This morning I started trying some of the patterns. Now, this is a book made up of crochet border patterns (obviously), and while each pattern also has a “in rows” version, they are primarily meant to be worked in the round. Specifically, around *something*.

I wanted to get started right away, though, and I didn’t want to have to fuss with the math of getting the right number of sc stitches around a motif, or for that matter, wasting time making the motif to begin with (before you say it: most of the motifs I have worked up already are not square, and would have lead to even more math. Time’s a tickin’!)

I tried the first border I had bookmarked (#26), using the “in rows” version and felt that I didn’t really get a good feel for the border as half of the stitches were backwards. Normally this wouldn’t be a big deal to me, but this was a stitch of particular interest because I’d never heard of it before.

So… there’s a border I want to try, I want to do it in the round, and flat, and don’t feel like making a motif of some sort first. What did I do?

Thank you chainless foundation sc!

Someone on Twitter asked me once (and I appologize for not answering your question there, I didn’t see it until just recently!), how I come up with design ideas. Apparently the answer is: laziness and happy accidents. ^_^

I bought this:

I’ve only had a short amount of time to play with it, but so far I like it! It’s spiral bound, which is awesome. All craft books should be spiral bound, because there’s nothing more frustrating than having the book close on you mid-row!

I tried out some of the crochet-on-the-double stitches it has, and got to thinking: would the short-row dishcloth pattern work in this technique? (No, there’s nothing about short-row COTD in this book… that I’ve found, anyway.)

This is what I came up with:

(I’m not happy with that big line of blue at the join… I’ll have to remember that next time and use the other colour for the bind off.)

I made some changes to the original pattern. I only did 10 stitches instead of 15, and after the first row, I picked up 2 stitches extra each time. I ended up needing 8 wedges to get all the way around, though, so it’s more of an octagon. I’m not sure if the extra wedges are due entirely to using the COTD technique, or if it’s because I picked up two stitches each time instead of just one, but there you have it.

Ideas for next time: alternating sides with the colours in each wedge, which would make both sides the same; binding off with the white; trying more stitches.

Thoughts: This is totally do-able. The shorter rows are kind of annoyingly fiddly, so if I were to make an entire blanket using this technique I’d either make waaaay bigger motifs, or I’d just make one giant octagon blanket. I think it might be cute as motifs with squares added in to make the geometry work.

To make up for using blue and white instead of red and white like I should have (what? I used my patented “use the yarn within reaching distance of where I’m sitting” colour choosing technique. I totally can’t be blamed for this! Besides, what is more Canadian than being cold? And what colour is more cold than blue? Q.E.D.), I’m going to include some of my favourite “You know you’re Canadian when…” jokes:

You know you’re Canadian when you understand the sentence, “Please pass me a serviette, I’ve spilled poutine on the chesterfield.”

You know you’re Canadian when you’ve had to design a Halloween costume around a snowsuit.

You know you’re Canadian when you’ve ever had to plug your car in overnight.

You know you’re Canadian when you’d trust your children in the care of a grown man in tights playing a flute to a chicken.

and finally,

You know you’re Canadian if you know that Casey and Finnegan aren’t a Celtic band.

Who knows? Maybe my next post about this book will have, you know, something actually FROM this book. ^_^