Mindful Happy Living This week’s blog post is not about crochet. I was looking through my outstanding drafts (which I use as my to-blog list) and thinking about what to write for this week’s blog. But nothing felt appropriate.
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Craft Tutorials Someone sent me a meme last night of one of those knitted toilet roll covers with the big doll skirts, with a line about hiding toiler paper from the children (they weren’t the first to send or tag me in such a picture…).
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Creative Living One of the things which made me fall for crochet was the mindful, calming effect it had on my often wildly over imaginative, calamitous story-making anxious brain. Something about the rhythm of yarn over hook and watching your work grow, row by row, felt very soothing (even when I was just making wonky squares!).
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Crochet If you’re new to making crochet garments it can seem a bit intimidating at first. But if you break it down into steps then it’s not nearly as complex as it seems. You’ll soon realise, that if you can crochet a granny square or a flat circle, you can also crochet sweater!
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Crochet If you have always been intimidated by crocheting socks, I want to reassure you that they are much more straightforward than you imagine.
In fact, when constructed with a short row heel, crochet socks are worked all in one piece. That’s only 2 ends to sew in (and one of them is hidden inside the toe so who will know?).
Short row heels are a simple but ingenious design. So let’s take a look at what’s involved.
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Crochet Recently I wrote a post about how to read a crochet pattern. I want to follow that up by breaking down some of the elements in a little more detail; starting with explaining Stitch Multiples
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Crochet If you’ll pardon the pun, blocking was always a mental block for me. For years I just went lalalalalalala whenever a pattern mentioned blocking and studiously ignored that part.
Then i tried it!
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Craft Tutorials I spend my left-handed childhood using scissors not meant for me and have had a bit of a hang up about my inability to cut things in a straight line ever since. Whether it was cutting fabric, or trimming a fringe on a crochet scarf or shawl or simply tidying up a tassel, I would sigh in the knowledge I was probably going to mess it up (even with left handed scissors!). That is until I found what I call ‘The pizza way’.
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Creative Living The main aim of this article is to explain what you should expect from a decent crochet pattern and how to work through it, especially if you’re less familiar with using written patterns.
But it’s more than that. I’ve included how to read and write crochet patterns in the title because, I believe that it’s just as important for designers to think about the journey their reader takes through a pattern. Let’s face it, creating any crochet project is a bit of a journey. From picking the yarn, frogging the bit you got wrong, working away in front of Netflix, right through fastening off that last end.
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Crochet Hands up if you’ve ever lost at yarn chicken? *Shoots both hands up in the air and waves them around vigerously*
Whether you’re adapting an existing pattern, winging a project as you go, or taking your first steps in crochet design, it can be tricky to guess how much yarn you will need. So in this post I’m going to share some of the ways in which you can make a reliable estimate.
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Crochet One of the intentions I set for this new year was to address some of the crochet fundamentals. Not in terms of fundamental stitches, but in terms of the basic knowledge surrounding the craft.
I’m taking about the kind of stuff that once you know it, you forget there was a time that you didn’t!
I am a self taught crocheter and learned a lot of this stuff by osmosis, with experience and often by accident, chancing on a game changing facebook post or insta caption (then often felt like an idiot for not already knowing it – is that just me?).
So this year I want to take some time to explicitly address some of those items that many see as a given, but others aren’t aware of.
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Crochet Sorry not sorry for the Meghan Trainor song reference, I’ve had that song in my head all afternoon (sorrier if you have no idea what I’m on about!).
Songs aside, shall we talk about drape? More specifically, what it is, and how knowing a bit about it will help you along with your crochet journey.
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Crochet You’ve found your perfect pattern, your hook is at the ready, But you don’t have access to the yarn that’s called for. Fear not, this post will help you decide what yarn to use as a suitable substitute.
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Crochet This time last year, I started a group on Facebook called My Crochet Wardrobe. The idea behind it was to help encourage people to crochet their own clothes, boost crochet confidence and bust some of the myths which put people off attempting a sweater or cardi.
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Crochet When I first started making and then designing crochet garments, I was hugely put off by a lot of the terms surrounding the process. It took me a long time to understand these terms, so to save you going through the same confusion, I have put together the jargon buster below to clear things up for you!
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