Current Crochet Alongs

As I’ve written before, I’ve joined quite a few crochet alongs.  I get a decent amount of hits on this blog searching for crochet alongs (or CALs) to join, and I sometimes have trouble keeping track of them myself, so I thought I’d make up a post here for all of them, and also to add this fancy little sidebar “cheat sheet” to make searching for them  easier for everyone – including me!  These are all Ravelry groups – I like Ravelry because everything is sort of in one place.  But after I’m caught up here, there are a few other non-Ravelry CALs that I might join in, too!

Block-a-Month Crochet-Along (BAMCAL)

So, the first one, and the one that I’ve mentioned plenty of times before, is the Block-a-Month Crochet-Along.  And here are a few samples that I’ve been working on from that group.  These are the May selections.  And with June right around the corner, I have some new ones that I’ll be starting on pretty soon!  The yarn is a lighter weight than the standard worsted that many people use, and because of that, I use a smaller hook (4.25mm – G) and tend to have a lot of room at the end of the squares to imagine up a border to bring it up to the 12” the squares tend to be.

Crochet Sampler Favorites (part 3) – (CSF3)

Next, we have Crochet Sampler Favorites.  This crochet-along is similar to the BAMCAL, but it’s twice a month.  For these, I have a heavier weight yarn and some brighter colors.  Actually, these colors remind me so much of my childhood – I think the local roller rink was done in these colors, and somewhere there’s a late 70s little girl dress that was striped in these colors that I just loved.  So it was fun selecting them for a new sampler.  The colors are from Vanna’s Choice line, and are beige, scarlet, terracotta, eggplant, and magenta.  I’m doing my squares in this group as 10” squares.

Mystery-ghan Crochet Alongs

I’ve recently joined in a Mystery-ghan crochet along.  Mystery-ghans are exactly what they sound like – a mystery!  A clue is given to you every week or so; you follow the instructions and voila! – at the end of the last clue you have yourself an afghan!  To be honest, I am a little hesitant about Mystery-ghans, because I do so like to plan my colors out in particular fashions.  But hey, I can be a good sport.  And it’s a lot of fun to see how everyone else’s are coming along as well.  The group is Julie Yeager Designs, and my yarn for this is a combination of Vanna’s Choice and Red Heart Super Saver.  I was playing around with a brighter color scheme for summer and found these colors looked pretty dynamic.  The green is RHSS’s Spring Green and the pink is another RHSS (of which I had some scraps laying around, so I’ll need to track down the color name).  The rest are Vanna’s Choice in Magenta, Radiant Yellow, Radiant Orange, and White.

 Other Fun Crochet Alongs

Designer Melinda Miller hosts several crochet alongs, but I only really join in their designer block of the month.  I really need to keep myself in check, because I have a tendency to join a bunch of CALs and then not have enough time to finish them all up – I lag waaaaay behind, months behind, sometimes.   But, hey – deadlines are arbitrary for these!

One very creative crochet along group is Breakthrough Crochet.  The mods pick a relevant theme each month, giving several options to join in.  This is fun because there’s no real deadline on them, and there’s a huge variety of options; good when you’re picky about what you want to crochet.  And fun in that they’re very relaxed about the whole thing.

Other groups that have CALs that I sometimes participate in are here – the Mama’s Monthly Dishcloth Crochet Along (and this one’s a knit-along too), and Crafty Hookers, who not only do a monthly crochet along, but a monthly craft-along as well.

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Oh, how I wish that I could whip up some of my projects in just an hour or two and be able to do as many of these as I like.  As it is, I have plenty to keep me busy!