Having reminded myself of basic crochet stitches, I of course decided that meant I could crochet garments. So far that hasn't worked out too well. I have given up (temporarily) on the Millicent cardigan, made of squares you connect as you go, since my frustration level at having to do each square 3 times was kind of taking the fun out of it. I know, I really do, that I am trying to produce crochet garments at the level of my knitting skills. I don't care. I am going to keep trying.
Having decided to give Millicent a rest, I went back to the Ribs and Bobbles vest, which proceeded to kick my butt and laugh at any statment that I am an experienced knitter. Needing to take a break from that humiliation (damn you row 15!), I decided to frustrate myself even more by starting this:
Isn't it beautiful? It is called the Painted Wool vest. It is a free pattern from Red Heart yarns. And I had the perfect yarn for it. Ambitious? Hah! I swatched, changed the size of my hook, did it again, figured out the pattern (I thought), got gauge, and then, in my frustration with the damned row 15 of Ribs and Bobbles, I started the vest. I got almost 3 rounds in, then frogged it. No real frustration, I just knew I had to figure some things out. So I looked at the instructions very closely.
Crochet instructions are why we are taught set theory as kids. This is what crochet instructions look like.
*** ** xx xy xyxyx xxxxx* bbbbcbcb bb ccy** ghgh xyxy* gh gh yyy*** Repeat *--* 4 times, **--** 4 times, ***--*** once. xyxyxy bbgb. Repeat *-* 2 times. ***-** twice more.
???? There are 4 2-column pages of this stuff. You can see it for yourself at the link above.
The good news is that since the pattern is a pdf download, I can cut and paste to another document. So I am unpacking the instructions, so that instead of going back and finding rows of asterisks, and then tracing through the instructions to find its partner, I am lining up all the instructions in a linear rather than recursive structure.
I have seen granny squares and other motifs charted instead of written out. The charts are very beautiful in and of themselves. Here is a crochet chart:
They are really very pretty, are a direct representation of what you are creating, with each symbol a particular type of stitch. But this is for an individual motif, like a granny square. I have not yet seen a garment charted. Knitted garment patterns often include charts for parts of the garment, the part that requires different stitches. And I hear that Japanese patterns are completely charted. Til I figure that out though, I am cutting and pasting the repeats in the written patterns to make them easier to follow.
So after a week of chasing my tail, knitting and frogging row 15 so many times the yarn is fraying, starting one crochet project after another, starting an afghan -- oh wait, did I mention that?
When I was in NY with my sister, we went to the LionBrand studio just a few blocks from said sister's apartment. There I saw this afghan. I do not normally find afghans all that appealing, but this one got me.
I didn't like the yarn they used, chose something else. It is knit log cabin style, in 6 large blocks that are then sewn together. So I figured it would be a good take-to-knitting-meetings project -- nothing too complicated, just enough to be interesting. I am using a different weight yarn though, not by much but a bit, and I suddenly got myself confused about whether I could just follow their dimensions or if I had to go by rows rather than inches. So, as I was saying, knitting and ripping row 15, starting and stopping and strarting crochet projects, starting and confusing myself about the afghan... I got the lilac Elizabeth cardi done because I focused on that one project. I have to find my feet and try that again.
And now, just for pretty, a piece of the art work by Jennifer Maestre, who took it seriously when she said she worked in the medium of colored pencils:
Love both of those patterns, what is the name of the afghan pattern?
Posted by: Amanda | January 23, 2013 at 09:36 AM
It's the Slip Stitch Sampler Throw. There is a link to it on my Ravelry projects page. I think you will be seeing a lot of it for a long time at our Thursday night meetings.
Posted by: Rob | January 23, 2013 at 09:53 AM