March 9th, 2010 
mio Hey look, a hexagon!
Here’s the (lazy) pattern:
R1: *dc, ch1* 6 times
R2: *3dc in ch1 sp, ch1* 6 times
R3: *3dc, ch1, 3dc all in ch1 sp* 6 times
R4: 1dc in each previous dc, *dc, ch1, dc* in ch1 sp (8 dc per side)
R5: same as R4 (10 dc per side)
I’ve made a few of them:
What could I possibly be up to? ^_-
Posted in Motifs, Pattern 
Tags: Bernat Satin, crochet, hexagon, Mystery project, natcromo, natcromo2010 
No Comments » March 8th, 2010 mio Why Yukon? Mostly because it rhymes. Also, one of these is yellow. This one, in fact:
And that reminds me of Yukon Gold (which is a potato… yeah, I’m not sure where I’m going with this either…)
I made this for a motif swap I was in. It was a scavenger-hunt-style swap, and one of the motifs we were to “look for” was one we designed ourselves, and this was mine!
Here it is again in white:
(Um… it snows in the Yukon Territory! Snow is white! Yes, it’s all coming together now…)
Now, I’ve written this pattern in my usual, lazy style. There is no mention of how to start it, so start it however you like to start a motif made in the round. Use a Magic Ring, or just work into the first chain you made, or whatever floats your boat. I also haven’t described any turning chains. Every round is made up of dc stitches, so use something appropriate. I used no-turning-chain-dc stitches, but you could also use a ch2 or ch3. Whatever you use, treat it like a regular dc stitch for the sake of the pattern.
Oh, and don’t forget to join each round. No spirals here!
Octagon Motif:
rnd1: *dc, ch1* 8 times
rnd2: *2dc in ch1 space, ch1* 8 times
rnd3: *2dc, ch1, 2dc in ch1 space* 8 times
rnd4: *3dc, ch1, 3dc in ch1 space, dc in other space* 8 times
Posted in Motifs, Pattern Tags: Bernat Satin, craftster, crochet, motif, natcromo, natcromo2010 No Comments » March 4th, 2010 mio In my adventures with stitch height, I made this:
And here is the pattern:
Work in rows, leave a long starting tail
ch6
R1: sc in second chain from hook, hdc, dc, htc, tc. ch4 (counts as a tc) turn
R2: htc, dc, hdc, sc, ch1, turn
Repeat these two rows until you have 15 rows.
Use the starting tail to sew the bottom of the first row to the top of the last row. Weave in end.
Working in the round, make 4 sc around the tc stitches around the edge. Join to first sc. Weave in end.
(As always, please let me know if you try this pattern, and if you come across any errors!)
February 23rd, 2010 mio It’s snowing out!
Mississauga is usually out there somewhere…
… and there’s supposed to be a lake this way:
And I hate snow (boy, do I ever live in the wrong place!), but it’s ok, because my pop will be cozy:
See?
I’ve posted bottle cozies before, but there’s a difference this time: there’s a real pattern!
Yarn: Bernat Handicrafter Cotton
Hook: 5mm
Size: fits a 710ml Diet Coke bottle
ch3 (counts as a dc)
R1: 11dc into first ch, join (12 dc)
R2: ch3 (counts as dc), dc into same stitch, 2dc in each following stitch, join (24 dc)
R3: ch1, sc in same stitch, sc in next 2 stitches, 2sc in next stitch. *sc in next 3 stitches, 2sc in next stitch* 5 times, join (30 sc)
R4: ch3 (counts as a dc), sc in next stitch, *dc in next stitch, sc in next stitch* repeat all the way around, join (30 stitches)
R5: ch1, sc in same stitch, dc in next stitch, *sc in next stitch, dc in next stitch* repeat all the way around, join (30 stitches)
Repeat R4-R5 as many times as needed to reach desired length. (I did 23 rounds on the tan cozy, and 21 on the pink. The difference is for no other reason than they looked the same size on the subway… Yeah, I dunno… but they both fit the bottle nicely.)
As always, if you try this pattern and find an error, please let me know!
February 21st, 2010 mio Today I attempted to teach my crochet guild how to make a Crochet-on-the-Double hat (or this Crochet-on-the-Double hat).
I’ve made a follow-up tutorial, and was going to make it a post, but there are so very many pictures that I decided it needed it’s own page. So, click here, or scroll right to the top of this page and click on “hat”. Again, there are a LOT of pictures, so it might take some time to load.
Here’s a sample pic:
Please, please, please give me any feedback you can if you try out this tutorial. It was somewhat complicated to put together and my eyes are too blurry now to see if I missed something or messed up. I haven’t figured out how to do comments on the special pages, so feel free to comment here if you see any problems, or comment on any post here, or send me an e-mail if you have the address. Thank you so much!
Posted in Tutorial Tags: Bernat Satin, crochet, crochet-on-the-double, guild, hat, Tutorial No Comments » January 3rd, 2010 mio “What’s wrong with base chains?” you may be asking. Nothing, really. They are quite useful most of the time. In fact, they don’t really make a difference most of the time. Sometimes, though, they’re quite annoying.
For example, base chains aren’t particularly stretchy. This is a good thing if you want a nice, solid base to work with, and less so if you’re making, say, clothing.
Base chains are kind of annoying to work into; even the most advanced crocheters spend way more time working the first row into the base chain than they do working any other row in their project.
The reason this tutorial is coming up now is because base chains are at their most annoying when working with variegated yarn.
I give you this example:
This is from the pattern for my Jan. 1st motif. I made the first one the regular way, with a bunch of chains, then a dc worked into each chain. The second one was made using the method I’m about to describe.
If you look closely, you can see, very clearly, the base chain on the first example. The colours don’t match the stitches of the first row. I imagine there are some projects where this won’t matter (I can’t think of any off hand, though…), but in this one it’s quite obvious. If I’d made all of my strips that way, my motif would have looked quite odd.
I made all of my strips like the second example, and they look quite nice. Notice how the colours all match up. Purple on top of purple, dark teal on top of dark teal.
Here’s how I did it:
ch1, no-turning-chain-dc (or ch4, if you wish) :
yo, insert hook into first ch made, pull up a loop (just as you normally would to make a dc) 3 loops on hook:
yo and pull through one loop (ch made), 3 loops on hook:
Finish the dc stitch as normal; yo, pull through 2 loops, yo, pull through 2 loops. 1 loop left on hook:
Here’s the “tricky” part. yo, and insert hook in the ch you made at the bottom of the last dc. I inserted my hook under both arms of the ch to make for a pretty bottom edge:
Pull a loop through:
yo and pull a loop through the first loop on hook (ch made) :
Finish dc as normal:
Keep doing this until you get the number of dc stitches you need (did I mention this method is excellent for when you don’t feel like counting chains? It’s the base chain and first row done all at once!). Basically just start your stitch as you normally would, but once all of the loops are on the hook, do a ch-1 in the first one, then work the stitch off as normal, and work the next stitch into that ch-1 you made.
Today’s motif is from Beyond The Square again , but it’s from the circles section! (if anyone is wondering, I got this book for Christmas, and I’m just really enjoying it.) It is motif #6 found on p 43:
I’m getting better at taller stitches thanks to this book, and I thought this one turned out nicely. That circle in the middle is quite solid though… perhaps that will grow on me. I wonder what this would look like tiled… any idea how to tile decagons?
December 12th, 2009 mio Inspired by how ridiculously cold it’s been here the last couple of days, I decided to drop everything I was working on and make myself a hat.
Black side out:
Rainbow side out:
Level of difficulty: if you already know how to do crochet-on-the-double, this is really really easy. If you don’t, but you are comfortable with the Tunisian Simple Stitch, then you’ll find this pattern somewhat easy once you get going on it. If you don’t know either of those techniques, I recommend learning them on something easier (perhaps a scarf?) before attempting this. ^_^
Yarn: Bernat Satin, uses the equivalent of 1 ball for each side of hat; for mine I used 1 ball of black and small amounts of 8 colours.
Hook: 6mm double-ended hook
This pattern is for crochet-on-the-double, using the Tunisian Simple Stitch. Each row has two parts, A and B, in A you lift loops onto the hook, in B you [b]turn[/b] and work them off
MC = main colour
CC = contrasting colour
Pattern:
ch 50 in MC
Row 1A – lift up one loop in 2nd ch from hook, and in each subsequent ch (50 loops on hook, including starting loop)
Row 1B – turn, pull a loop of CC through first loop of MC. *pull a loop of CC through two loops* repeat until 1 loop of CC remains on hook.
Row 2A – loop on hook counts as first loop, insert hook from right to left through vertical bar of the second stitch from the hook on the previous row, pull up a loop of CC. Do this for every subsequent stitch (50 loops on hook)
Row 2B – turn, pull a loop of MC through the first loop on hook. *pull a loop of MC through two loops* repeat until 1 loop of MC remains.
Row 3A – pull up a loop in the second vertical bar from the hook, and continue to pull up loops until there are 2 vertical bars left (48 loops on hook)
Row 3B – turn, work loops off in CC
Row 4A – work loops on in CC (48 loops on hook)
Row 4B – turn, work loops off in MC
Row 5A – work loops on in MC until there are two vertical bars left (46 loops on hook)
Row 5B – turn, work loops off in CC
Row 6A – work loops on in CC (46 loops on hook)
Row 6B – turn, work loops off in MC
Row 7A – work loops on in MC until there are two vertical bars left (44 loops on hook)
Row 7B – turn, work loops off in CC
Row 8A – work loops on in CC (46 loops on hook)
Row 8B – turn, work loops off in MC
Row 9A – work loops on in MC until there are two vertical bars left (42 loops on hook)
Row 9B – turn, work loops off in CC
Row 10A – work loops on in CC (42 loops on hook)
Row 10B – turn, work loops off in MC
Row 11A – work loops on in MC until there are two vertical bars left (40 loops on hook)
Row 11B – turn, work loops off in CC
Row 12A – work loops on in CC (40 loops on hook)
Row 12B – turn, work loops off in MC
Row 13A – work loops on in MC, 40 loops from previous row, plus the 2 missed vertical bars from each previous row (50 loops on hook)
Row 13B – turn, work loops off in CC
Row 14A – work loops on in CC (50 loops on hook)
Row 14B – turn, work loops off in MC
One wedge made!
Repeat from 3A to 14B until you have 8 wedges
To finish, slip stitch to bind off both colours by *inserting the hook through the next vertical bar, pull a loop through it and the loop on the hook* until you reach the end. Do the MC first, then the CC. Leave LONG tails.
Use the CC tail to sew the last row made to the first row (try to join it with the CC of the first row if you can). Use the MC tail to weave in and out of the stitches at the top of the hat, pull tightly like a drawstring until the hole at the top is closed. Secure with a knot, then use the rest of that tail to sew the seam down on the MC side of the hat.
Weave in all ends.
To alter this pattern to fit better, or use a different yarn, etc. :
Make a swatch (I recommend making a scarf-sized swatch ;)) to determine how many stitches and rows you get per inch/cm. Measure your head, and do some math. ^_^
You can easily start with fewer stitches to make a shorter hat, do more “stop two stitches short of the end” rows to make the rounded-top part bigger, and change the number of wedges you do to fit a smaller or larger circumference.
To easily keep track while making this hat, I made sure that my “miss the last two stitches” rows always happened with the black yarn (MC in the pattern), and the CC rows were just repeating its previous row. It’ll make sense when you’re doing it. ^_^
If you need any help with this pattern, feel free to ask! If you spot any errors, let me know so that I can fix them. ^_^
And what do you think of the new blog layout? I’m still tinkering with it; let me know if you find anything that doesn’t work!
Posted in Pattern Tags: Bernat Satin, crochet, crochet-on-the-double, hat, Keeping Warm, Pattern 1 Comment » December 4th, 2009 mio One of the problems with writing a craft blog is that it becomes hard to keep up the closer you get to Christmas. More time is spent on crafting, and most of those crafts are presents you’d prefer the recipients not discover prematurely.
The other problem, which I suspect affects all types of blog is: computers suck sometimes. :P
I can’t do a whole lot about that last problem, but take a look at these not-Christmas-presents I made using crochet-on-the-double.
A pink and purple hat for Maddie:
Purple side, pink side:
One wedge shape (hat consists of 8)
And a matching scarf:
This yellow one is *slightly* bigger and is for Katie:
Side:
Flat dark yellow, flat light yellow:
The folks on Craftster seem to think these are pretty good (I’m glad I’m not the only one!), so why not give these as Christmas gifts? Three reasons:
1. I’m not entirely certain they’ll fit, as I’m just figuring out the pattern… and giving items made for testing a pattern you’re writing seems somewhat unthoughtful.
2. I already made them each something else.
3. If they were gifts I wouldn’t let myself blog about them. :P
Come January I’ll be looking for more test subjects, including adults, so stay tuned!
Posted in Experimenting, Pattern Tags: Bernat Satin, cold, craftster, crochet, crochet-on-the-double, hat, Keeping Warm, scarf, winter 1 Comment » November 5th, 2009 mio My last post left a question unanswered: what was I doing while waiting for that white yarn?
Well, it started with these:
which I figure will end up being a small blanket, 4 squares by 5 squares, maybe. Each square is roughly 8 inches.
Then I made these (because who finishes a project before going on to the next one anymore?) :
And some matching solids:
Which is actually the same colour (and dye lot!) as the dark green in the previous picture. Cameras are weird sometimes, aren’t they?
The current plan is to arrange the green ones 5×7 like this:
Where any empty spaces will be filled by solid dark green motifs.
Once I see it all laid out, I’m going to see if all of that dark green needs to be separated with some light green borders, or something. We’ll see!
Here are all of the squares arranged by doneness:
Top and bottom right, and bottom middle: finished
Top left (two piles) : need the ends woven in
Bottom left: ran out of yarn while making (and how annoying is THAT?)
Finally, here is the pattern I used!
Note: use an appropriate method to reach the right stitch height for each round. I used the no-turning-chain-dc on the dc rounds, and ch2 for hdc, and ch1 for sc. I didn’t note any of this in the pattern because it’s easier to memorize it this way. ^_^
Start with magic loop, or ch1 no-turning-chain-dc, or whatever your preferred method.
Rnd 1: 12 dc
Rnd 2: 2dc in each dc from previous round (24 dc)
Rnd 3: *2dc in one st, 1dc in next st* 12 times (36 dc)
Rnd 4: *1dc, 2dc in next st, 1dc in next st* 12 times (48 dc)
Rnd 5: *1dc, 1dc, 1dc, 1dc, 2dc in next st* 12 times (60 dc)
Change colours here if you want.
Rnd 6: *1sc in each of 10 sts, 1hdc in next 2 sts, 5dc in next st, 1 hdc in next 2 sts* 4 times (76 sts)
Rnd 7: *1hdc in each sc of previous rnd (10hdc), 1dc in each of next 4 sts, 5dc in next st, 1dc in each of next 4 sts* 4 times (92 sts)
Rnd 8: 1dc in each st, 5dc in the middle stitch of the 5dc on previous round. (108 sts)
To make it bigger, repeat Rnd 8 as many times as you want. It will add 16 sts to your count each time. If you want a bigger circle in the centre, well, you’re going to have to finesse the pattern a bit.
If any of you try this, want to let me know if there are any errors in the pattern? Thanks!
May 26th, 2009 mio Just a quick post tonight, but I think you’ll like it!
How to efficiently join hexagon motifs together.
Step 1: lay out the motifs how you want them. (Not pictured… I worked off of the pic of the last Catan blanket I made)
Step 2: Start joining the hexes together in horizontal lines. For example, start with the motif in the bottom left and join it to the one to its right. Then join the one to the right of that. And so on until you reach the end of that row. Then start in on the next row and work the same way, until you have something like this:
(I know, it’s a terrible picture, and white was a bad choice for the background, but the other option was a blue floral print. In my defense, I tried that one first, but mostly because I was too lazy to turn the blanket over… but it was worse than this pic, so…)
Step 3: Once you have your rows all laid out, start sewing them together as per the blue line:
That red line is how I’m going to join the blue water hexes. I’m doing it that way because I want to use the cream colour to join the water hexes to the others, but want to use blue yarn to join them to each other.
The red line could also represent putting a border on.
That’s all there is to it! (Ok, I lie… there’s also, “what method should I use for joining?” I’m using a whip stitch, but you could slip stitch or sc, or flat braid, or… )
Posted in Afghans, Tutorial Tags: afghan, Bernat Satin, blanket, crochet, hexagon, Settlers of Catan, Tutorial 2 Comments »
