Of late, as I practice what I think of as “pandemic crochet,” I have a general idea of where I am going, but on a day-to-day basis, I allow my hook to lead me, and today it led me (for at least one round) back to a great granny square blanket I am making.

I had been waiting for some yarn I ordered to arrived, and when the box was delivered to my doorstep today, I was able to ascertain that the best possible color for the tenth round was one that I already had: the discontinued Red Heart Super Saver rouge:

I won’t bother digressing into my quarrel with the colors Red Heart (now Yarn Inspirations) decides to discontinue, but suffice it to say, it has left me in search of another line of yarn that will consistently deliver the colors I love without yanking them out from underneath me mid-project.

I realize that a global company is exactly that–global–and that I–a color audience of one–is not who they are seeking to impress, but I have to say that over the years the loss of the colors kiwi, fuchsia, light coral, red ranch, magenta, rouge, bright orchid, blue suede, and guava from the Red Heart Super Saver line has caused me no end of color grief.

There have been some occasional winners in the new line up (I love the grenadine), but then there are additions like “flame” which have few uses, and to my mind take up space that could be better served with a more versatile color.

But my color sorrows aside, there is still a lot of crochet to be done in this world, and after I finished the tenth round of what will be a thirty-six round blanket, I returned to an amigurumi project that has captivated me.

Namely, the Sugarbunny from the Hello Kitty Crochet collection by Mei Li Lee.

I started by finishing up the recrochet of the remaining pieces using a 3.25 mm hook and laying them all out:

But when I looked at the light color crochet tummy, something didn’t look quite right. I consulted the image in the book, I looked at what I had done, and it didn’t quite add up.

I reread the directions for the tummy–once, twice, three times.

I recounted the number of stitches on the outer edge in the photo in the book.

It wasn’t adding up.

But when I read the directions for a fourth time, it occurred to me that “sc 8, 3 sc in last st” meant that the total number of stitches I had left to make was 8, and that the last three of those should all be worked into one stitch.

When I tried out my new interpretation of the same directions, this slightly too long and narrow looking crochet sugarbunny tummy:

was transformed into this:

So I went on my merry crochet way, and soon, the sugarbunny was nearly, but not quite, done:

And when paired with another great granny square blanket:

Both bunny and blanket looked just right.