I have a tradition of ordering myself some kind of birthday present.

(Usually it is yarn).

This year is no exception. I wasn't overly enthused with the color bar blanket from the SnB crochet book when it first came out, but you know, every time I look at it, the cleverer I think it is as an idea.

And this week, it finally tipped over from the "you know, I want to make that someday" to an "I really want to make that and I need to see if I have the stuff to make it!"

(And it's probably as close as I'll ever get to making something with granny squares...don't get me wrong, I'm not hating on granny squares qua granny squares, but all the color-changing and color-matching probably would stall me out permanently - I'd get too locked into a "will these colors blend or fight" dilemma of indecision).

But the color-bar blanket is SIMPLE. Solid color granny squares, you make a whole mess of them, and then attach them together so it looks like the test-pattern when a tv station is off the air (which is not so common any more; it seems like during the off hours they just run those execrable half-hour-long adverts that are euphemistically termed "paid programming")

I thought I might have what I needed in my stash. But several of the Wool-Ease colors the original called for have been discontinued, and I don't own even partial balls of them.

So, perhaps against my better judgment (wool is not always the best crocheting material because of splittiness), I ordered the closest colors of Wool of the Andes (from KnitPicks) for it. (And I tried harder to match the RBGCMYK colors of a "real" color bar - some of the wool-ease colors are a bit off, for example, the C isn't so very Cyan.) (And I don't like mixing yarn types, so I just bought WotA for every color, even though I probably do have a magenta-enough Wool-Ease.)

(they're discontinuing a number of colors of Wool of the Andes. And you know, that kind of bugs me. I'd rather a basic yarn be made in all kinds of colors, always, regardless of what the fashion mavens say is "in" this season). I wasn't sure that everything would match PERFECTLY, and some of the yarn was really inexpensive, so, for example, I ordered two different reds and will see which one works best when it gets here. (The other one? Probably hats for charity, or mittens, or something. There's a fair amount you can do with 220 yards of worsted-weight yarn).

I like the idea of the blanket, not just because it's amusing, but because it seems like it would be an excellent carry-along project: grab your skeins of green yarn and go make all the green squares. When they're done, grab the magenta, etc.

(And yes, yes, I still have the Vintage Vertical Stripe Blanket that is sitting all sad in its box because I've not worked on it for months. Shut up.I'm going to get it back out sometime.)