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Crochet With Sashay

March 3rd, 2012

mio

It seems to be a little known fact that you can, in fact, crochet with that ruffle yarn that is so popular these days. Personally, I’m not a fan of this kind of yarn. I find it to be a pain in the butt to work with as it tends to curl up on itself at the slightest provocation.

I did find it slightly easier to work with when crocheting than with knitting, though, so there’s a plus!

Here’s how to do it with Red Heart Sashay yarn using a 6mm hook (it’s pretty much the same method for all the yarns of this type… you just need to figure out where to put the hook)

First you need to spread the yarn out – you’ll see that it’s a net. There’s an edge that has some sparkle to it, that’s the bottom edge. You will be crocheting with the top edge only.

Along the top edge there is what people call “train tracks” – a series of holes that alternate between big and small.

We will be concerning ourselves only with the large holes. Ignore the small ones.

You don’t need a slip knot to start with this yarn, you just insert your hook and off you go. Now, when I start, I fold the end over a bit and work into both layers for about an inch or so. It’s not shown in this picture because, frankly, I took that picture and you couldn’t see what was going on. :)

To get the ruffle effect, you simply skip a large hole and go into the next:

That’s it. Every time your pattern has you “yarn over”, you skip a large hole and insert the hook into the next large hole.

Start with a base chain that is approximately the length of the scarf you want to make (up to 6′ long is a safe length for one ball)

Here’s what it looks like when you pull that second “large hole” loop through the first:

(chain made)

Here I am, grabbing the next spot, two large holes away:

When you have the length you want, turn and sc in each chain. Now, the chain is hard to see, both in this picture and in real life:

But do your best – only work into one loop of the chain. It’s too much of a pain to work it any other way, in my experience.

When you’ve sc across, turn and slip stitch back down again. And you’re done! Finish off by cutting the yarn and pulling the *whole* thing through the loop on your hook. Pull it snug, and then trim the end if you find it’s sticking out too much. The end should basically hide itself in the ruffles.

And here is the finished scarf!

Posted in Pattern, Tutorial

Tags: crochet, Pattern, ruffle, sashay, Tutorial

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Jacob’s Ladder Tutorial

March 1st, 2012

mio

Here’s how to do a Jacob’s Ladder:

The basic fabric needed is a combination of double crochet stitches and chain stitches. In this example, I’ve decided to do one ladder with 5dc on each side. To recreate it, ch22, dc in the fourth chain from the hook, and make 3 more dc stitches:

Ch10:

Skip 10 chains in the base chain, and make a dc in the 11th chain:

Make 4 more dc to take you to the end of the row:

Make a turning chain and dc in the next four stitches:

Chain 10, then dc in the next dc (skipping the ch10 of the previous row) :

dc to the end of this row.

Continue adding rows, working a dc into each dc, and working a ch10 over where a ch10 is.

On the second-to-last row, work the dc’s as normal:

But this time, only chain 6:

Then dc to the end of the row as normal

On the last row, work dc stitches until you reach the chain space and then stop – draw the loop out larger so the stitches don’t unravel:

Now grab a bigger hook and go down to the base chain. Twist the base chain to make a loop:

Insert the big hook in this loop:

Now, hold the loop on the hook with your left hand, and the hook with your right. Put the hook under the next ch10 loop:

Pull the second loop through the one on the hook while at the same time, lifting the loop on the hook over the second loop:

Repeat!

Put the hook under the next loop and pull that loop through while lifting the loop on the hook over the new loop.

Keep doing this until you pull the last (shorter) loop through:

Put the regular hook back into that big loop you pulled out before (it’s time to start crocheting again!). Take the big hook out of the loop and hold it in your left hand. Put the regular hook through the ladder loop, from front to back:

And make a sc:

Then dc to the end of the row:

And you’re done!

And no, there’s no particular reason why the ch10 spaces have to be directly on top of one another, but don’t put them too far apart. Shifting by one stitch is absolutely do-able.

If you want to replace the dc stitches with something else, you’ll have to change the chain spaces – for shorter stitches, you’ll need shorter chains, I imagine. I’m not sure if anyone has tried it out, yet.

Posted in Tutorial

Tags: crochet, jacob's ladder, Tutorial

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Tunisian Purl

February 20th, 2012

mio

I’ve been playing around with Tunisian crochet and have found that my favourite stitch, so far, is the Tunisian purl stitch. It just looks really neat (and it doesn’t seem to curl like the Tunisian Simple Stitch and Tunisian Knit Stitch do).

Here’s how I do it:

Start by bringing the yarn in front of the hook:

Then insert the hook into the next vertical bar (just as you would for the simple stitch):

With the thumb of your left hand, hold the working yarn down:

Yarn over by bringing the hook in front of the yarn, then under and behind it:

Start the pull through. When you get to this point, let go with your left thumb:

This part takes good timing. Let go too soon and it’s really hard to pull the hook through. Let go too late and you end up with a bigger loop on your hook than you intended, and it makes your gauge go all wacky.