2012 update: Crochet!

[mylittleredgirl]

I just really wanted to use my cheapie graphic again, OK?

I like how 2012 has stood for the apocalypse for so many years now and now it's just "the year we are currently in." Well, if we all fall off the end of the calendar in December, at least I will have spent a month learning to crochet.

I started, like you do, with a dishcloth. I've had these crochet dishcloths for ages in the gmail draft I use for craft links (because they didn't have pinterest in 2009 and I thought del.icio.us was only for fanfic and I'm not even on pinterest now because I'd like to live a little more before I never leave the internet again.)


Oh good, you can't see all the dog hair in the photo.

I'm still working on the sloppily slip stitched border to tidy up the edges a little (math tells me that with half-double-crochet I should slip stitch into two out of three rows, but it's hard for me to find which holey bit delineates a row). It's mostly error-free except for one missed stitch at an edge that made that part of it look a little chewed. Note to knitters: you miss a stitch and the project DOES NOT UNRAVEL! This also means if you're a newbie, you don't notice til way later.

Tonight I found some amazing, simple, oh-that's-how-you-do-it-okay-I'm-good-now resources:

Crochet 101: Chain Stitch, Single & Double Crochet - 6:42 of your life to watch a video, a minute or two of reading and picture-looking if you didn't understand all the terms, and DONE. They even throw in slip stitch free of charge.

OH GOD WHAT IS THIS, THIS IS WHAT CROCHET WAS MADE FOR. This Easy Peasy McPeasyPie crochet ripple pattern is obviously the spiritual reason why I wanted to learn to crochet, even though I never saw it before. I want to use this for afghans, pillows, covering my entire house, etc. Plus: Another teach for double-crochet (called treble crochet in the UK just to confuse you... and actually there are very good reasons for both names, so I can see the dilemma), with super tutorial pictures and text, and even if you don't care a bit about crochet just go look at the brightly colored afghan pictured so you can enable me to buy yarn in many colors.

I have a few ideas for Next Projects! Exciting!

(Meanwhile, in The Sims, all the time I'm spending crocheting and not micromanaging their electronic lives has resulted in everybody cheating on everybody and spontaneous fistfights breaking out! Whitby just got pregnant by the (male) maid, and then when she went to make him a sandwich, maid starts hitting on her sister Weylani! Then their mom came in and started yelling at him. Epic.)

FYI, if you have your livejournal settings so you overwrite other people's moodthemes, you're missing T'Pol proudly spearing a breadstick with a fork.

Comments

[naushika.livejournal.com]

Yay, dishcloth! Very pretty! :3 I will gladly enable you to buy yarn in many colors.. BUY IT. I just put in an order yesterday for several skeins of yarn for some knitting projects I want to do. YARN IS SO SQUISHY AND PRETTY AND IT MAKES WARM THINGS.

Haha speaking of T'Pol and the breadstick.. I suddenly remembered watching the gag reel for that season of Enterprise, and there were several clips from that scene with Jolene trying to cut the breadstick with the knife and failing horribly. And another one with, I think, Bakula trying to take a bite and a huge piece came off. Okay it sounds dumb just from describing it but it was funny I swear.

[rosewildeirish.livejournal.com]

I have the afghan. :) My mom made it for me. Red/Black/White.

[loriel-eris.livejournal.com]

OMG, that set of instructions for the ripple blanket is perhaps the most awesome thing ever and totally why the internet was created!

I'm an ok knitter, nothing fantastic, but reasonably competent, so I decided to give crocheting a go. I made my foundation chain, but I could not, for love nor money make a second (first?) row. I gave up in disgust and have not gone back.

I suspect that I will go back. Once I've got over my completely inability to follow a set of instructions...

[meg-tdj.livejournal.com]

Nice job! :D

Note to knitters: you miss a stitch and the project DOES NOT UNRAVEL!

YES! And this is why I love it. :)

That ripple pattern is really similar to what I did in the afghan I made my mom for Christmas, except there were gaps between the stitches to make it look all lacey. Another thing I love about crochet - people stare at you like you're a genius if you make something cool-looking like that, but it was absurdly quick and easy to do. CROCHET 4EVA!!