Crochet-a-long obsession

There's this thing I discovered earlier this year - 'crochet-a-long' (CAL). The one that I'm doing - Sophie's Universe - is a blanket that is built up round-after-round. Every Sunday the next part of the pattern is published online and there are thousands of people around the world who are following this. I've just completed Part 9. There will be 12 in total. Part 11 was released yesterday... I'm little over a week behind.

I started the project as a 'stash buster'. A 'stash' is the yarn you have lying around; leftovers from past projects or yarns you've bought for projects and yet have never used. I try to be disciplined in only buying yarns for current projects but over time yarn accumulated.

At first I had some good colours to work with but at a point I was facing the doom-and-gloom of black, brown and beige. So I folded and bought a spread of colours from the yarn store to embrace the rest of this project.

I've completed 74 rounds and tonight I'll start Part 10.  

There's a page for this project on Ravelry (a sharing platform only for knitting and crochet) and also a closed group on Facebook. Although a colour scheme is published with the pattern, you can do whatever you want and I love seeing what other people are creating using the same pattern. 

I've got two friends who are also doing this CAL and sharing my progress with them and vice versa is great fun. 

I just can't get enough of this! The only problem is that work and event planning and organising gets in the way - I just haven't had enough time to do big chunks. But I do try to get in a round here and a round there as opportunity presents and bit by bit my blankie is growing. I'd like to try to get up-to-date with the pattern during this week. 

I don't know how big it will be nor what the rest of the pattern looks like. Week-by-week I roll with it as the next pattern part is released - and this makes this project even more fun!

I'll be sure to share the end result with you in a few weeks.