learn to crochet

I’m making a baby hat and booties for the friend of a friend’s baby shower, and the booties presented me with a stitch I’m unfamiliar with: the back post stitch, and front post stitch. The top of the bootie is a granny square, so I am SO thankful for all of those frustrating, irritating hours I spent trying to figure it out. My booties and hat are all in blue, and while the booties on the pattern page look girly, what I’m making looks just fine for the little boy she knows she’s having.

The hat is the same pattern I made for Shawn way back when, only it turned out a lot better. Of course, lol.

When I’m done, I’ll try and post photos for all interested.

pictures of my plarn rug, but I’m not finished it yet. I am finished learning how to crochet though! It’s a fun skill, and despite the granny square frustrations, I’m happy to have learned. Our neighbors had a garage sale on the weekend, and when I bought her knitting needles, she, my mom, and I got into a conversation on why we like knitting or crochet best. My mom doesn’t like knitting and she didn’t like crochet. I was able to weigh the pros and cons of both, too. It was cool.

And when I do complete my plarn crochet rug, I will post pictures!

I’m pretty ticked off with youtube atm. Not only is there an appalling lack of videos on granny squares to suit me but they pulled down Shawn’s birth video. No reason other than his birth vid “violated” their very vague community guidelines. There are tons of other birth videos on there – so why was mine taken down?

Screw youtube. _{smashy smashy smash smash smash!}

So I found Graspr, instead. (What is with these websites with the random word and r at the end – snotr, flickr, graspr?)

Anyway. I watched this video and wouldn’t you know I just made two perfect granny squares. They look exactly like what I’ve been trying to make!

Eureka! :P I think I’ve got it!

Today was a rainy afternoon, so I spent it making plarn to crochet with.

“Plarn?” I hear you ask. “What on earth is plarn?“

Plarn is plastic bag yarn! Here is a youtube video that shows how to make it and here is a photo tutorial for those with slower speed internet.

I’d been hoarding plastic bags for a reason! (Okay, that and my mom keeps swiping our reusable bags and forgets to return them.)

I’d mentioned back in May that I wanted to make a rug, but since then had nothing but trouble with granny squares.

I decided to make my own pattern – I recently made a REALLY nice knit hat from my own design – I’ll post pictures sometime – so why couldn’t I make my own rug pattern?

Went to youtube, found a nice video on crochet in the round and from there it was so simple.

Only problem was I didn’t have the correct size hook. I have 6 mm and under and one really big one at 16 mm. No sooner than I realized that little setback than my mom emailed me and wanted to know if I would like to go to town with her for a few things.

Sure! So I got my 10 mm hook after all!

I now have a circular project about a foot across that I did just tonight, completely half double crochet stitch of my own creation! Plarn is surprisingly soft, too!

After my crochet hook had many experiences in being airborne, it looks like I might just be getting somewhere on the blasted granny squares. Maybe.

These things SUCK. I’ve watched three different videos on youtube on how to make them and each time it made no real difference. I can’t figure these out! They look simple enough but in practice they just don’t seem to make any sense at all. I even asked my mom to show me – which says how desperate I was – and now I’m doubting her ability as what she called a “double crochet” was NOT a double crochet! I’m more confused than ever…

In the meantime while I stew on that, I’m crocheting a soaker. The pattern doesn’t say how large it is, but it turns out it’s pretty small – like newborn size! Now I need buttons…

Maybe I’ll leave the granny squares alone for a bit and try to learn some of the lacy techniques. I got this pattern in a crochet/knit newsletter, and entertain hopes of one day making this for myself.

I have experimented with the single, half-double, double and treble crochet stitches, and I’ve got them all down fairly easily. I made some baby booties… but they turned out all weird. I read, reread and then reread the pattern again and I can’t figure out what went wrong. I think it was just the pattern and not me – that DOES happen sometimes!

Next I want to learn granny squares. I intend to make a rug for our bedroom. (:

It’s a fun skill! Learning how to knit certainly made learning this easier, too.

I’ve started on this pattern for the baby when he is born. As soon as Gabriel was in my arms, my midwife put a cap on his little head. The hat was hand knitted, though I can’t remember where it came from or who knitted it – my mom kept almost all of the clothes that we got as babies and small children, after all! (You can see it in this photo right here.)

So I thought it would be nice to try out a hand crocheted pattern for my first project, and Bev’s Country Cottage has a ton of wonderful patterns. This one looked easy, as it’s only in single crochet.

I’m using yellow yarn as we don’t know for sure if the baby is a boy – even though Tommy and I refer to him by the name we’ve agreed on when we speak of him and I say “him” to my family all the time. Besides, I like yellow. (:

So far I’ve completed the band and I’m working on the hat part. I must say… I’m very happy with the result for far.

Bev’s Country Cottage is a WONDERFUL website and I recommend it very highly, for anyone interested. I was particularly touched by her preemie page.

This past Sunday was a personal family holiday and as a gift, my dad bought me four crochet hooks. I now have the tools available and I intend to utilize youtube for how-to videos asap. Gotta love high speed!

My mom has always crocheted, but somehow my sister and I learned to knit instead, to the point where all our friends wanted to learn. One night, my mom came into the kitchen to find the five of us sitting around the table, all decked out with knitting needles and yarn, each and every one of us knitting! She nick-named us the Old Lady Club, lol!

It seems that there are only two types of yarn people out there – the knitters and the crocheters. Kind of, I guess, like you’re either a dog person or a cat person. I mean, I like both cats and dogs, but I definitely am more of a dog person. So as much as I like knitting, there is no reason to limit myself by not learning to crochet, even if I still prefer knitting in the end. And who knows, maybe not!

I mainly see patterns for this or that that I want to make and while there is plenty of knitting patterns, I’d like to be even more versatile than I am now.

I still want to learn to sew but a craft like knitting or crocheting I can teach myself. Sewing isn’t quite so easy.