Bird embroidery

Here is another block for the the baby's book!  She is coming in less than 2 months, and I have 3 done.  Another is on my embroidery loop, an elephant.  However, so far the birds are tied with the monkeys of being my favorite.

I'm a tight crocheter



I have started working on the Crochet Guild of America Master's samples.  The samples above are from swatch #10 where they have you making a gauge swatch.   As you know from previous posts I have learned that I need to do swatches more regularly, but haven't really done so yet.  With this exercise I have fully accepted that I HAVE to do swatches from now on, especially for garments.

For the swatch it has you use a worsted weight yarn, do 14DC in 6 rows that should measure 4" by 4".  The recommended hook from the yarn company is an I, which I used on both.  The top one is my first attempt.  It measures 3" by 2 5/8".  A bit off, don't you think.  It took me several attempts with changing hooks and the height of the first YO look of each stitch to finally get mine to measure 4" in both directions.  I lost count of the attempts.  I know I tried 4 different hooks, a K, then J, back to the I, and finally to a different I hook.  This doesn't even go into the number of attempts with each of the Is.  I felt like I was making my loops HUGE to get it right, but it got me there and now I can move to the next one.

Now, I just wonder how off my gauge was on the Luna Sweater.  Do I even want to know?