Don’t you hate those weeks when you know you’ve been doing stuff and you were pretty sure that you were accomplishing said stuff, but then you look back to assess your progress and…
Yeah. That’s two full skeins of yarn. I’ve been working on it every evening and it still only measures about 6 inches high. I’ve got four skeins of yarn left, doing a little math… this may not turn out. Well now, that’s depressing. Especially because this yarn has a distinct aversion to being frogged (for the record, spell check does not approve of the use of “frog” as a verb). Wanna know how I know? Huh? Huh? Well, I did read it on Ravelry under the reviews for this yarn — Red Heart Boutique Treasure in “Spectrum.” Also, I have firsthand experience. Because that up there, which is supposed to be this:
From AntiqueCrochetPatterns.com (click pic for linky)
Originally started out as this:
Basketweave Capelet (Crochet Today Sept/Oct 2009)
And that wasn’t turning out right, either. I think I keep choosing patterns with too-ornate stitches that just eat up the yarn. The original project used a basketweave stitch, which is really pretty, but that time, two skeins of yarn only achieved about four inches in height. Basketweave is not the way to go if you want to build height quickly. So I scoured CrochetPatternCentral and Ravelry to find a shawl or poncho with a dense enough stitch to keep me warm this fall. ‘Cause let’s face it: with this basketball I’m sporting under my shirt, my regular winter coat is not gonna fit. The current shawl pattern uses a crossed treble stitch to make it nice and thick. And it is! And I think it would be warm!
Up close and personal with some crossed treble action
But I also cleaned out Michael’s for all of the same color lot, so I’m kinda married to these six skeins that I have. One would think that I could produce something suitable out of that. Apparently one would have to do that by making a big, uninteresting rectangle of single crochet. We’ll see.
In the meanwhile, I’ll be ripping out two weeks’ worth of work.
Two Frogs and a Grasshopper 
Since you plan to frog it anyway, maybe you can find some coordinating solid shades of yarn to add to the mix? The stitch you’re using is very pretty, it looks difficult to do.
I wish I could incorporate a solid — that would help immensely. Unfortunately, no moola to get new yarn, so I’m going to have to make do.
The treble is like a double crochet, but with one more loop. The cross part of it isn’t necessarily *hard,* but the yarn does want to slip off the hook a bit and I had to stop after each “cross” to kind of straighten it all out. Slow going!
Beautiful stitch with gorgeous yarn, too bad it needs frogging 😦
Thank you! I know, boo hoo! 😦