A New Crochet Technique

 A crochet tutorial from Annie's appeared on Facebook. I was intrigued. 

Hannah Cross of HanJan clearly explained a type of mosaic crochet. I dug out a couple of yarns from my acrylic stash and followed her steps and was able to create a little swatch. 

It wasn't that difficult. It would be easier doing this in the round as you're always crocheting from right to left. Doing it flat, you have to cut your yarn at the end of every row. It would be cool for a hat pattern. 

Annie's has a couple of Hannah's patterns. This tutorial was for the basics of the Splash of Colour Afghan. 

Because it's primarily single crochet, I would probably not choose to do a whole blanket but a hat might be fun. I'd have to figure out my gauge and some negative ease so it wouldn't fall off my little head.

I really enjoy learning new things. I'm also considering investing in some crochet hooks with good grips. I'm volleying between plastic handles which are really inexpensive and silicone handles which are 2.5x more. I don't crochet much and do have a box of hooks that I bought at a yard sale that covers every possible size including teeny tiny ones that can go through small beads for beadwork in knitting. I have, however, been doing more crocheting lately to use up more and more of my stash and have been donating the 45" x 55" afghans to our local hospital for chemo patients.

A few months ago I crocheted a swatch of a buffalo check from another YouTube tutorial from Daisy Farm Crafts. She calls it 'gingham'. I learned how to carry the yarns by capturing them in each stitch from colour to colour. You can see the how the pink is carried through the white stitches.

The stitch pattern was a combination of single and double crochets called 'griddle stitch'. I liked the effect but it was too fiddly for my liking. If I were to stitch it, I'd definitely use a large crochet hook so the resulting fabric would be somewhat loose. I don't really like the feel of tight, 'bulletproof' crocheting for and blanket.

I have finished the main lace pattern on my Hydrangea cowl and have started the edge. It involves casting on 12 provisional stitches, joining it perpendicularly to the bottom of the cowl, and working another lace pattern back and forth on those 12 stitches, joining the 12th stitch purlwise to the edge stitch of the bottom of the lace 'tube'. No pics right now but I should be able to finish it tonight.

Skip and I are going to watch a Netflix movie, 'Definition, Please' about a spelling bee champion who is struggling to live up to her full potential as an adult. It got 100% on the Rotten Tomatoes tomatometer. That's certainly good enough for me.

This afternoon I will start my Wessex Stitch needlebook that several guild members are doing as a project. We had a great tutorial by Sylvia and Marion who stitched it ahead of time and have warned us about several tricky things in the pattern and some of the pitfalls we may encounter.

Lastly, I love word puzzles and have recently become intrigued by the online word game, Wordle (not an app). I had seen some Facebook friends posting their scores and I had FOMO and checked it out. It's pretty fun. Some cheeky musician developed one for choral music called Byrdle (as in the English Renaissance composer, William Byrd).

I hope you aren't getting whiplash from all my digressions and tangents lately. Being cooped up has my mind whirling a lot of the time but my body isn't quite as cooperative. I flit from one thing to the next.