Friday, May 21, 2010

Crochet: Ur doing it rong.


(yes, that's a little LolCats-inspired humor for you)


Note: This post doesn't specifically deal with ripples, but it is definitely applicable to a ripple pattern. Sorry for the slightly off-topic nature, I'm just really looking for some feedback on this.


So, I recently saw a tutorial from a British crocheter on how to do a US double crochet (known as a treble crochet in the UK). At first I skipped over it to get to the part of the pattern I was interested in, but when I came back to it, I noticed something odd. The instructions for this stitch differed from the way I learned to do it. At first I thought, "Oh, she must have gotten something mixed up!," mostly because it sounded like an extended double crochet to me. At this point, I decided to do a little research on the interwebs.

Guess what I found out? 

Apparently, I have been working the double crochet incorrectly for as long as I've been crocheting! It's pretty odd too, because it's neither a double nor a half double, but seemingly a hybrid of the two. So, here's the difference:

The instructions I found for it indicate that you should:

yarn over
insert hook into stitch
yo, draw through first loop (the stitch that's on the hook, so that there are now 3 loops on the hook)
yo, draw through two loops (so that now there are two loops)
yo, draw through the last two loops.


In contrast, the way I was taught is as follows:

yo, insert hook into stitch
yo, draw through first TWO loops on hook (that's the stitch that's on the hook plus the first loop) so that there are 2 loops left on the hook
yo, draw through last two loops on the hook


Furthermore, the instructions I found for a half double crochet were:

yo, insert hook into stitch
yo, draw through first loop (leaving three loops on the hook)
yo, draw through remaining three loops

Is this just a different tradition in crochet stitches? I could swear I have seen this double crochet in some of my mother's old crochet books. I don't plan on changing the way I crochet over this, but I did find it to be somewhat odd. Does my method sound familiar to anyone else out there?

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Hello, everyone! I'm a new member to this blog, and am very happy to be here! I hope that I will be able to enrich this wonderful online community in some way. If you'd like, please visit my personal blog, Stitch-Witchery. I am also a member of the Grannies and Ripples group blog.

Below is a photo of two baby blankets I have started, since my niece and one of my sisters-in-law are both pregnant! One is a simple little ripple that will alternate between mint green and bright white, and the other will be a super-sized granny square with the same color theme. Wish me luck! :)