Saturday, January 17, 2009

Crochet Anyone?

Hear me roar. I'm ramping up here.
When knitting takes too much focus, crochet. Okay, it's not like it doesn't take focus to crochet, but once I get started, it pretty much flows right along.
I preferred crochet when I was a girl because I thought that it was always safer to have one "live" stitch instead of a whole needle full. That's still the case for me. Ripping back is easier in a way, except you can't correct something three rows back by "laddering" down. You do actually have to rip back to that place.
Around the same time that I got over my fear of numbers and because a finance professional (!), I got over my fear of knitting patterns with their seemingly dense numbers and codes. I just finished a test knit that was a solid 1.5 pages of "code" that I had to read to. I couldn't even mark off each row. I had to mark off small blocks of text of the pattern at a time so that I wouldn't lose place.
I can't show the sweater here because, you know...it's like...not published yet. Yeah. But trust me, it actually became a sweater, small but a sweater with all sorts of complicated shaping. A knitting miracle. Okay, perhaps not a miracle because that would mean some sorts of divine hand guiding me. It was way too hard. I don't think there was any divine anything in play this time.
That said, I got a free pattern at the TKGA show this year from Moda Dea and I'm actually crocheting a little jacket. I started in one yarn and then ripped out several times until I changed to Superwash Bamboo from Elann in Silver Birch. (Look, I'm linking like a good girl!)
Back to it now.

5 comments:

pdxknitterati/MicheleLB said...

Wow, the "C" word. I actually don't mind it, but don't do it often enough to remember which stitch is which! For a while, crochet made my hand go numb, but I think I'm past that carpal tunnel issue now...

Looking forward to seeing what it was that you knit!

Melissa Barton said...

I wanted to mention that this brand of crochet hook is what got me going again. It's Palm wood from Laurel Hill, made in Vietnam. It's so smooth and light, it's just blissful. Give it a try.

Aunt Kathy said...

I feel the same way about crochet and the 1 live stitch, but I love the way a knitted garmnet looks compared to crochet. So I do both, lol

Now I must find this brand of crochet hook, I love my bamboo knitting needles never thought to get a crochet hook made from wood.

Anonymous said...

Pretty! I used to know how to crochet and have been seeing so many pretty patterns that I think I should relearn.

Anonymous said...

I love crochet too, but unfortunately I find that it brings on the RSI to which I'm prone. Your secret knitting sounds intruiguing!