I thought I’d share some of the crocheted projects I’ve finished. There aren’t many – but lately, it seems that if I’m not crocheting, I’m online looking at patterns I’d love to try. Maybe I’ll have to put off learning to knit for a while – that would just compound the problem!!
I’d told my mother for years that I wanted to learn how to crochet and knit, so for Christmas 2005 (has it been that long?!) she gave me a kit for each. That very day, we sat down, and she showed me the basic foundation chain, single crochet (sc) and double crochet (dc). Unlike tatting, which I had tried to learn several years ago, I actually “got” it and was able to remember long enough to start trying. For a while, I just practiced, “frogged” (rip-it, rip-it), and practiced some more. But I’ve never liked practicing much – so after a while, I started to make something of my own design.
What resulted was this afghan, which I gave to my dear friend Lucy for Christmas 2006.
I used dc stitches for the whole afghan. I started with tan and made my square. Then I changed to green and finally blue, connecting the squares as I went. I continued the pattern of 3 squares until I thought I had a long enough strip (I don’t think I ended with blue – I just stopped with it was long enough). Then I created another strip, but this time starting with blue, tan, and green. And finally a third strip of green, blue, and tan. Once I had enough strips, I put it all together by using a sc stitch so that one side was neat and the other had a ridge (as seen at the top of the picture). I can’t remember if the edging was sc, dc or two dc’s.
Lucy loved this! Funny enough – it must have been Blanket Christmas because she gave me a tied fleece blanket which I love.
For Christmas 2007, I made my sister a pair of heather grey crocheted mittens. I lined them with fleece to make them extra warm.
At about the same time, I picked up some Red Heart Baby Econo Candy Print (pastel variegated, “neutral” enough colors for girls or boys) that I fell in love with. This was another made-up pattern of mine. I did two rows of each white and candy print, sc and dc. I didn’t cut off the ends when switching colors, I just carried them along the edge until they were used again (keep it loose!) Edging was very loose sc and dc with multiple stitches in the corners to prevent curling.
