(I forgot to take a picture before diving in to try it – you’ll see the missing hook and cord in the next picture ^_-)

Before I started, I consulted various videos and blogs on the subject, so I was going in with several different techniques in mind.

My goal: a stockinette swatch with a garter stitch border. This is how far I got:

It’s important to understand that even though you use a crochet hook, this is actually real knitting. It’s not an immitation like Tunisian knit stitch, or slip stitch crochet; it’s knitting. The cord holds the stitches (and acts like the left knitting needle), while you use the hook to work the stitches (which acts like the right knitting needle).

It seems like the entire point of knooking is that it makes it easier for crocheters to knit. It’s hard to say for sure with just this little swatch (so look for further blog posts about it!), but so far I’ve found that while it makes the knit stitch easier (and more familiar!) to a crocheter, it makes the purl stitch ridiculously harder than with needles.

I followed the instructions in the book (at least, I think I did…), and the purl stitches ended up twisted (which is why the first few rows of V’s look kind of wonky). So I followed the instructions I found in a video and that worked much better – by which I mean, the stitches looked right. It was a huge pain to do it that way, though. (And that last sentence is now nominated for the Understatement Of The Year award.)

The up side? If you are a crocheter and have always wanted a Doctor Who scarf, you can now easily make one using this technique. That scarf uses only knit stitches, and knit stitches, as I said above, are very, very easy with knooking.

One last thing: the knooks are crochet hooks with a hole in the end that you can feed a cord through. If you can’t find a knook, or can’t afford to buy more tools, you could easily use a long cabled tunisian hook with the stopper removed , or a locker hook instead.

ETA: I just tried a different way to knit and purl that made the purl stitch a lot easier and make the knit stitch a little harder. The real problem seems to be that the stitches I’m working into have a tendency to shrink on me. I’m not sure what would cause that – I’m still investigating.

The motivation for learning how to knit was actually borne out of my desire to figure out how to do crochet entrelac properly. I thought learning how to knit it would help things along. So, once I had the basics of knit and purl down, I tried out knitting entrelac. I learned how to increase, and decrease, and how to pick up stitches (though, I’m not convinced I’m doing that right yet – entrelac should look like rectangles not trapezoids). I taught myself how to do cables and knit in the round and change colours, too.

With all of this knowledge, it’s only natural that my very first finished knitting project be…

Wait… garter stitch?

Yes, my first knitted item ended up being a Doctor Who scarf for my brother-in-law.

For those not familiar with this pattern, it is the knit stitch, worked over and over and over again until the scarf is freakishly long (and then you add tassels). (Specs: Vanna’s Choice yarn in Brick, Burgundy, Charcoal Grey, Beige, Toffee, Mustard, and Olive. 4mm circular needles)

Even though I had to go out into the main hall of our apartment building to get a picture that showed the length, the scarf did end up a bit shorter than the authentic one worn by Tom Baker (the fourth Doctor). It was supposed to be 20 feet long, but mine is only 14 feet. I do believe it’ll stretch out over time, though!

Come to think of it, taking pictures of this thing was quite a challenge. Usually to display scarves I employ the services of my trusty sidekick, Roopurt,

but…

In a neat turn of good luck, a few days after I finished the scarf, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee was launching her new book here in town. I, of course, brought the scarf to show her:

I think she was impressed. ^_^
(Also, I love that the people in line behind me are knitting while they wait to have their books signed!)

The Crochet Cast-On is a knitting technique that we’re totally going to steal and use for our own purposes! Specifically, for use in Tunisian crochet and Crochet-on-the-Double. If you are a knitter, you may find this tutorial useful, too! Just substitute in your mind – replace “afghan hook” with “knitting needle” and you’re good to go.

In Tunisian and CotD, you typically start with a base chain, and then go and lift up a loop in each chain. As with regular crochet, though, starting with a base chain can cause problems – sometimes they’re too tight, they aren’t very stretchy, it’s a pain in the butt to work into them – and sometimes you just really want to extend a row out to the left of your work. For regular crochet, you can use Foundation Stitches to address all of these issues.

For Tunisian and CotD, you can use the crochet cast-on!

You need: an afghan hook (or double-ended hook… or knitting needle… depending on what craft you’re doing), a regular crochet hook in the same size (or a bit bigger), and your yarn.

In these pictures, my afghan hook is metal and 9mm, and my regular hook is bamboo and 10mm.

Start with a loose slip knot on the afghan hook. You would benefit by making the slip knot in the opposite way you might usually, and have the short tail be the one that makes the loop smaller when you pull on it.

Hold the afghan hook in your left hand, and the regular hook in your right hand. Insert the regular hook into the slip knot behind the afghan hook:

Working behind the afghan hook, chain 1:

Now move your regular hook to the front of the afghan hook with the yarn still behind it:

Yarn over:

Pull through the loop on the regular hook:

Now move the yarn back behind the afghan hook:

Put your regular hook in front of the afghan hook again, and repeat the process (yo, pull through, move yarn to back and hook to front) as many times as needed:

Stop one loop shy of what you need. Here is what the row of chains will look like:

Take the working loop and put it over the end of the afghan hook to form your last loop:

Go ahead and work the loops off as you normally would and now you’re good to go for your next row. One warning: the vertical bars don’t line up *quite* the same way as they do when lifting them up from a base chain (this becomes particularly apparent when doing Tunisian Knit Stitches), however, you can still do any stitch you want to do, you just need to be a little careful with it.

Some extra benefits I’ve discovered so far with this technique are:
- In crochet-on-the-double, it helps make a nearly-invisible seam when making a tube (such as with mio’s hat)

- When working with a fuzzy yarn, one that makes it difficult to see your stitches (such as a boucle), using this technique makes it a LOT easier to be sure you’re starting with the right number of stitches.

I’m knitting… please don’t tell my hooks.

(Although, it does occur to me now that you could probably immitate this pattern nicely with crochet-on-the-double, if you’re not a knitter.)

Where did the swag bags come from, then? Well!

I’m working from the list of donors on the KAL blog, and doing some educated guess work, so I may not be totally accurate here… if you know better, please tell me, and I’ll fix it! (ETA: fixed the things mentioned in the first comment!)

Let’s start with:

Two balls of my very favouritest yarn, Bernat Satin, from Spinrite!

(My crochet guild is working on arranging a bus trip up to Listowel to see the fine people at Spinrite. I can’t wait! Also, while I’m on the subject, keep your eyes on the top bar of this blog; I’m planning a “yarn” tab)

Next is some superwash merino from Diamond Yarn:

Then there are a couple of sets of knitting needles. The wooden ones are 19mm (!) and are from the Purple Purl, and the 4.5mm needles are from Romni Wools:

A handful of books from Simon and Schuster:

There were also coupons in the bags, from the Purple Purl, Mary Maxim, and Knit-o-Matic

Here is the t-shirt I won:

And the bags it all came in:

(The black one was this year’s bag, the white one was from last year, and it had the t-shirt in it)

Thanks again to the TTC KAL folks, and all of the donors (a full list of which you can see on the TTC KAL blog)

I can not wait until next year! I’ll try to remember to post about it in time for people to sign up and come along (you know, instead of the night before… heh)

I’ve always liked the look of entrelac, but because I really only knew how to knit and purl in knitting, it seemed beyond my reach. Naturally, I turned to crochet.

In my searches, I came across a lot of mentions and tutorials on crocheting entrelac using Tunisian crochet. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the examples had only half of the equation: the fabric was made up of little squares, but the stitches all ran in the same direction. Even though the fabric was created by making one square at a time, the finished look was pretty much the same as if the crocheter had just changed colours mid-row a lot.

There were some examples where the stitches ran in opposite directions, though, and even though they still don’t have that “woven” look to them, I still wanted to know how to do it. I couldn’t find a tutorial anywhere!

For months I worked on this problem (though, not steadily… that would just be wacky!), and came to the conclusion that the only way to do it would be to learn how to crochet left-handed.

Seriously. I’d get my base-row of tiangles and be stuck. There didn’t seem to be a way to make the first row of squares and have the stitches go the other way.

They say you should never give up, but I did. It seemed that the only way I was going to be able to make myself an entrelac scarf (or blanket, or hat…) was to learn how to knit entrelac.

I found this entrelac tutorial and started by going to YouTube and looking up everything it mentioned that I didn’t already know how to do.

I made up this little swatch:

And that taught me the increases and decreases I needed to know.

Then I dove in!

And then again with some variegated yarn:

I’m not 100% happy with how it looks, I think I’m making a mistake when picking up stitches, but I’ve got the general feel for it now. (If you knit and haven’t tried entrelac yet because you think it’s too hard or complicated, it’s really, really not. You should try it!)

Of course, the way the universe works is, when you give up on the new way to do something and settle yourself in on just doing it the old way, suddenly the answer comes to you!

Now, I haven’t tried this technique in a Tunisian entrelac swatch yet, but I think it’s the answer to my question: how to do Tunisian crochet backwards!

(I’m putting the tutorial under the cut, because this post is long enough as it is)

I started with 10 stitches, and did 3 rows in the usual way:

Then slip-stitched across, just like when you’re binding off. This was just to get the hook to the left side of the piece:

Turn (this puts the yarn on the wrong side… I need to play with this a bit)

Now flip the piece up so that you can see the front and insert your hook into the second vertical bar (you may want to count bars the first time you try this, just to be sure. I counted 9 from the end)

Then yarn over and pull a loop through.

I found it easiest if the working yarn was above the stitch (but since you’re working upside down, it’ll be below your hook) like this:

then lay the yarn over the hook and pull the yarn through

Do that for every stitch:

then work the loops off in exactly the same way you’d normally do it

It’ll look like this from the back:

And this is it from the front:

Here is the 3 rows worked normally and 3 rows worked backwards, looking at the front:

I then slip-stitched (working into the right side of the piece, which was tricky, but worth it, I think) across to get the hook back to the right-hand side of the piece and worked 3 more rows in the normal way:

This is the back (there is a ridge of slip stitches between each change of direction, you can sort of see them)

Now, I don’t know if you noticed, but you can tell which row was worked backwards because of the way the vertical bars stack. It sticks out in this swatch, but I don’t think it will be as obvious in most applications, and I don’t think it really matters when applied to Tunisian entrelac, as the sections worked backwards will be worked at a right angle to the sections worked the normal way.

You can make a really neat looking fabric using this technique combined with short rows. More to come on that!

Those of you playing along at home have probably already guessed that they’re still packed! Though, in our own defence, we have finally started to unpack a bit; we’ve found all sorts of useful things, such as clothes, the power cord for the television, and the dishes. No batteries, though.

After much deep and profound brain things inside my head, I decided that we should probably just go ahead and buy some more. The blog was waiting, after all! And it’s not like there’s any such thing as “too many AA batteries”, right? Charles was going to pick some up on his way home from Union Station, where we parted ways; I was off to Hamilton.

While in Hamilton, my Mom told me that there were a couple of “under the bed” storage boxes, well, under the bed in the guest bedroom that were probably mine. I had no idea they were there. We looked inside, and low and behold:

The good news: Charles forgot to pick up batteries.
The bad news: these were not the batteries I was thinking of when I thought of the ones that were packed away. No idea where those are.

Other interesting things I found in the box:

A crochet page-a-day calendar

… from 2007…

And a knitting book:

… that I don’t remember buying, but clearly got it long before I really learned how to knit. Wishful thinking, or psychic vibe? I’ll leave that to the philosophers…

“What do you mean, you’ve learned how to knit??” you ask? Well, first of all, shame on you for not following me on Twitter; if you did, you’d already know about this! Secondly, I thought it was about time.

Longtime readers know that I’ve tried to learn how to knit a few times before, but with little to moderate success; but I was unhappy with how slow it was. I had heard that there were several different ways to knit, and thought that maybe if I tried a different way I’d be more successful. Off to youtube I went, determined to learn how to knit while holding the yarn in my left hand (just like how I crochet!).

Success! I knit a few uninteresting stitches, tried out DPN’s (and was doing alright until I accidentally started going the wrong way…). I tried two colours; and then cables, and then tried this:

That’s after only a couple of days of confident knitting. Booyah!

Er… except the sides flop over…

… but I think I can fix it with crochet. :D

It’s hard to measure because it’s so stretchy, but it’s approximately 28 inches square now. (I know, it doesn’t look very square in that picture. I was surprised too, when I folded it into a triangle and there was almost no overlap)

Here is a better picture of the stitches and colour:

It’s still not an accurate picture of the colour, though. It’s quite beautiful with its earthy tones. I guess it’s another “come see it in person… then buy it!” blanket. ^_-

Here’s a picture of the three balls of yarn I’ve been using for this:

My thought process on the colour choice went something like, “I need something to do on break at work! I need something for work! Ack! Quickly! Quickly!! Hey, here’s some yarn… but does it go together? Well, green and brown are nice together, and blue and green are pretty good… I’ll make a swatch on the subway!”

When I got on the subway I proceeded to “cast on” 76 stitches. That’s one heck of a swatch!

I’m going to have a hard time parting with this one, and I’ve already had two requests for a bigger version. I’m going to have to spend some time scouring the stores for more of this yarn… I have a sneaking suspicion they’re not making it anymore. That would be sad!

In other news, I went to Lettuce Knit for the first time yesterday (I figured it was about time, having lived in Toronto for 2.5 years now…). The store was smaller than I thought it would be (not a bad thing), it was farther away from Spadina than I imagined it would be (not bad, just surprising), and it was less expensive than I feared it would be (hooray!!).

Keep in mind that you’re reading the blog of a die-hard acrylic crocheter: I want to knit some natural fiber socks now.

Please don’t tell my hooks!

I blame the Yarn Harlot for all of this.

Today was yarn sorting day. My friend did most of it (she likes that sort of thing, and I’d rather crochet it than sort it, despite the OCD)

Here’s a series of pictures taken part way through the process:

(top left: mixed [mostly Bernat Super Value]; top right: baby yarn, Patons Melody, and another mixed bin [mostly Bernat Soft Boucle] and novelty yarns; bottom left: mixed bin including some Red Heart for my never-finished first granny square blanket, unfinished projects and extra hooks and tools in the drawers, bin of Bernat Satin [the lid wouldn't close on that one!]; bottom right: knitting looms, loose yarn [mostly Patons Melody], and the in-progress purple rose afghan, still packed from the trip)

She did a wonderful job:

(Note the “poison yarn” box. I’m allergic to the yarn in it, but that doesn’t stop me! I just put on the gloves first!)

Once it was all boxed up and she was ready to sit down and relax she came across two balls of Bernat Handicrafter cotton yarn. She remembered that she hadn’t seen any more of it in her sorting efforts. That’s when she realized the full scope of the thing: six large bins, two cardboard boxes, and a bunch of bags full of yarn, and that’s not nearly all of it! (Unless your name is Charles. Then that is totally all of it.)

In all of that sorting, we (by which I mean, she) found an imposter:

Just ignore the practice knitting hanging out of that basket!