Sun with some clouds and in the mid 50s today. The recycling has been picked up and I need to carry the containers back in from the curb. I'm still feeling lousy from this cold so I'm slow going at taking care of stuff. Not much momentum from getting up from the living room chair.
I did use the neti pot last night and am using a bottle of saline nasal spray to help clear some of the nasal congestion. It helps a little.

I'm still not up to going to the laundromat. In the meantime I have been playing around with a skein of that Red Heart yarn for granny squares where the colors change themselves so you don't have to cut threads between rounds- well that's the theory anyway.

I made a test square using a size H hook, and one using an I hook. The one with the I hook gave me the right size of a six inch square but there was still left over yarn for each color, although a lot less vs the size H square. I didn't cut the excess yarn from each round so I can unravel each test square. Instead I just made a loop where the new color started and, put it on the hook and looped over it with the old color. Unlike the regular Red Heart worsted yarn which is generally softer to the touch and made in Turkey, this yarn is dyed in India with a different process and is stiffer and rougher. Regular Red Heart yarn made granny squares generally don't need require blocking. But this yarn does produce squares that need to be blocked.

Another thing is I had watched several tutorials on YouTube, one made by one of the people involved in testing this yarn. Firstly you have to make a modified version of a granny so you start and end on a corner and this makes the first round look weird in that corner and you have to be careful not to have it look off kilter in the following rounds. You may need to change hook sizes during each round to have the yarn work out correctly and not have left over yarn. It's awkward doing that and doesn't help, for me anyway. It seems weird changing hook sizes within the rounnd. Two different sizes of stitches could be noticable and look sloppy. Some people fall short of yarn in some rounds and I can't figure out how unless they're using a hook three sizes too big. I think I'm just going to crochet the squares the normal way and cut the yarn between the colors.

I also noticed in the tutorials they all use tapered crochet hooks with the ergonomic handles and I use traditional Susan Bates inline hooks. I didn't even think about different hook shapes since I've always used Susan Bates hooks, but apparently the different types mean tension and even stitch shape differences. Go figure. I found a web page on this last night-
https://asmihandmade.com/inline-hooks-vs-tapered-hooks/

Maybe I should pick up some Boye tapered hooks, which weirdly enough have different measurements than the Susan Bates inline hooks on some sizes. Apparently now the 'in' thing for younger crocheters is to only use tapered hooks and inline is more old school. No wonder why making test swatches to determine your gauge before beginning a project is even more important now. Who knew?