I love making crafts. I can't remember there ever being a time in my life that I wasn't stitching or beading or macraming or rug hooking. Of all the crafts I've loved, though, I have never been able to master knitting or crocheting. Goodness knows my mother tried to teach me to knit. I had to make a three inch square for a Brownie project, but in the end she ended up knitting more of the square than I did. I figured my problems with knitting and crochet stemmed from being left-handed. It just made crafts a little trickier unless I was able to adapt the technique myself. I remember when I was in Rangers as a teen the leaders never let me teach knotwork to the new girls because my left-handed technique would screw them up. It was all I could do to get my own knot lanyard done :).
But learning to knit and crochet was much like playing the piano, something I've always longed to be able to do and figured I would be able to learn if the time or opportunity ever presented itself and if I was willing to commit myself to the project. But the reality is that going back to cross-stitch or the guitar was usually more feasible and more satisfying. Still, I kept looking at sweater patterns and photos of afghans and the desire to knit or crochet has never gone away.
This summer I went to visit Paul Kwinn and Beckett Gladney for two weeks down in Fremont, California. During our prep for that visit it occurred to me that Beckett once offered to teach me to crochet and that she is left-handed. Maybe this would be the opportunity to take one more attempt at crochet. Once out there, Beckett and I went to a Michael's craft store and bought yarn and crochet hooks and during the relatively few spare moments when twins Casey and Riley were playing quietly or napping Beckett taught me a simple double crochet stitch. I picked it up relatively quickly and practiced my rows whenever I had the opportunity, at the table, in the van on the way to LA, in the hopes of developing enough finger memory to still be able to do the stitch when I got back home.
By the time I got home I was confident enough that I wanted to try making a scarf. I bought a few rolls of a variated yarn called "Painted Desert", a wonderful rich blend of crimson, camel, rust, heather blue, dark blue and green. I stitched away industriously in all my spare time and I quickly ended up with several feet of crochet. I was pretty proud of myself! When I hit the five foot mark, though, I discovered something rather disconcerting. From the first line of crochet to the last line of crochet my row had shrunk considerably! One end of my scarf was a third longer than the other end of my scarf. Obviously I must have been dropping end stitches all through the project, but I have no idea where exactly I went wrong. Since the scarf was already long enough to wear, though, I decided to leave it aside and try learning granny squares, instead (I'm now part-way into my second granny square afghan, though I've presently put it aside to work on cross-stitch squares for an Internet quilt project).
Last weekend winter arrived in Thornhill with a vengeance. Where there was no snow the night before there was suddenly lots. As is typical of me I had no idea where my winter hat or gloves were. But I did know where my lop-sided homemade crocheted scarf was :). Funny, when I was stitching it in August, weather where I would actually need to wear it seemed very far away, but the time for the scarf had come. I threw it around my neck on Saturday and I've been wearing it everyday since.
I must have done something right, too, because I have received -so- many compliments on that scarf this week! The colour blend with my brown jacket and my red hair just seems to have a flair. And nobody knows that my scarf is hopelessly lop-sided but me (and you). So, despite all the dropped stitches and the little yarn ends that I've yet to sew in I'm declaring my first crocheted project a success- both pretty and practical. Though I laughed when a teacher said this week she was going to bring in a crochet hook so I could teach her to make a scarf. Heh, maybe not for a year or two yet.
Still, I'm now finding myself wondering how hard it might be to make a "Painted Desert" crocheted winter hat.
But learning to knit and crochet was much like playing the piano, something I've always longed to be able to do and figured I would be able to learn if the time or opportunity ever presented itself and if I was willing to commit myself to the project. But the reality is that going back to cross-stitch or the guitar was usually more feasible and more satisfying. Still, I kept looking at sweater patterns and photos of afghans and the desire to knit or crochet has never gone away.
This summer I went to visit Paul Kwinn and Beckett Gladney for two weeks down in Fremont, California. During our prep for that visit it occurred to me that Beckett once offered to teach me to crochet and that she is left-handed. Maybe this would be the opportunity to take one more attempt at crochet. Once out there, Beckett and I went to a Michael's craft store and bought yarn and crochet hooks and during the relatively few spare moments when twins Casey and Riley were playing quietly or napping Beckett taught me a simple double crochet stitch. I picked it up relatively quickly and practiced my rows whenever I had the opportunity, at the table, in the van on the way to LA, in the hopes of developing enough finger memory to still be able to do the stitch when I got back home.
By the time I got home I was confident enough that I wanted to try making a scarf. I bought a few rolls of a variated yarn called "Painted Desert", a wonderful rich blend of crimson, camel, rust, heather blue, dark blue and green. I stitched away industriously in all my spare time and I quickly ended up with several feet of crochet. I was pretty proud of myself! When I hit the five foot mark, though, I discovered something rather disconcerting. From the first line of crochet to the last line of crochet my row had shrunk considerably! One end of my scarf was a third longer than the other end of my scarf. Obviously I must have been dropping end stitches all through the project, but I have no idea where exactly I went wrong. Since the scarf was already long enough to wear, though, I decided to leave it aside and try learning granny squares, instead (I'm now part-way into my second granny square afghan, though I've presently put it aside to work on cross-stitch squares for an Internet quilt project).
Last weekend winter arrived in Thornhill with a vengeance. Where there was no snow the night before there was suddenly lots. As is typical of me I had no idea where my winter hat or gloves were. But I did know where my lop-sided homemade crocheted scarf was :). Funny, when I was stitching it in August, weather where I would actually need to wear it seemed very far away, but the time for the scarf had come. I threw it around my neck on Saturday and I've been wearing it everyday since.
I must have done something right, too, because I have received -so- many compliments on that scarf this week! The colour blend with my brown jacket and my red hair just seems to have a flair. And nobody knows that my scarf is hopelessly lop-sided but me (and you). So, despite all the dropped stitches and the little yarn ends that I've yet to sew in I'm declaring my first crocheted project a success- both pretty and practical. Though I laughed when a teacher said this week she was going to bring in a crochet hook so I could teach her to make a scarf. Heh, maybe not for a year or two yet.
Still, I'm now finding myself wondering how hard it might be to make a "Painted Desert" crocheted winter hat.