Learning Curve and Sneak Peak on Bead Spread

As I mentioned few days ago, we did some shopping and I bought couple sets of high TC sheets to our RV. Well, yesterday we decided to try how luxurious they were and I think I learned something new. In Finland where I grew up, I never heard even a word thread count, so this was kinda grade school for buying sheets for me. I should have thought of this, it kinda makes sense now that I think about it. The sheets we have used in our bed have been 700 TC and I love how soft and smooth they are, so I thought that of course the higher the thread count, the better the quality is and it will be softer and smoother. Not so much. The tighter the threads are, the thinner they have to be (instead of 700 threads on square inch that we were used to, the sheets we bought were 1600 and 1800, so to fit two to three times as many threads into the same square inch, the threads have to be thinner, a lot thinner), so this will make the sheet also at some point to thin out. I think it is safe to say that we have reached that point a little while ago. Well, the new sheets are very smooth, but yes, you guessed it; they are also very thin. While I like them, I am not expecting them to last very long. I think I will get a bit more expensive ones in the future, just to save myself from the frustration. So it wasn't as great of the deal as I thought, but I got exactly what I paid for, I paid for a cheap stuff, and that's what i got. My theory is just a theory, but I think I will stick to my 700 TC from now on. And for the winter I would love to get a set of flannel sheets too I could not care less if there is any TC involved or not. There is a proverb in Finland: The poor man can not afford the cheap stuff. I'm telling you, the old folks know sometimes!

If you remember I took on a gigantic project of crocheting a bead spread for the Beast (I prefer Monstah or Bugout). It looks pretty masculine on the outside but there is no reason it has to look like that on the inside too, which it actually does right now. I am determined to decorate it to look a little less like the Zombie Apocalypse Vehicle. So my plan is to girly it up with some fresh colors and soft materials and the bead spread is one of those things that is going to make it look a little less aggressive. I am still a long way from finishing it, mostly because of the lack of time to work on it, but I am not too worried, once we hit the road, I should be able to work on it at least for a little while every day. And it will get done pretty soon even if it is just little at a time. I have only less than one third of the length but I am not rushing it, I am sure couple months on the road will do wonders for this project.

Operation Bed Spread

I decided to make the Revcon a bit more colorful and cheery. Well, I might have taken a bit too ambitious and time consuming project to start with, but I have decided it will be done, no matter if it will take year or two to finish it. I have always loved all kinds of crafts, and one of the things that has been pushed for years aside is crochet and knitting and I am ready to start again. I should have probably made first some potholders and washcloths but nope, I decided to make a bed cover for the California King size bed in our RV. I was planning on doing it with granny squares to keep the weight of it a bit lighter while working on it (Everyone who does crochet knows what they are, others maybe not. They are usually either square or round shaped smaller pieces that eventually get connected into a larger piece). But Lee did not like the granny square style, and I was not going to spend the best part of a year (or maybe even two) working on a project that he would hate.

I spent several days trying to figure out how to use my yarn that I had purchased for granny squares, since I had almost as much Ivory colored yarn as I had various other colors. I had enough of yarn, but how to make it so that I won't run out of any color in the middle of the row, and how to distribute the Ivory colored yarn there evenly so that it won't look like I miscalculated at some point (which would be easy to do) or that I had bought the yarn for some other project (which actually did happen) and just tried to use it in something else it wasn't suitable for.

The most difficult part was to try to figure out how to get the Ivory in there, and how to visualize to see if my plan would work or not. So I decided to take a pieces of each yarn and lay them down. One piece of yarn was going to be representing one row of crochet. One by one I set the yarns down and counted how many rows of Ivory I still have to crochet to get long enough bed cover to actually cover the bed. Once I had the amount of Ivory needed figured out, I cut the yarn and started to divide it evenly out hoping that I can come up with a pattern. I was in luck to find a way to even it all out in repetitive way. I made a sample out of each color in patter and laid them out to plan the order. This is what it is going to look like, unless I miscalculated the rows needed to finish the project.

I was hoping to get kind of effect where the colors change gradually, but with having to use lots of Ivory, I don't think it will be as smooth as originally planned. I don't know how it will look on a bigger scale, but I am sure it will be fabulous! How could it not? I am making it, so what could go wrong? Ok, please, one at a time, I know all my home boys and girls are now laughing and waiting for a chance to speak up and prove that everything could go wrong when I am in question. Maybe the first one to prove my mistakes is my super handy sister who can knit anything (she got it from me, I am sure). I am one of those people who usually just jumps into a project without any instructions, but I tried to plan this one out since it is going to be a lot of work. I am just hoping I don't have to pull it all apart after spending about 100 hours and realizing it isn't going to work.

I made about three ripples wide sample to trying to figure out how many stitches I needed in one row, but I was afraid the sample should have been longer to get more accurate estimate. And sure enough after several hours later when I was finishing my third row I decided that the piece has started to take a form to allow me to measure how wide it actually is, and I noticed it was 11 inches wider than what I wanted it to be. I am already making it wider than the mattress is, so that when making the bed, the spread will come all the way down the mattress to cover it, but I really didn't feel the need to crochet any more than what was needed, especially since one row takes a looong time. So I took the scissors and just cut of the excess. Who said you can't do that? I just did! I just tied the ends and smiled at myself. I have to still time out to see how long it is actually going to take to finish one row, but it certainly is more than one hour, maybe even more than two. I am not the fastest one with the hook, and most of the time I get interrupted for this or that. And I am sure after few months other projects will take the priority, but this will get done, sooner or later. I will be updating you on this project later on.

Just to show you what the ripple design is, here is a picture of a pretty one, made by Lucy from Attic 24. And if anyone else is interested here is the ripple pattern.