Advancements in zig zaggery

I have just changed out of my new jammies.  I love the feeling of new jammies, and could wear them the whole day but the prospect of having new knick knacks to put on was also a delight.  Has been a bit of a quandary situation as, being in a 'foreign' country not knowing where one buy such things when there is no Marksies or Dunnes about!  Eek.  I did see some scrumptious jammies in a catalogue that I have fallen in love with (but never bought from as v expensive!) called Garnet Hill but they were 29 dollars !! and that was when they were reduced, so quite pleased I got 2 pairs for $24.  Turns out the answer is Walmart - not very chic but lovely all the same.  We had a HORRIFIC family shop there yesterday, we had to get stuff for our hols including shoes for all the little ones, so we /all/ had to go.  I am quite well used to shopping with 3 children, but its still, a challenge, as none of them will stay in the trolley, or they all want to be in the trolley and there is only 2 spaces.  Hubby did not handle so well, and as a result it was quite stressful. BUT I persevered, as its quite a trek to this shop and I really didn't want to have to go back this week, so pretty much got all we needed.  The rest of the day was under a rain cloud though :-(

Anyways, now I am dressed and all the boys have gone to the park and I have a bit of time Home Alone - very rare and very precious, also I don't know how long they will be, so am trying to cram loads in.  Kettle has just popped so I will be back in a mo with a cuppa......

Oh they are home and I have nothing written!

So I have discovered something in my ventures in zig zaggery.....  When I was first looking at the instructions, it says, somewhere, to do a few try outs just to get into the swing of things.  Of course I am far too impatient for that so it has take me quite a few rows and colours to finally get into a comfortable understanding of the 'flow' of the pattern.  As you can see in the pattern picture in Attic 24 there is a lovely neat orderly row of ripples, well mine has only been like this for the last 15 rows or so...  For a while I was despairing, and part of the reason I took I hiatus from rippling was that, although I was counting religiously, my ripples were STRAIGHTENING!  Argh.  Anyhow, I have discovered that I should be increasing and decreasing my lines in the same place as the lines below, and just using the counting as a rough guide.  As a result, the ripples lie much more uniformly. I don't mind so much, I am going to keep this blanket for me and me alone, so I can live with its imperfections.  Previous blankets (#1 and #2) were sent off as presents - both to the UK.  I am quite startled about how long it takes to post packages to the UK (I was thinking a week and in some cases it has been 3 months, and the second package hasn't even arrived yet!!!).  I finished the baby blanket with a scalloped edge but for some reason didn't get a picture of it, duh!

Blanket #1

Blanket #2

Anyway, as a result this experiment in zig zaggery has made me more confident about doing rows in crochet, and controlling the size.  Until now,  I have found squares more controllable because they start from the centre and go out and are therefore easier to make into uniform square.