer service right there.

When I went out to pick up my sewing machine Tuesday I took the opportunity to drop off this box of donations to From The Heart. It has 2 dialysis blankets, 1 wheel chair blanket, 2 wheelchair shawls, a baby hat and 24 walker caddies. I also included some yarn that I didn't like working with. It's a yarn that most people love and they were thrilled to get a donation of new yarn. They have a big yarn wall where people can get free yarn to make items. That's another reason that I don't mind my yarn stash, I can always donate unused yarn there and they really appreciate new yarn and yarn in quantities to make whole projects.

While I was there I was talking to them about stuff that they need and they showed me dialysis sleeves. The patients can't wear sleeves so they like to have knitted  or crocheted "tubes" that have ribbing on both ends that the patient can slide up their exposed arm while getting treatment. 
I had already decided that I really didn't enjoy making scarves and hats on the loom and they get soooo many hats and scarves that I didn't thing they needed more. These sleeves seem like a great idea so I got one started last night.
A while back I watched this video for the beehive waffle stitch and this seemed like a good project to use it. So far, so good and it goes pretty fast.

I have to loom knit for a few days because my hands need a crochet break.

Today Chris leaves for a golf weekend trip so I have 4 days alone! By Monday the ornaments will be packed and ready for delivery sometime soon. I also hope to get a lot of that binding done. I'm taking Mom to her eye doctor appointment tomorrow so I'll have a little bit of crochet time too.