25 posts tagged “crochet”
- The remaining large totes turned out to be a) smaller than I'd thought (it was actually two small totes and a medium one stacked together funny), and b) not so easy to destash. One of them was "multiple skeins of brown acrylic, no two alike, that I intend to use in a single project together", and it got put back more or less intact (other than pulling the brown mohair out of it - last time I did the stash, I sorted it by color). The others were the fabric stash, and I'm not ready to go through it yet.
- Should I concede that I'm never going to make the "multiple skeins of brown acrylic" afghan and destash it all?
- I think this time I'm going to dump it all on the bed and sort by category, then by color. If I want a bunch of mohair for a single project, having some of it in the "white and offwhite" tote and some of it in the "brown" tote is nutso.
- The Stray Yarn Roundup completely filled the large tote I'd emptied. I think I might need to try this process one more time, because I know there's still stray yarn I haven't come across yet, and I put some questionable things into the stray yarn tote. And it hurts my brain that I've removed a large tote's worth of yarn from my stash, but the large tote is still full.
- Hubby loves me anyways, because I cleared out the shelves I was just stuffing spinning fiber onto wherever it would fit.
- I need a ball winder like nobody's business - I don't know if my nostepinne skills are up to the tangled mess some of the pull skeins have turned into. Happily, I have $13 left on a JoAnn gift card and they've got 50% off anything coupons for next week, so I might be able to get one for very little out-of-pocket.
- Is it weird that I made better yarn balls using a toilet paper tube as a nostepinne than I did with a real one?
- Why did Firefox flag "nostepinne" as misspelled once, but not after that?
- I found all the yarn and the completed squares and the hook and pattern for the 63-Square Afghan. This is a good first step in finishing it. :) I had more squares done on the second row than I thought, and one from the third row. I still need to decide what I'm going to do about the white squares, though.
- The stitch pattern for one of those squares would probably make a really good dishcloth. It's nice and textury.
- I also found two needlepoint projects I started years ago, only to discover that I don't like working on a painted canvas. Compensation stitches make me nuts. Trash?
I was looking through vintage needlework books one day last week - notably Thérèse de Dillmont's Encyclopedia of Needlework from 1884, which covers pretty much everything you can do with thread from basic hand-sewing through knitting and crochet to amazingly complex lacemaking and embroidery. The book is sprinkled with DMC product placement, since they published her, but except for a couple illustrations out of order, the instructions and diagrams are clear, readable, and understandable, and she defines all her terms so you don't have to go in with a pre-existing knowledge of 19th-century British knitting jargon.
A couple things surprised me - I noticed at least three techniques that I'd thought were fairly recent innovations, and certainly aren't widely known in the relevant communities today, but there they were in a 125-year-old book presented as basic skills everyone should have in their repertoire:
- Gridding the fabric of a large needlework project. She describes it for canvaswork, but it's definitely applicable to "linen embroidery". Most of the LiveJournal cross_stitch community were mystified when we were instructed to do this for a stitch-along project, but it's really caught on.
- Stitching on waste canvas to work counted embroidery on plain cloth, apparently such a common thing that she didn't even explain the concept, just gave a couple helpful tips. I suspect a modern product designed to be easily removed from under the embroidery is much easier to use than standard needlework canvas (or not, giving that I've heard people grouse about how hard pulling the threads out is), but even with the product available, many stitchers are unfamiliar with the technique.
- The "foundation single crochet", even if she called it "plain stitches for a chain" - Doris Chan has popularized the technique (if you know it, you probably learned it from the "special stitches" section of a pattern she wrote) and I'd thought she invented it because I'd never even heard of it through years of crochet until I came across it in several of her patterns. Apparently not. (This is why noted knitter Elizabeth Zimmermann referred to many techniques and designs she developed as having been "unvented", on the premise that they must have been done before but were lost to common knowledge.)
It's also interesting to note that many of the colors of DMC products are still sold under the same shade number they were in 1884 - and that "Cordonnet 6 fils pour Crochet" is now "Cordonnet special", but the sizes that are still available match the vintage sizes. Now that I know this, I'm trying to decide if I'm insane enough to put "work a length of vintage lace to trim up an otherwise-boring garment" on my 2009 goal list.
The designs, in general, are fairly basic - Chan set out to provide garments that could become wardrobe staples, and I think she succeeded. (There are a couple that you'd need a certain style to pull off, though). Most of the garments are available in a huge range of sizes - the basic tank goes from 30" to 52" finished bust - and there are also hints given for adding shaping to garments. I think there's something in here for everyone from the Hip Young Crocheter to the Soccer Mom to the Traditionalist Grandma.
Also included are a handful of crocheted belts and instructions for turning two shank buttons into the link-style closures the cardigans call for.
They were definitely aiming for the Hip Young end of the crocheter spectrum, and pretty much hit it; no surprise, if you're familiar with the original incarnation of crochetme.com, since most of the designers were regular contributors there. There's a wide variety of patterns - wearables, two bags (both were, I have to admit, cool - a felted messenger bag with a nifty gimmick to it, and one of the more artistic mesh market bags I've seen), and home decor (neither towel toppers nor TP cozies, of course!). There's technical instructions for a few of the more unusual techniques (Tunisian and tapestry - making a point of the one seemingly-trivial-but-actually-important detail that makes a difference between your tapestry crochet looking hot and your tapestry crochet looking crappy) and a quick reference to some other things you can do with yarn and a crochet hook that didn't come up in the context of the book.
To summarize: I would recommend Everyday Crochet to almost anyone, and it's going on my Amazon.com wishlist; Crochet Me is not for me, but it may be for you.
I went to Amy Singer's "No Sheep For You" presentation at the Ann Arbor District Library yesterday, and of course I brought yarn and...well...I think I was the only person there crocheting. Both my yarn-related WIP's right now are crochet projects, and since one of them was on a deadline...I brought the deadline project, a blanket for my impending niece or nephew. I am leaving behind the realm of pattern, and kind of free-handing something inspired by the "Log Cabin Moderne" blanket in Mason-Dixon Knitting. And the ladies sitting near me, knitters all, really admired the colors (bright orange, yellow, and green - the only pastel thing in my brother-and-sister-in-law's entire house is the blanket I made for their first baby), and the stitch pattern - I'm using granite stitch.
Granite Stitch has become my favorite "space filler" - it's very basic (just chains and sc - anyone can do it!), very fast since you only actually do half the stitches on any given row, and that also makes it drapier, lighter, and less yarn-hungry than plain ol' single crochet, and to top all that off you get a nice texture to the fabric. If what I need is a "rectangle, crocheted, no further specification", granite stitch is where I'll go. The nearby knitters asked for directions, and I wrote it out for one of them - but I didn't manage to get it to all of them. I think I heard some of them mention that they were on Ravelry, so I'm posting it here in hopes that they stumble across it.
First of all: a picture is worth a thousand words, but my data cable
for my camera has gone walkabout. So we'll settle for ASCII art, which
is maybe worth 350:
If you can read a crochet stitch diagram, with the hint that O is a chain and X is a single crochet, you're good to go here. (As a general rule, crochet diagrams are read from the bottom up, with each row worked in the direction indicated by the arrows on the row number. This is important in round diagrams, to distinguish whether the work is turned at the end of the round or whether it keeps going the same way.)
XOXOXOXOXOXO <-2
1-> OXXOXOXOXOXX XOXOXOXOXOXO <-2 1-> OXXOXOXOXOXX XOXOXOXOXOXO <- Setup OOOOOOOOOOO
Here are the 350 or so words that the diagram is worth:
Foundation: Chain an even number.
Setup row: SC in the second chain from hook. (Chain 1, skip one chain, SC in next chain) across. Chain 1 to turn work.
The "second chain" is why there's an O hanging off the right edge of that row on my diagram - it's the turning chain, used to make sure the first stitch in the row is the right height instead of squished. Since we're working in SC, this does not count as the first stitch of the row, which is why the symbol sticks off the edge of the diagram. The "Chain 1 to turn work" is why there's an O hanging off the edge of Row 1, and all the other rows.
At this point you should have a row of tiny mesh, although you may have to poke at it a bit to see the holes.
Row 1: SC in the first SC and in the first chain-1 space. (Chain 1, sc in next chain-1 space) across to the last stitch. SC in the last SC. Chain 1 to turn.
This is why granite stitch is so fast: after the foundation row, you're mostly not working into the chain stitches proper; you stick the hook under the chain from the previous row and work around it. SC into the first and last SC of the previous row gives us a nice selvedge. You should have another row of little mesh, offset one "box" from the row beneath it.
Row 2: SC in the first SC. (Chain 1, sc in next chain-1 space) across to the last stitch. SC in the last SC. Chain 1 to turn.
This should be offset 1 stitch from row 1, and match up with the Setup Row.
Repeat rows 1 and 2 for the pattern.
For non-crocheters: Lion Brand's learn-to-crochet instructions have fairly clear diagrams. Art of Crochet has videos. The ball band of your yarn may give a recommended hook size; they will very often simply list the crochet hook that matches the knitting needle size, but you may get better results from using a size or two larger. For learning, try a smooth, light-colored yarn in worsted weight with a size H hook.
On the other hand, I've had the leaflet for this afghan sitting around waiting for the right yarn - which this was, more or less. Three coordinating colors - the light blue isn't quite as lurid in real life as it is in my photos. Baaaaaasically the right amount - I had to try to match the "aran" color from twenty years ago when that's one of the ones they're putting dye lots on right now (ended up with a "Pound of Love" instead of RH - the present RH Aran color has a green tone to it, mine has a yellow tone), and I'm praying I don't run out of the light blue because they discontinued that color. It's been an on-and-off project for a while, but now that the Anastasia socks are done, it's my main WIP.
Completed and photographed so far: The bottom row of the afghan. From top to bottom, please allow me to introduce:
Square #49: "Lacy Wave Stitch"
Square #33: "Silt Stitch" - and yes, it really is biased as badly as the picture makes it look, maybe even worse. Crazy stuff there.
Square #16: "Granny Square"
Square #40: "Fan Stitch"
Square #54: "Aligned Puff Stitch"
Square #36: "Little Crowns"
Square #30: "Eyelet Lace"
I'm finding that the directions for the patterns are very pedantic, sometimes to the point that they're confusing. In many cases a stitch diagram would be much simpler, but a) I think this leaflet was published before stitch diagrams really caught on, and b) then they'd've had to take five pages to explain how to read the diagrams.
I had to alter the directions for Square #30 - after a few rows, the square, well, wasn't. The first row was 7 inches wide, all nice and proper, but the following rows were more like 6 1/2. So in all the loops where it said to work 1 sc, I worked 2 sc. Voila. The picture in the booklet clearly shows only 1 sc there - I wonder if it's all related to my dc's not being quite tall enough. This square holds the record for "Most Times Ripped Back To The Slipknot" so far, at three.
I haven't assembled the row yet because I'm Pondering. The "match" yarn I got wasn't perfect - I'd call it more like 95%. My gut tells me that what I should do is edge all the RH Aran squares in the RH Aran yarn so they match perfectly, then pick random squares to be edged with the RH until I run out, and then edge the rest and the whole blanket with the other yarn. But inside, I'm whimpering at the thought of saving the assembly on 63 squares until the very end; the only way I've ever completed a blanket made out of squares before was to assemble them as I went.
I'm really kind of surprised by the yarn - the dark blue and aran everything you've always heard Red Heart is, but the light blue is...soft. Flexible. A pleasure to work with. I wonder if that's why they discontinued it - but then I've heard that about Red Heart, too, that some colors are less similar to recycled tires than others. All the same, it's not one I'd purchase on purpose; even in the realm of Super Cheap Acrylic, there are nicer yarns.
The ultimate fate of the afghan? I'll probably give it back to Nana. The yarn matches her decor much better than mine, which is why she picked it out in the first place...
When felting, you're supposed to make a swatch, and felt it before you embark upon your big project, so you can use the before and after sizes of the swatch to calculate the "before" size you need to get a desired "after". I skipped this step, when making Mom's totebag, given that a) I didn't really care how big it came out, within a certain range I was likely to hit, and b) Patons suggests that their lovely wool yarn, felted according to the procedure I followed, shrinks to 75% lengthwise and 85% widthwise of the "before" size, and I believed them.
One thing I forgot to take into account: I crocheted the straps on instead of knitting them. Crocheted fabric apparently behaves differently than knitted fabric when you felt it; it has the nice bit of texture I'd expected to come up with, but it came out longer and narrower than I expected.
Oops. Fortunately, it's not so long and narrow as to make the bag unusable, but it looks a little bit off.
I had two thoughts, browsing through Ravelry the other day:
1) "Gosh, those lace shawls are so beautiful. I should make a lace shawl."
2) "I should crochet something; I haven't crocheted anything in a while."
(#2 was not entirely true - I made Malu's Digital Pet Shop Cozy. But that was so tiny it almost doesn't count. Anyways.)
At some point, it dawned on me that I could merge Thought #1 and Thought #2, and crochet a lace shawl. So I went looking about for a pattern...and came up dry.
Almost all crochet shawl patterns out there are written for worsted-weight yarn, in stitch patterns I wouldn't entirely describe as lace, and certainly not what I was looking for. Filet crochet shawls are out there, but not quite what I had in mind for this project; I'm looking for the same kind of break-your-heart-beautiful OMGYOUMADETHAT??? lace shawl knitters make. Most of the really lacy ones are done in Love Knot stitch, and I've been there, done that, got the globs of hair I ripped out...
Almost all crocheted lace patterns out there are for doilies, meaning they're a little bit on the small side for use as a shawl by anyone larger than a Cabbage Patch Doll. Those that are not for doilies seem to be for tablecloths and bedspreads.
So, I'm kind of making up my own, I guess. And my brain is drifting in a couple different directions...
I could adapt a doily pattern into a round or half-round shawl. I'm smart, dammit! I'd just need to make it...really big! I've seen some doily patterns the last couple days that might not even be too hard to do it with.
I could adapt a tablecloth or bedspread into a square or triangular shawl. Hexagons would make a nice triangular shawl, and I've seen some very nice squares, too. But would that just scream "Wow, she's wearing a piece of a tablecloth"?
I could...umm...give Irish lace a try - there was one book on the Antique Pattern Library that worked out to "Irish Crochet For Dummies", so I wouldn't be stuck with instructions that assumed you knew how to do it. And I might even finish a whole shawl in my lifetime...given all that area to be filled in with mesh done in teeny tiny thread, I understand why back in the day, they sold "Irish Lace Netting" to which you could sew your motifs and edging and be done with it. :)
I'm not in any hurry to do this, mind you - I've got the sweater to finish, and I should probably actually work on my cross-stitch projects a bit. But it's been rolling around the back of my brain this weekend.
Yesterday was Part 1 of our Gift Card Blowout, and we hit Border's, where I had a whopping $10 to spend. After buying a pocket calendar (half price), I went looking for something I could get for $6 - which was not a book. But was a magazine. After browsing the craft aisle a bit, I selected a copy of Crochet Today, which had a very appealing blanket on the front cover.
Reading the patterns, it was obvious that Coats & Clark was the responsible party for the magazine - every single one called for Red Heart, TLC, or Moda Dea yarns, some I'd never heard of. (I suppose fair's fair - Lion Brand seems to 'own' a magazine or two like that...) Now, generally, you say the words "Red Heart" and I run screaming, but in this case I was impressed. Some lovely home accessories. Some lovely sweaters including sizes that will fit me. A tutorial on a skill worth being tutorialed on (crocheted cables). And a baby blankie that made me and
And, as people have pointed out to me repeatedly - yarn substitution is a fine and time-honored art.
...umm, no pun intended.
But I noticed that a lot more of Interweave's stuff in this issue is large enough to cover my boobs and/or butt. Go Interweave. :)
...now if we could just get them to specify yarns that don't cost $200 for the garment...
It's time for Goodfellow doll-dressing again. Yeesh. I wasn't expecting a Christmas-related project to come up in August.
And I don't think I ever wrote up the pattern I used last year.
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