Thursday, August 16, 2007

The crochet thing. With (lame) photos.

Sooooo. Last night I went out and bought "The Happy Hooker" from Deb Stoller. I hadn't intended to, but the other book there, about thirty pages long and maybe four by eight inches per page, was the SAME PRICE. I figured if I was going to pay, I'd get more information for the same money.

My problem, I think, is that crochet makes no logical sense to me; single crochet means forming two loops on the hook. Double crochet means forming THREE loops. No sense. So I'm going to take the same approach I did with algebra, quit demanding it make sense, and just memorize it. So far, so good.

I'm doing the simple deal where you make a chain around, attatching it at certain points, then you go around again, making a chain and attatching it to the chain, so you get little scallops. It looks kind of neat.

You can kind of get the hang of what I'm doing there.

Here's a bigger picture, of the huge circle draped artfully (ha) over the back of the recliner, to give an idea how long it's taking me to go around this thing each time.

The white stripe is the Thumb Trick, which will become the arm hole opening, remember.

And here's a shot of the hook I'm using; it's a Clover ergonomic job.


So far it's not bothering my hand much at all to crochet, but so far I haven't had the patience to sit down and work on it for hours at a time like I do the knitting, so, we'll see.


Oh, and the Baby's cute.

15 comments:

Donna Lee said...

I learned to crochet first and could never figure out why people used two needles when one worked just as well. Then I saw all the pretty things you can do with those two needles and I was un-hooked. I still crochet some and teach others who want to learn. But I still love the versatility of knitting.
And, yes, the baby is cute. I hope you took her offering.

Rose Red said...

I've always thought the English naming conventions for crochet made more sense - the single crochet doesn't exist, so what the US calls a single crochet is a double crochet (ie 2 loops) and the US double crochet is an English treble (ie 3 loops). It's even more annoying when you are trying to teach someone how to crochet. Sigh!
Re baby - at first glance I thought the pasta (?) was something else, emanating from her nose. Ewww!!

Bells said...

RoseRed said what I was going to say. I can't cope with American crochet patterns for that reason - I'm totally across the English conventions and get really annoyed with the US conventions. Treble makes so much more sense than Double Crochet!
So you are right to find it illogical.

MrsFife said...

Ditto on Rose Red and Bells. Now that you put it that way, the UK terms make more sense. Although I've no problems crossing over between the two (most patterns on the net are American).

Anonymous said...

I was going to say something about English names too, but I think I'll just be quiet.

Denise said...

Good to see there are more ergonomic crochet hooks out there - crochet still plays merry hell with my hands, but it would be good to try one of those doovywhackers. Your border is looking excellent so far!

Bells said...

so what sort of hook is that?? Looks fascinating.

It's good for my hands to crochet. I should do it more often because I think I use different muscles or actions or whatever and it seems to be a good change for me.

roxie said...

Looks good to me! Keep up the great work!

Amy Lane said...

Is the baby ever NOT cute? That's gorgeous, btw... the crochet is looking tres professional...

NeedleTart said...

Single crochet because you draw the thread through the loops once. Double crochet because you draw the thread through twice. At least I think that's it (it's been decades, yipe, since I did more than a chain to pick up knitting stitches).

Sheepish Annie said...

It's not how many loops you have. It's how many times you have to flip the hook thingie to get back to one loop. Not counting the number of times you lose the yarn, swear profusely and start over...

I think it's a bit worse than algebra, actually!

Unknown said...

I can crochet just as well as knitting... It's the going back and forth between the two that's a bi (can I say "bitch" on the blog?).

Unknown said...

Oh, I learned both from the Reader's Digest Complete Guide to Needlework. Every used book store I've gone into has at least three of them lying around. Couldn't hurt.l

Twelfthknit said...

Thanks for dropping by my blog - those were some other heart-stopping moments you posted.
India

Lisa said...

Love the yarn color! Looking forward to watching the progress on this one:)