Learn to crochet?

[Puddleduck]

Another dementia lap blanket complete! This one is also based on Kirsten's Winter Opulence pattern but I only used donated yarn so this one is cream and variegated. I've called it DC-6 Spring is Coming. The centre is 4 squares and it measures about 3 ft square over all. It doesn't lie flat

 

[Lisa]

Strange this thread has just popped up as I've dug out my mum's crochet hooks as I've decided to give it a try. I'll be using YouTube videos. Wish I'd asked mum before she passed away 3 years ago, she always had knitting or crochet on the go until her eyesight went. The last thing she knitted was a thick cardy for me as she knew I was always cold I never mastered knitting, too slow
Karen

Have a search for Bella Coco on YouTube. Her vids are excellent for beginners and there is plenty to get your teeth into.
Good luck

 

[Lisa]

Great idea

 

[mart]

jan's very colourful seaside creation

 

[Puddleduck]

Have a search for Bella Coco on YouTube. Her vids are excellent for beginners and there is plenty to get your teeth into.
Good luck

If you can chain then everything else is a matter of wrapping the yarn round the hook as many times as the pattern / stitch type says, sticking the hook into your work in the correct place, wrapping the yarn again and pulling the yarn through as many loops as the pattern / stitch type requires. {You already did almost all of this when you made a chain.}

Once you can make an even chain then you have (mostly) cracked it!

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[Aly1]

Hi. Is anyone doing the new Stylecraft CAL, Under the Sea?
It started yesterday.

 

[Puddleduck]

Thanks for that - I have saved the first part of the pattern and might have a go using soe of the donated yarns. Lots of baby blues and yellows in there!

It would make a "different" dementia blanket and I am always looking for changes.

 

[TOT]

Always cherish the Puke green jumper my sister banged together for my 21st b'day long time ago. 2 sizes to big but still wear it today now and again .... when no ones looking.

 

[SGNV]

Latest bit of kitsch, courtesy of the yarn shop in Amble that had crochet cotton in the bargain bin (but no sock yarn which is what I'd gone in for). Goth table cloth anybody? Black makes it a bit more tricky, especially the spiral beginning. But then so is the next project, the instructions are rather gobbledegook (I'd say there's some parts missing, not unusual in this book), but think I have managed to work it out with the photo. Well, I have created something that looks right and works with the next round of instructions!

 

[Puddleduck]

Love that SGNV !!!

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[SGNV]

I've worked it out, actually nice and easy, have 3 large balls of cotton, will keep me occupied for a while.

 

[Puddleduck]

SGNV I do love your work.

Maybe when I am done with my dementia blankets I might do some fine work.

My Grandfather's Aunt (who I knew as Auntie Sallie when she was a very old lady) did some wonderful fine work. She was a nursing sister on permanent night shift so spent a lot of her shifts doing crochet with sewing thread. My Mum has some of the doilies she made and they are so fine. One of my ambitions ......

 

[SGNV]

Puddleduck , sewing thread is impressive. It becomes so hard to just hold it even before you get to anything that fine. With such a fine/pointy hook I often have to be careful as I end up poking a hole in my left index finger. The white and black recently is not that fine, 1mm for the black and now 1.25mm. As I have said before, it probably is a bit bizarre but my hands cramp up if the hook is too big and if the work gets heavier my wrists protest. It's why I had to stop knitting jumpers a few years back.

 

[Puddleduck]

I think with Auntie Sallie the sewing thread was easily available and cheap. Mum thought the nurses were issued it free of charge for mending

I was given a cone of fine cotton a little coarser than sewing thread a while back - might try that if I can find a pattern I like. Auntie Sallie made up her own of course. She liked pineapples and flowers

 

[SGNV]

Making up her own is even more impressive. I am amazed at times with some of these patterns, how on earth did someone ever come up with the idea of doing it like this. The one I do at the moment is basically 2 rounds, make the square in the middle and then the petals you do one at a time going back and forth.

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[denisejoe]

My nan couldn't follow a pattern but show her a picture and she could make it! Very impressive, well it was to me as a 12 year old at the time.

 

[Puddleduck]

I think she was taught by her mother / grandmother and she spent a lot of time caring for elderly relatives (she never married), and after her father died she qualified as a nurse. During WWI she was in Palestine as it was then and from then on specialised in mental health nursing. I know she liked to work nights as it gave her time to do her own thing when she had done her rounds and the patients were sleeping (old Nightingale wards in those days). She also said she could hide her crochet in her apron pocket when Matron came round lol. The knitters didn't have that luxury and had to drop their work in a desk drawer. As if Matron wasn't well aware!!!!!!

Auntie Sallie taught me the basics of crochet with a big hook and knitting wool when I was little (she was born in 1885 and died in her late 90s so she must have been in her mid to late 80s when she taught me) and I remember making ponchos for all my friends when they were the height of fashion!!!! It gives me a bit of a shiver to think of the skills coming down the generations!! Other family members say I looked very like her when we were both in our 20s. I don't see it except in the face shape. Auntie Sallie was just so pretty and feminine.

I don't know if Mum has it but I remember one table centre that started as a pineapple and then chain work followed by rounds of flowers that were worked across chain loops - one of the doilies Mum has also has these flowers. I need to have a good look and see if I can draw out the stitches - or an approximation. Otherwise I will see what I can do in thicker yarn from memory. There were also framed pieces of what I would call Irish Crochet (3D flowers and leaves). Goodness knows what happened to them. I hope other members of the family have some of them. I suppose once the memory of the person who made something is gone there is no need to keep these items when they outlive their usefulness - which is really sad.

 

[Puddleduck]

My latest dementia blanket now complete

I love the elements pattern and am using it a lot at the moment. I also like the "reverse double crochet" edging.

 

[Janine]

It’s amazing how our grandmothers managed to create such fine work in probably quite dim light. I know my Nan developed quite poor eyesight as a result of such close work.

She was also a very talented seamstress. She did Old Time ballroom dancing and would run-up a new frock without using a pattern even!

 

[Puddleduck]

Hi. Is anyone doing the new Stylecraft CAL, Under the Sea?
It started yesterday.

Part 1 complete and I have started part 2. I'm using donated yarn so my colour scheme is unique!!!!

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[Aly1]

Part 1 complete and I have started part 2. I'm using donated yarn so my colour scheme is unique!!!!

I need to get a move on. I’m just finishing my 2nd piece of part 1 . I’m doing colour scheme 2, I’m looking forward to seeing your colours.

 

[Puddleduck]

I found part 1 took much longer than part 2. I have 2 of the 4 squares of part 2 complete (they don't take long - I used a marker to mark the first stitch of the rounds as they are easy to miss). I may get square 3 finished tonight and square 4 is part done already.

 

[Janine]

 

[Lisa]

Hi. Is anyone doing the new Stylecraft CAL, Under the Sea?
It started yesterday.

I haven't seen this, do you have the details please?

EDITED - found it

 

[Puddleduck]

Part 2 of Under the Sea finished (all 4 blocks) so I am now back to the previous blanket. The first block of that is complete so I can refer to it when I do the rest - and rounds 1 - 14 of 20 are complete for the other 8 blocks.

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[Lisa]

I’m having a crochet day. I have a few Wip’s but I had to go and start another and it’s making me smile. It’s the Mouse in a Suitcase by LauraLovesCrochet. It’s so cute.

A pic (not my work)

 

[Offagain]

Offagain ?

I’m so sorry movan I totally missed this. I haven’t been on this thread for ages.
I used double pointed needles to make eye socks.

 

[davanne]

our 3 year old granddaughter would love that

 

[Puddleduck]

My son's mother-in-law has been diagnosed with a serious illness and she might like to take it into hospital with her

Now to search for the pattern ..... it's not what I usually make so good (?) to leave the comfort zone.

 

[Sugarnan]

I still haven't figured out how to join the pink baby cardigan together. I haven't heard anything back from "Peter Pan".

You maybe contact your local Knitting & Crochet guild for help with this? or post pictures, query and I'll ask the group I'm with.

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