spin one, knit one
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I take back everything I ever said about crochet. I need to learn sufficient crochet to make a Hobbit Hat!
Flicking through my new books, I found this amazing free-form crocheted hat in Intertwined
So, I need to get the hang of single and double crochet, slip stitch, bobbles, and how to decrease. Chain, I can do…
G’s b’day today, so we did cards and b’day cake. I made a really weird choccie cake recipe and then drowned it in uber rich icing. I put sheep on the top, 2 white and 1 brown, and three candles.
I actually did spin some of the pink merino today and didn’t knit at all. Mostly I made coffee and kept an eye on Nell. Nell was superb. More confident than last time, she stayed out from behind the chair. She kept mainly on the sofa with me but did sniff around the wheels and say hello to the ladies.
I feel very tired indeed today. Just want to go lie down and nap now. I think I’ll have another piece of cake first, though 
Last night I tried some crochet scrumbles. I can’t/don’t crochet. So it was very freeform indeed, with made-up stitches. But it was a lot of fun and I enjoyed the organic shapes that I was making. I used the leftover yarn from the Colinette “Iris” hat I made several years ago. The colours came together well. Now I need to figure out what to do with my scrumbles.
I think I shall make more, to go on my Beachcomber “thingy.” The first section bothers me, as it doesn’t blend with the rest of the piece. I was planning on sewing buttons on to that part, but now I might scrumble some pieces in the mohair yarn and add those to the surface, to bring some coherence. Maybe I can scrumble something vaguely circular and then apply it with a button to hold it on. I was hoping to use MoP buttons…
(Scrumble? See here! http://www.crochet.nu/scjwc/index.html#scrumbling)
Here it is
It’s not perfect by any means, but I do have a recognisable granny square made at last.
Photo later. I spent all morning packing craft stuff for tonight’s craft club meeting, and now I have to walk the pup and make risotto. Life is full and rich, eh?
I took my crochet into the sitting room yesterday afternoon while I sat with puppy doing her cage training. I’m making some kind of progress…
So much progress that I have now practised a few rows of double, half treble, treble, and double treble. My tension is still appalling but things have gone slightly better otherwise, since I had a small epiphany on the matter of turning chains. I acknowledge that learning the stitches is easy enough - the difficult part for me is deciphering instructions and actually seeing where the hook is going in.
Undaunted by these problems I launched into my first granny square. Well, I think it is easy enough to tell what it is meant to be and that I did get close to it. Clearly I got several parts of it wrong, but I think this was only because I was distracted by other things and got my counting wrong. I got a bit annoyed but still tried a different type of square, a St George’s Cross. This also went quite badly.
I’m going to try again today. This time I plan to write out the instructions in a more readable layout and also to write down my counts as I go. I intend to have a near perfect granny square made by tonight! However, I have much work to do in my craft room. I need to think through what to take to craft club tomorrow evening and make sure I have everything packed that we might need. Plus puppy watching, of course.
OK. It may not look like much to you, but to me? It’s like Everest scaled! I’ve tried so many times over the years and got nowhere near as far as this.
Mood=Pleased
Mostly double crochet but one row of half treble added… not very well, I hasten to add.
I know the tension is all over the place but I frankly have no idea where I should in fact be aiming. I am pretty much a crochet virgin.
I almost feel like attempting a granny square now. But I want to practise a few more basic stitches. I did this in bed last night - I may do the same again today. Mmmmm. Must be getting old.
I’m missing my needles. I hope pup settles down soon and allows me time to knit. I’ve been hankering after some Yarn Yard yarn tonight and I really want to clear my stash a bit soon… I love to knit. It soothes me and makes me happy. I miss it.
I gave my Cat’s Paw Scarf to my MiL for her birthday, so I need to knit myself a scarf before the winter bites too hard. I still have loads of the Cashsoft 4ply left - plus the grey BFL. I don’t want to do Cat’s Paw again, though. I’ll do a different Shetland lace pattern this time. But which one?
I didn’t fill my bobbin yesterday but I did finish the first bag of BFL and began the second. Getting there by degrees. I am impatient to see it plyed.
Then there is the crochet challenge to be met. One day…. one day, I’ll get to grips with this craft. For now, it drives me crazy.
I’m trying to get a daylight “true colour” lamp - in the hope that I can make progress on some projects during the darkness of winter. My cottage windows are very small indeed and we live in permanent gloom through the winter, with totally inadequate lighting. I am reliant on Mr L’s sniping abilities to snatch me an eBay bargain soon.
Oh- I need to knit a watch cap for Mr L. Anybody got a URL for a pattern for this type of knitted cap?
Leaving out the obvious is a common fault in “how to” instructions - which is why I always had my user manuals “idiot tested.”
Step 4: Yarn over hook.
As you can see in the photo, at this point, you have 2 loops on the hook plus the yarn wrapped over the hook.
More explicit instruction from About.com
So - I should have two sticthes on my hook, and need not worry about my inability to lose one
This reminds me of the time my ex decided to learn to knit. He would not be shown, rejecting help from myself and his mother, and obtained some instructions from a magazine article. He was well away with it and storming up his piece, when I admired his unuusal zig zag stocking stitch… Being ambidextrous, he found no difficulty whatsoever in knitting back and forth across the rows. The article simply failed to state the “obvious” turning of the work between rows.
So… I tackled this OK. Fir certain values of “OK” that is - my tension is all over the place.
and then I kind of managed this (could really do with thicker yarn and larger needle to begin with)
but then I got to this…. No way can I turn my work without ending with multiple stitches on my hook! I need alternative instructions to help me see my way through this.
Until I find better instructions I seem to be building the world’s longest chain
When we went to Kirkwall last week I picked up a pack of crochet cotton and hook at Lidl. Very cheap and cheerful - but maybe too fine a gauge for a beginner to work with. However, I plan to have a go. Can anybody point me at some clear and simple How To Crochet pages, please?
