circle

My first real job once I got out of school was working for a magazine that published cable TV listings.  I had to make sure the TV schedules the different channels sent in were input into the system, and write brief descriptions of the shows. File this under “jobs you never think about someone having to do”.  Way back then, cable only had about 60 channels, there was no on demand movie option, and we actually hand wrote descriptions to be input by the data inputting group. No PCs, just a main frame computer in the building.

There was Pay-Per-View, with movies only on at a certain time and big sporting events. I had to write the descriptions for the Pay-Per-View selections and also had to learn a lot of sports terms, particularly for wrestling and boxing. That is where I first heard the term “squared circle”  for a boxing ring. It still doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, but the term has stuck in my brain all these years.

I saw this pattern that claimed to magically turn a circle into a square and wanted to try it.  Here’s a confession, I don’t like crocheting rounds.  I much prefer rows, but one thing I’ve realized today is that in committing to work on something creative every day, I have also been trying new things outside my comfort zone.

I found the pattern here: http://www.purlbee.com/2012/11/15/whits-knits-bears-rainbow-blanket/. The photos that accompany the instructions were very helpful to me, especially the one that included an arrow to show exactly where the first stitch on one of the rows needed to go.

When making it, and moving from the circle to the square portion,  I had one of those moments when I thought there was no way the stitches would turn into what they were supposed to be.  Sometimes you just need to slog on and figure it will all work out in the end. And what do you know? I ended up with a square. (OK, one that needs to be blocked, but the basic square-ness is there.) I did make a mistake in one of the corners, but as this was a practice square, I did not frog the piece since I didn’t notice it until I was almost done the next round.  I also did not add the different colored border as I was not making this for an afghan, but just did a round of single crochet to finish it off.

This was a fun break from the project I was working on most of the day…going through all our old paperwork to get rid of the outdated receipts and conquering the to-be-filed pile. That was not so fun.

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