When I was a crochet kick a few years back, I picked up some mixed-fiber yarn from Bernat Mix Home. It has five different fibers in it~acrylic, cotton, nylon, wool, and polyester. At the time, I was hoping the company had more ideas for what to make with this funky, chunky yarn than just the blanket pattern on the inside label. But, I couldn't find any. Nor had any crafter played with the yarn and posted photos. Googling it today, I discovered many adventurous crochet lovers have tackled this unusual product.
The first project I made using the green yarns. I can't remeber now if I used one skein or two. My idea was to use it as a fiber bulletin board. I added a wooden dowel at the top with green leather cord. But it was so small, so strange, and so uneven I abandoned the idea of giving it to anyone. It's not totally bad when I look at it now. Maybe a funky wall hanging?
Last week, I went through my big bin of yarn (there's a reason I've been on a yarn diet!) and found the one I started and stopped in the blue colors (Wedgewood). Picking it up, I continued working on it the last week and, bit by bit, I've finished the three skeins I had. It's an interesting piece and Winnie, my denim whale, likes it.
For both pieces, I just used a very simple single crochet design, back and forth. I chained a length that I liked and then just repeated. Using a 10 mm crochet hook helped get through all those thick textured fibers. The hardest one to crochet through was that bumpy part held together with some kind of black thread. Sometimes I felt l was only guessing where the previous row was as I inserted the hook to make the next single crochet. I was always happy to be done with that section and on to the other four fibers. Ironically, it's the most dramatic and textural on the finished piece.
