When I finished my last blog post, I had one more thing to do: wash and block the granny squares I had crocheted as the foundation of a washable purse. The only problem? What would I do while I waited for the granny squares to dry? Lucky for me, I have a huge stash of acrylic yarn that came to my crochet rescue.

Acrylic yarn gets a bum rap from a number of self-professed yarn snobs, but I am not fancy enough to be a yarn snob, and I embrace the versatility and washability of acrylic yarn. It is an inexpensive and brightly colored material that has allowed me to express myself with the same exuberance I did as a child in the early grades when, at the beginning of each year, I would get a box of large, easy to hold crayons.

Our television at home was black and white, but my crayon box had eight colors to choose from. The primary colors–red, blue, yellow, the tertiary colors–orange, green, purple, and black and white.

So while I firs turned my attention to preparing the granny squares for a soak, once I had them washed, blocked, and drying in the sun, I dove into my yarn stash looking for the colors I needed for a small, interim project.

I settled on a 3-6 month size Viking helmet using the same pattern I used over four years ago now when I made my very first (and second) crochet Viking helmets.

Using a 5.0 mm hook and Red Heart Super Saver cherry red and charcoal gray yarn–along with my now go-to Viking helmet crochet pattern I got to work. there was a brief detour as a result of not counting stitches, but soon enough everything was as it should be:

and I was ready to move forward making the other pieces that are needed to complete the hat:

Eventually, however, the squares were dry, and I wanted to see how they would look when assembled, so I set the Viking helmet aside, and spent some time figuring out how I wanted to lay out the granny squares:

Laying out multicolor granny squares can be an exercise in overthinking, but eventually my brain tired of the task and said “good enough,” and my hands were able to move forward with the joining:

I didn’t get either the washable crochet purse or the Viking helmet done, but tomorrow is a new day, an I will continue moving forward one stitch at a time.