Category Archives: Crochet

RHSS

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I know it’s practically heretical, but I’ve talked here before about my love affair with RHSS (that would be Red Heart Super Saver, for any of you who have never had the pleasure of encountering an OMG-teh-ebil-squeaky-babby-melting-acrylic thread). There are…new colors. New colors that I must have. New colors that need to find their way into the giant-granny-square-blanket-that-may-never-be-finished. And scarves that won’t get ruined when thrown into the wash. And the sweaters I really want to make for the kids. And that big-ass blanket I cut up.

And we’re not even going to talk about Red Heart’s new With Love…

Another ode to the granny square:

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I’d love to put this in poetic for, because it’s fun. And a proper ode needs a proper form, yes? But alas, tonight is not the night.

I suppose this is more of a thank-heavens-for-the-granny-square, which always comes to my rescue when I’m too scattered or stressed to work on something more complicated, which can soothe me just by moving my hands through those familiar motions, which can make me fall in love with crochet again and again and again, and which can be stitched together into some of the loveliest afghans ever conceived.

Thank you, my very best yarny friend. Thank you, indeed.

This is what I did to my crochet:

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I’ve been slowly working on a Vintage Vertical Stripe afghan for the last year or two, and I’ve been rather severely hampered by the fact that I made it way, way too long to start with. I was planning to have the stripes run vertically on a bed, and I totally overestimated how long it would need to be, which I suppose was my penalty for starting it while I was in the middle of the woods.

So when I realized I was never going to finish it, and when I realized that I really, *really* didn’t want to send it to the frog pond, I decided to try something radical. Worst case, it gets tossed. best case, it gets revived. Why not?

After carefully cutting a couple of feet off of it, I started unraveling the cut edge and reworking the last stitch or three. I did one row at a time and worked up:

On the “wrong side” rows, it took a little more finagling and working some twisted stitches, but it came out looking fine. The right side was dead simple. By about halfway through I was fairly certain that what I was doing would actually work.

And with another half-hour of work, I discovered it had.

I have some weaving of ends to do, but I needed to do that anyway.

I won’t lie. I feel dreadfully clever. And I’m pretty excited that I’ll most likely finish the thing now. How could I not?

Why I don’t knit lace.

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I have a deep and inexplicable need for my knitting to be insanely simple. I wouldn’t find this at all remarkable if it weren’t for the fact that I don’t feel the same way about crochet. Or at least not to the same extent.

I’ve tried knitting cables, and I’ve tried knitting lace. I’ve even succeeded a time or two. Hell, if the pattern is rhythmic enough, I’ve even enjoyed it.

Building that rhythm seems to be the key for me. I suspect this is why I took to spinning like the proverbial duck to water. (Nevermind that I’ve worked with it for all of an hour or so…I know love at first sight when I see it.)

I look at projects on Ravelry sometimes and wish for a few minutes that I were the kind of knitter that could and would make those things. But really? I’m happy over here in the corner with my dishcloths. Knitting for me is sort of like my old Birkenstocks…simple, useful, and dead comfortable.

Which would be why I love it.