a first attempt at houndstooth

I'm obsessed with houndstooth plaid and have been for my entire life.  I had some houndstooth shorts when I was in 5th grade.  The motif for my wedding is houndstooth.  I currently don a houndstooth coat on cold days.  I have houndstooth luggage.  Maybe that last one is a little absurd, but I like it.

Of course, it wouldn't be long until I started experimenting with houndstooth in my crochet.  I found instructions for knitting houndstooth, but because I have not yet (I stress yet) I tackled knitting, I have been working on translating that to crochet.  It's really not that hard, but it does look a little different that it would if it were knitted.

This is a picture of my first try:

I doubled the design of the knitting pattern, which made these rather huge checks.  With this try, I have carried one yarn under the opposite color, and unfortunately you can see the lighter color (pale blue) under the black.  I also think this big check looks a little too blocky for my liking. I have been working on another pattern (no pictures yet) and carried the spare color behind the work, which has been better, but it seems to me a little awkward when turning with all those threads on the wrong side of the work.  I think my next attempt will be using bobbins to make a piece that is reversible; perhaps that will alleviate some of the difficulties I'm having.

Spring classes begin in two days.  I'm not too thrilled, but I think this semester should be less stressful than last.  I've started learning Tunisian crochet, so I'm going to try to continue with that this semester.  I recently got five or six crochet books (both instructional and patterns) and I have a subscription to Crochet Today magazine; I think I'll have plenty of projects that I'll want to do.  Now to schedule the time to get to them!

Happy Sunday!