Little Lessons

My favourite part of being a full-time crafter is sharing skills with lovely people. I know I've said it before, but I get so much from seeing people start their crochet adventure. 

I had a visit from Sharon on Wednesday, she came along to try out some new stitches, we had a go at crocheting rows, and varying with front and back loops, and we did a mitred square. 

Rita came popped up with her lovely daughter Jess, and we went over granny squares, then onto Sunburst squares. They are both naturals!

I was thrilled to hear that they'd spent the afternoon practising...

And on Saturday Tarloke visited for a beginner lesson, and made his very first square. 

 The days fly by when I have such lovely company. 

My Sock Yarn Blanket Begins...

So the thought was in my head last week, and it wouldn't go away, and now it would appear that I have started a new project, one that might well be a long time in the making...

 I gathered all of my leftover sock yarn, and my trusty 3mm hook, and I began making little squares. And suddenly there were five of them...

 The pattern is one that I found on a search of the internet, a sweet little mitred square pattern that works very nicely indeed. My particular method and exact stitch numbers are...

(UK stitch abbreviations)Using a 3mm hook and 4Ply yarn, chain 31 and turn

Into the back loops only (which gives the nice textured ribby effect) double crochet 14 stitches, skip 2 chains and dc14. 

Ch 1, then dc into 13 stitches, sk2, dc 13. Turn.

Ch 1, then dc into 12 stitches, sk2, dc 12. Turn.

Ch 1, then dc into 11 stitches, sk2, dc 11. Turn. And so on, you get the idea...

Until you have only two stitches either side of the gap, and you simply draw up a loop from each of the side stitches (still skipping the middle two) and wrap and pull through all of the loops. Then cut your yarn leaving a tail to sew up with!

This gives you a square that is approximately 5cm square. I just stitched them together through the side stitches, and added each square as it was made, hopefully this will help me to avoid the dreaded colour OCD...

My thanks to the creator, Mary Grace at Hooked on Needles for the wonderful pattern! 

Hip to be Square...

I've been plotting and scheming with a dear friend of mine over the last month or so, and we're going to be running a little course called "Square Enough", which will be a little bit of dabbling in both crochet and knitting. I'm handling the crochet side, so I've been having a little go at some different types of squares...

I grabbed a book, my usual starting point, and tried some corner-up patterns - these two came from "200 Crochet Blocks", one of my all-time favourite crochet books. 

Then I consulted the internet, thank goodness for google, and found a pattern for mitred squares. I tried some different sizes, and some with stripes, and I think they're rather splendid. I might even be tempted to make a sock yarn blanket with my odds and ends, although I'm pretty sure I don't need any new projects!