Deerey Me!

Well I am well and truly hooked on crochet. Don’t get me wrong, I still love sewing, but crochet is still at the learning stage so is just for me rather than for my shop. At the beginner’s crochet 2 hour course at ‘Wool’ in Bath (run for Bath WI) I learnt:

• a slip knot (to get started)
• chain stitch
• slip stitch
• treble crochet

The granny squares started improving and I felt I was ready to buy some more expensive yarn (although still not very expensive) and to treat myself to a couple of books to learn some more stitches:

Now I also know:

• double crochet
• double treble crochet

I have moved on from the standard granny square to the daffodil square; have decided it is too heavy with only the border in white, so will make the centres in white too. One day it will be a blanket, sitting on our bed. My hope is that the more I do, the tidier it will get…at the moment it still needs work!

A couple of years back my sister gave me a book on making flowers, and now I think I may stand a chance of making something that resembles the photos in the book.

My first attempts are not quite right – I need to count better and I am sure I am not making my slip stitches in quite the right place, but this week I have a dear friend visiting and she is a very talented crochetist and I will take every opportunity to make the most of her expertise while she is here…and will pay her in lavender scented shortbread!

I am also experimenting with different styles of crochet hook…the steel one is ok, but sometimes my fingers ache (think I am too tense), so I got some acrylic ones (ok, I admit it, I liked the rainbow colours) and managed to snap the one I was using (but I didn’t like the way it kind of squeaked against the yarn anyway), so I will try bamboo and one of the Clover softgrip ones. Yes, a bad workman blames his tools, but there’s no harm in finding the most comfortable style to use! What do crocheters out there recommend?