The Crochet Side

That question has been pestering me lately, as I box up and prepare to send out the second installment of The Yarn Side’s club, “Yarnography”, which is a yarn club that blends photographs and yarn.

The reason I ask is that I’m working to market the Yarnography club as being friendly to both and, in fact, one of the extras for the March box that’s on its way out the door this A.M., is more for crocheters, but can be used by knitters as well. Knowing that, I had to wonder if any of the club members are knitters or multi-craftual? And if none of them are crocheters, then how come there weren’t any crocheters who signed up?

The yarn that’s accompanying each box is a fingering weight yarn. I know some people prefer to use at least a DK when crocheting, but why? There are a vast number of projects that are incorporating lighter weight yarns, and those lighter weight yarns really lend themselves well to everything from accessories to garments. With 460yards per skein, you could crochet a couple of scarves, a few hats, socks, a cowl, a shawl (see my last post), a baby cardigan, and, gosh, I don’t know–so much more!

So, Where are my crocheters? Maybe it’s my fault for keeping the two sides (The Crochet Side & The Yarn Side) separate? Maybe I should be cross-posting more often so that we’re all up to date and together.

I’ll start sharing more now…

Yarnography is a yarn and photo club; a collaboration between myself and Caryn Drexl Photography. On a bi-monthly basis there is an installment that goes out with at least the following:

• 1 5″x7″ professional quality print of that month’s photograph
• 1 skein of Walker Basic (75% Superwash Merino, 25% Nylon), 460 yards, in a colorway that is inspired by the photograph.

Beyond that there are extras/goodies.

Here is a photo of January’s installment (excuse any wonkiness in case the image is too contrasted on your monitor):

The photograph for January was “Mapped”, the skein was inspired by the photograph, and the extras were a calendar, a compass, and a small notebook.

March’s installment is going out today, so I won’t be posting a photo for another couple of weeks. Don’t want to inadvertently spoil the club members.

If you want to know what May’s inspiration is, or are interested in possibly registering for it (registrations closes May 6th), please visit The Yarn Side.

It’s true, I’ve been taken over by yarn. When I’m not working for the job that pays the bills, I’m working on building my business, The Yarn Side. I’m either dyeing yarn, blogging, or looking into and working toward selling at events. At the same time, I’ve also taught some crochet classes at my somewhat-local yarn shop, She Sells Yarn, in Daytona Beach, FL.

She Sells Yarn is a great little shop that was opened late last year by a friend of mine, so I’ve been trying to support it by selling my yarn there, as well as teaching some crochet classes. So far I’ve taught a hat/scarf pattern class, a Tunisian 101 class, and a granny-square/motif class that also went into how to read a pattern. It’s been exciting! Outside of those classes, however, I haven’t done much crocheting.

That was all history as soon as I received a skein of yarn in the mail. The skein was from BigMouth Yarns, in a Merino/Cashmere/Nylon blend. It was from a yarn club, which also featured chocolate (yum!), and to be completely honest, I wanted to just wrap myself up in yarn strands. Instead, the next best idea was to crochet a shawl.

After some Ravelry research, I decided on the Seraphina Shawl by Doni, of Doni’s Stuff. It’s a fairly easy pattern, though I’m currently only in the middle of the 11th row, but it’s beautiful so far.

Isn’t it fantastic? The subtle variegation of the yarn is coming out so beautiful. The photo was taken after row 7 I believe, so I’ve had more progress since then, but I’ll share it in the next week.

I just want to thank Erica, of BigMouth Yarns, and Doni, of Doni’s Stuff, for helping me out of my crochet slump. Between lusty yarn and a gorgeous shawl, I’m anticipating wrapping this around me all year long.

It is often asked when I’ll be putting the pattern out for the Quarter-Ridge hat (as seen below). I always say “soon” or “sometime this year”, but it’s been…well, it’s been much longer than that.

It occurred to me that this hat was made with a worsted weight, and that hats are often made in a worsted, chunky or bulky yarn in crochet. My mind has been obsessed with finer yarns–DK, fingering, lace. The weights, in particular, are on my mind since these are the weights that I often dye for The Yarn Side.

Why not, I thought, reinvent the Quarter-Ridge in a fingering weight or DK? I don’t remember where the notes are for the hat, since it’s been a few years now, but I remember the construction–mostly. I’ve decided to swatch a bit, in both the Andromeda (DK) and, probably, the Walker Merino (fingering) bases that I have. Could maybe do a lovely semi-solid instead of a flat solid.

It’ll be a little adventure and dip into my crochet history. I may find that I can’t remember exactly what I did, and take the design into a new direction, or I’ll remember exactly what I did and it’ll be awesome, prove troublesome, grow legs and move out because it’s all grown up now and doesn’t have to listen to me anymor

In the last week or so I’ve spent time away from the computer. Not self-imposed time away, but Family Emergency away. Without going into too much detail, my maternal grandfather was put in the Hospital due to Pneumonia. Unfortunately the Pneumonia was due to his weakened immune system from his Leukemia. There was a severe dive in his health, and we all feared the worst. He’s slowly getting better, but is not yet at a point where my family and I can take that sigh of relief. Because of this, however, I’ve been away from the computer.

It’s only been the last few days where I was able to make it into work, and now I’m trying to slowly catch up with you all. While I do that, have a crappy iPhone photo of a scarf I started…

This scarf is made up of samples from the February Phat Fiber sampler box. A couple of the samples are actually ones that I spun from small batts. I have a couple more fiber samples that I need to finish spinning before I can call this scarf done. I’m letting all the ends hang for the meantime. Not sure if they’re visually appealing enough to leave them dangling or if I should take the time to weave them in.

Math, specifically Geometry, is sometimes over my head. Even still, this video of Margaret Wertheim discussing Coral, Crochet, and Hyperbolic Geometry, is fascinating on several levels. If math scares you, don’t worry–there’s more discussed than just Geometry.  The art installations that they show in the video are gorgeous, and I’m so very glad to see crochet represented in another beautiful form.

I’ve been preoccupied with dyeing lately, but trying a new technique has forced me to recognize how I haven’t been spending much time crocheting lately.

Before I decide whether or not I’m going to offer yarn, using this new technique, I’ve decided to crochet it up into a simple scarf.

That was the beginning of the scarf, and it’s about 2-3 times longer right now. It’s a single crochet, very basic scarf. The only difference is that I’m using this new speckled-shade dye technique which does all of the interesting work for you.

In the photo you can see how dark the end of the scarf is–a very deep green with a hint of brown. In the ball behind it, the outer part is a very light shade of green, and I mean very light. There are, however, specks of darker shades in those strands too. As the piece is crocheted, the overall tone becomes lighter, but the speckled areas will actually darken.

It works like this…

Darker end = medium and light speckles;
Middle section = light and dark speckles;
Light end = medium and dark speckles

I’ll post some more progress shots, as well as the final product, when I get a chance. It’s sure to be an interesting experience!

I wanted to share this as it’s a great example of letting the yarn do the work for you. In fiber arts–I’m thinking crochet and knitting here–when the fiber is more interesting, or visually stimulating, you end up using simple stitches, or less complicated stitch patterns. Most often this is due to the fact that colorful, visual fiber loses the stitch pattern, making it appear less prominent.

Le’ts face it, when we use a fancy, or complex, stitch pattern, we want to see that stitch pattern, so we use a simple (read: smooth) yarn. The reverse is true of fancy, or interesting, yarn. Simplify the stitch or stitch pattern to let the yarn pop. There are, I’m sure, exceptions to this, but that’s a great general rule to follow.