63 easy to crochet: heirloom afghan; Morris fairisle

About 3 years ago at least, I bought some Decor in 3 colors for this gorgeous afghan by Darla Sims (Leisure arts #555). There's a Yahoo group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/63AfghanCrochet and also a blogging group http://yarntomato.com/63squares/ doing this one. Anyway, I restarted it this weekend doing about 5 squares so far. The problem is getting them on gauge and for that one needs to be constantly checking and then changing the hook size. H or 5.00mm is the recommended hook but I find that 4.00mm is working for me although one square was good with the 5.00mm. The problem is getting the edge sc going around each square to work out to 25 sc. I can't do it. So I've decided to just make each edge look right and then when I finally sew them (after blocking) I will skip where I must in order to get them matched up.

I thought that maybe I would have to forget this one but I really do want to make it so that is my plan.

I also started a nice fairisle from an older Cast on (fall 2000) by Charlotte Morris using the Harrisville shetland style yarns also in my stash a few years. It looks like a very simple fairisle being only a 6 stitch repeat. So I have already changed the pattern. With 6 sts I see no reason why each size has to jump 24 sts so I want my fairisle to be around 45" on the chest and with my gauge of 7 sts=1", I know that about 320 sts around is right for me. So I rewrote that part of the pattern and also changed the # of ribbing sts.

Beading: I signed up for the second set of classes because I found that the Israeli train system is great and gets me very near to school in only 10 minutes from my town. The train is new, very clean and I would give it top rating except for a few points. There is a very long walk inside the terminals to the actual train. There are elevators but I took the elevator at the main center in Tel Aviv around 8pm when it was already dark outside. When the door closed, there was complete darkness until I reached the floor and the door opened. That was kind of scary. And also, while the announcements are great, they are only in Hebrew and there aren't many signs in English. I know that Tokyo or Hongkong have English also and I think this is a bad mistake. However, the employees that I met were very helpful. So because of this great train, I have signed up for another 6 classes and the teacher told me it is not beadweaving that I have previously learned. I think if all goes well, I will also take the next course after this one with the antique style of beading which uses wires and beads and is gorgeous.