Crocheters unite!

Moomin

Thanks to badgermonkey for starting this thread. Like you, I have only just taken up crotcheting a couple of weeks ago. As a kid, I had a ladybird book on Crotchet, but at the time I just didn't get it.
25 years on, and I popped into my library and picked up a couple of books on the craft and I am now 'hooked'. Still early stages, but I have done 1 granny square!! I'm so proud of myself!
I much prefer crotcheting to knitting.

xxbutterflygirlxx

Alfietinker - the size of the hook corresponds to the thickness of yarn but I often use a much thicker hook than usual as things work up so much quicker and often the stitch pattern looks better.

Chipps

I took DS to his piano lesson this morning, usually I sit & go through my diary & to do lists while he has his lesson. Today I took the mittens I am knitting for Operation Christmas Child boxes with me.
Turns out piano teacher is mad keen knitter, crocheter, "anything with needles" she says! After the lesson she brought out some tiny, beautifully made little crocheted baskets she has just done, to show us.
And she's quite young, too.

rehtse

lucylou wrote:

I am a crocheter as well but haven't crocheted for a while but I have some very nice links of free websites at home and I willpost them soon.I used to crochet bootees and baby hats and mittens so cute:A

Great I'm looking forward to that. I've a new grandchild on the way and I'd love to crochet a shawl as well as bootees etc :T :T :T

simonne15_2

So pleased you've discovered this skill. I have done lots of crochet in the past; its great and so much easier to produce an interesting pattern in crochet than knitting yet people think its difficult!
With wool you can race ahead and watch things grow rapidly.
Re sources of wool - such shops have disappeared from shopping centres with the flood of cheap-labour-produced clothing. But you can find them still in villages and small market towns.
Libraries will have patterns and I'll bet some of the pattern companies like Patons/Baldwin and Vogue will have archived material not to mention Kaffe Fassett's wonderful colour examples.
Anyone beginning this craft would be well advised to begin with thick yarn and large crochet hook and progress later to finer thread which takes ages to grow .
You're right about crochet being underrated - there are mats for coppers in bed linen shops here and in spanish markets.
Similarly the more-difficult skill of Tatting, with a shuttle, is even further underrated. My Mum used to do that, I can do a little but find it to fine to produce anything I would use; I don't do dressing table mats or lacy collars on blouses!

Good Luck with the revival.

moggins

I've finished the scarf I was knitting for my little girl and am now doing a dolls blanket for a toy cot I want to give her for christmas.

The funniest thing is that my mother came this morning and asked me to knit a scarf for a friends little girl too

carras

I started 'craft' as a small girl. Always off school ill and embrodery kept me going. Yes I was taught knitting but have only ever managed one jumper - and that took forever to complete. At 11 I was given a ladylike doll plus a dressmaking pattern. Over the years I taught myself to make clothes for myself and Mum.

In my twenties I tried crochet - self taught from a book with large needles and a large hook. I now own a 'kit' contating all sizes of hooks from 1 rising in half sizes to 7. I have a box full of assorted threads and some knitting wool. I have 'aquired' patterns over the years, some very shabby.

In my early years I crochetted several baby shawls mainly for Mum's work collegues and occasionally a friend's baby. Had none myself! Still remember that pattern!

Then Mum and I got brave. We set off lining crosstiched squares with crochet lace. The lace took a 0.6 needle and very fine thread and comprised tiny Irish crochet squares. Each square took half an hour to do (the length of a trian journey to work) and each embroidered square needed 8 lace squares down each side plus a square in each corner. Mum completed all 9 squares long before I finished the lace!

It is several years since I last did any work but perhaps I should get it out again. I sit and fidget when I could be doing something!

I'm certainly going to look at the web sites - I had never thought about them existing! :j

ampersand

Haven't been online since this week's news came - CROCHET!
As a teenaged Antipodean left-hander in the 60's,Swinging 60's London, Beatles, Carnaby Street, Twiggy, baby doll/hipster/keyhole/hotpants fashion etc.etc.(and so much else that's back again)were blue touch papers waiting to be lit, especially from half a world away.
But, for me, crochet was indeed a Women's Lib. passport - and will always be FOR ALL LEFT-HANDERS WHO STRUGGLE TO KNIT....if they were taught by a right hander to hold the wool in that hand.
I knit, not easily, long ago working out how to knit backwards. wool in left hand, along a plain row to create purl without turning the work, but ribbing/moss/aran is still tortuous.
With crochet, regardless of which hand holds the thread, directions need no adjustment and work progresses at a great rate.

MuMu_4

This is my first time writing a message so I hope you'll forgive any mistakes.

This is a great post Thanks for starting it. I've used a lot of the web sites mentioned but I'll look to see if I can think of any more.

I also started as a 'young' crochet/cross stich/ occasional knitter, I suppose at 30 I still am. I lived in Africa for a while and what was often commented upon was not my age but my academic achievements. I was there to do research for my PhD and apparently anyone with post secondary (maybe even post primary) education would never be seen crocheting etc. as these are activities for uneducated women!

Anyway I usually buy my wool (and often my patterns) from charity stores but I worked out a few weeks ago that it would be cheaper to buy blankets other people had crocheted and unravel them to recrochet in my own style. It was only a short step to then consider unravelling jumpers and other woolen items as well. I mentioned this to a friend who sent me the following link which might be of interest here.

http://www.thekittyzoo.com/recycledyarn.html

Hope it's useful

jaynen75

Hi everyone,

I have been crocheting for years now. Started when I was at school making ponchos!!.. when they were in fashion in the sixties. Started again when my children were babies and then once more when the grandchildren started to arrive! I have made all sorts of things including christening shawls for all five of the grandchildren!

Have any of you done any Tunisian crochet? I discovered it some years back when I was working in an old peoples home and one of the old ladies was busy working away with a strange looking long crochet hook. I asked her what it was and she was happy to show me how to do it.

It works along the same lines as crochet but you keep all the stitches on the needle as you work to the left (for right handed workers) and then crochet into the stitches on the needle and drop them off on the way back. Not sure if that sounds clear but it is quite simple to do once you get going. As you are effectively working into the stitch twice it makes lovely thick, warm babies blankets. I have made lots to go on prams and cots and they are lovely to use as shawls or put over your knees!

Hope this will inspire some of you to experiment!!

Happy crocheting,

Jayne.