Crocheters: Can I save this blanket??

[monkeyscience]

Okay, ultra-novice crocheter here. I only half know what I'm doing, although I'm pretty sure my knowledge has quintupled just spending an evening with my mom and a library book. Anyway, here is my problem:

I started making a baby blanket (just straight single crochet, no pattern, nothing) using yarn we had sitting around from other projects. When I ran out of one color, I switched to another. Now here I am, several stripes and many hours into my blanket and I can't find anyone, anywhere that sells yarn that's the same as the stuff in my first stripe. I don't even have the original label from that yarn, so although I think I've found out what it is online, I can't be certain. No store carries the color, and I'm not going to pay $7 shipping on yarn I *think* is the right stuff.

So the question is... Can I somehow remove the first stripe without causing the entire blanket to disintegrate? If so, how?? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

[rootzdawta]

I've tried that and wasn't at all successful.

Sorry, my dear! I don't know if it can be done!

[monkeyscience]

Originally Posted by rootzdawta

I've tried that and wasn't at all successful.

Sorry, my dear! I don't know if it can be done!

I'm kind of afraid of that... but I figure it doesn't hurt to ask!

[NullSet]

You could make it a rainbow blanket and use different colors for every stripe. I think that would be really pretty. That way you wouldn't have to remove the first stripe.

[Sagesgirl]

Originally Posted by apecaut

You could make it a rainbow blanket and use different colors for every stripe. I think that would be really pretty. That way you wouldn't have to remove the first stripe.

That's what I was going to say. It's called a scrap afghan (or "scrap ghan") and they're pretty popular. My mom traded a few for magazine subscriptions. Just make sure all your yarn is the same weight, for simplicity's sake (and if your stripes look pretty much the same, then take the weight from the stripe of yarn you know about and run with it).

Or, as an alternative, assuming you do know/have plenty of one type of yarn, use that as a constant stripe color and just vary all the other stripe colors. Sort of like: blue, white, blue, green, blue, orange, blue, pink, etc.

[vanauken]

I think you can save it, but it'd be tricky.

Now, mind, I've never tried this, but I've crocheted for a lot of years. Free advice is worth what you pay for it, kay?

But crochet is all loops pulled through loops. I think you could thread a new piece of yarn through your first row of loops in the second yarn color, and then pull out the first stripe, and you'd have all your loops of the second color threaded onto that new piece of yarn (you'll need to have tied that new piece of yarn into a giant loop itself, so the other loops don't fall off of it). From there you'd have to figure out how to crochet them closed, but I think it'd be possible. (Probably you'd actually want to turn it around, treat the bottom as the top, and crochet a base row onto both the new yarn the loops are strung on and through the loose loops themselves.)

Again, I'm pretty sure this is possible, and I'd try it if it were my blanket, but if you're new too crochet, it might be too tricky a proposition.

Hope that made some kind of sense!

(again, if it doesn't work, you'll have pulled out all your work and just have a mess of yarn. So don't try it unless you're sure about it!)

[monkeyscience]

Thanks for the suggestions, mamas. I think I'm going to try vanauken's advice, and see what happens. If it all falls apart... well, it was good practice, right?

The thing about making it a 'scrap afghan' or using other colors is... I'm already doing that! It's a baby blanket for a friend, and I have a very definite opinion about what colors I do and don't want to include, and... well, it was a silly project to start so half-baked, but there you have it! Worst comes to worst, I have another one I'm working on I can send her (which I think I've finally managed to keep from shrinking or growing... why is this so hard??).