My First Crochet Project

When I was younger, my grandmother patiently tried to teach me to crochet.  I did not understand it at all.  Knitting and crochet were the activities that my aunts and grandmother participated in and I just never figured it out.  I would say I was impatient, but I learned how to cross stitch and counted cross stitch, which requires equal numbers of patience.  For whatever reason, when my grandmother was alive, I never learned how to crochet.  As an adult, I started into yarn crafts with knitting.  It just seemed to click.  And still, I never learned how to crochet.  My grandmother passed away two years after I graduated high school.  The missing skill always bugged me as I came down our steps and landed on the rug that my grandmother crocheted for her own home.  After days of reading and researching and re-reading, I finally can say I learned how to crochet and I finished my first crochet project after numerous failed attempts over the years.  And with that skill, I feel like I can continue the tradition that my grandmother started.

Back in the Saddle

It has been a while since I posted here and since I even knitted.  When I got pregnant, I got tired.  But worse than that, I got carpal tunnel in my hands, which made knitting very hard.  I got back into it and my current project is to learn crocheting.  It's not going bad, but to say it is going well is another thing entirely.  I'm working on the Garden Scarf from the Happy Hooker book.  It's not really hard.  It's all me making it that way.  Knitting is so linear for me.  Even when working in the round, there's a linear design to knitting.  The Garden Scarf is crocheted flowers and crochet is so multidimensional for me compared to knitting.  And because of that, I try to make it so much harder than it is.  Here is my first, rejected attempt at flowers.  Notice that I did it really wrong.  It's not supposed to be that loopy.  I think I corrected my problem (which was making turning chains I didn't need) but we'll see on this next try.

Big Projects

I'm working on a big project, this doll, that needs to be finished.  I finally got the last bit of yarn that I need so I think I can finish it uninterrupted, finally.  This is a great gift, but, I'm not sure I would ever knit it again.  After that, I have a gazillion cloths to make so I have some gifts on hand for the holiday season.  The goods news is I've grown speedier so a 50 line cloth takes me far less time than it used to when I was fumbling for the stitches.

What Is Taking So Long

I haven't had many knitting adventures to share.  I've actually been working on just one project.  This doll has been very difficult as far as the many pieces.  There's not so much variation in technique from other projects.  However, this project has taught me more about seams and stuffing pieces.  I still have four pieces to go, if you can believe it.  Here is what she looks like so far.  This pattern I got from Knitpicks and her name is Annie.  Here's what she looks like so far:

Stepping up in Difficulty

This week, I took a project that was slightly higher in difficulty than my other projects.  It wasn’t that the stitches were too crazy and it was only a dish cloth, so I didn’t think it could be that hard.  However, this one is a complicated mix of knits and purls.  There’s a lot to keep track of and this seems to be my folly.  Finally, I figured out what I was doing.  The border is purl 1 knit 1 ribbing.  The inside of this pattern looks like it’s inset because it doesn’t stick out like the border.  This is made by rows of knit 1 slip 1 and then purling the back.  It’s very pretty and looks elegant in its simplicity.  You can find the pattern here and it is free: Simple Slip Stitch Dischloth.

Increasing

I started, and have nearly finished, a kerchief that is blue.  The point of this was to learn how to increase.  I was nervous, since ribbed stitching was such a challenge, that this would be really hard.  Increasing requires some work with counting rows and keeping track of things, but it was less frightening than I imagined.  Here is a picture of it, though, I don’t have the ties finished on it yet.

 

Ribbed Stitch is a Little Hard

I am probably the only knitter to have this much trouble with it.  But, the ribbed stitch is fairly difficult for me right now.  It's not that I don't get the premise, but for some reason, I keep knitting a purl or purling a knit somewhere, without even remembering I did it.  It's not a matter of identifying the stitches.  I totally notice when I look down and see it.  I think I've had to go back seven to ten times so far on this poor scarf.  I don't know if I'm just really inane or if this is common when you're learning to knit, what seems like a fairly straightforward stitch.