Back to Crocheting

[vitugglan]

I hadn't crocheted in years.  Yarn's expensive, and all I ever made were giant granny squares.  I did do a tiny bit of crocheting back in 2007 or 2008 when I disagreeigned partner in theater class and I did a truncated version of 'Night, Mother.  To look more like a somewhat rural southern mom I grabbed some crochet thread and a small hook from my mom and started on a miniature granny square.

Fast forward to this last year.  The second-born took up knitting.  I don't knit.  I tried.  I wanted to throw things through satisfyingly smashing windows.  But.  She kept sending me yarns she was coveting.  Nice yarns, big price.  Trendy yarns made of things like alpaca wool and silk blends.  Yarns called ombre, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ombr%C3%A9 , where the colors fade to one another without going back to the beginning like variegated yarns do.  I succumbed.  I got one of these yarns.  I started crocheting again.

Now I'm making Christmas presents.  Nearly finished with a Christmas couch throw for the youngest (her request) in red, green, and the occasional yellow gold color.  Just waiting on more yarn to finish it off.  Making my first sock ever.  Made hats and scarves and have branched out to Tunisian or Afghan crochet.  Thank goodness for YouTube or I could never figure that one out!

ETA: I still get the lower-priced yarn, 100% acrylic or mostly acrylic blends.  Aside from those two purchases, one of natural black wool from black wooled sheep, and one of some gorgeous ombre.

Anyway, spending a lot of time on the crochet.  What do you do for that sort of hobby?

[spaniardx]

I still have balls and honkin big skeins of yarn... all from WallyWorld...taking up storage space around the house. I only know three stitches: the simple chain stitch you start the project with, the binding off stitch to give it the smooth edge when you're done and what I was told was an Afghan stitch. I started back in about the mid-1980s with it.  Up until a year before The Great Dumpster Fire, I was still crocheting. But, the hands get way too angry now for me to do it and my eye sigh sucks with close work like that.  My last actual project took me over two years of a couple or three rows a day and when I was done it was wide enough to go on our queen bed and hang over about 8" on each side. I only did solid pieces. Don't know how to do the popcorn stitch or any of the really pretty ones you see in the pattern books. Of course, I use the biggest, longest hook I could find for those projects.

I learned to knit in Junior High I think. Step bro had learned (in school and he wasn't in home ec) and he showed me. And, it turned out, he showed me "backwards" because I was working on something and someone (don't remember who it was now) basically said they didn't know I was left handed. I'm not, but that's how I tended to my knitting. I think I completed a project, was supposed to be a table runner, but I miscounted my stitches and width so I wound up with a 7' sort of scarf. Granted if I folded it in half and stitched the edges together it would have made a half decent belt. Tried to get back into it around the time I picked up crochet and it didn't stick.  We had a Chihuahua, stray cats that became our house panthers (Kleeow and Kobayashi Maru -- the first one was named by Eldest when he was about five, I named the other one) and spawnlings so the yarn and work in progress wasn't safe to be left unattended. More than once I'd leave the room and come back to see my yarn basket(s) had mysteriously regurgitated yarn all over the room. The crochet projects were more resistant to abuse by spawns and pets.

So, at this point, no hand crafts for me. I marathoned Loki after the last episode was streaming, because I had some lift in the brain fog and I could actually follow plots -- rather than something without any real plot, like The Incredible Dr. Pol on the NatGeo area of Disney+. I think I learned enough watching him that I could fake a marginally decent veterinarian character if I could get cooperation from the muse (she took one look at the beginning sparks of "The Great Dumpster Fire" and it was See ya! as she dropped into a deep hole and pulled it in behind her).

[vitugglan]

My mom taught a leftie to crochet by sitting across from her and having her mirror what my mom was doing. Maybe that's what your brother did.

I've finished the blanket, socks, a pair of booties to match the blanket (Christmas, you need festive slippers), and have started on a hooded cardigan in autumn colors. I can't do too much at a time because the back protests.

Knitting - I tried it. Made me want to throw things across rooms. The second-born likes it.

[spaniardx]

I remember watching in absolute fascination in sixth grade as one of my classmates pulled out a small crochet needle and yarn and began what would become a basic cloche or maybe it was a beret while we sat up in the stands during P.E. And I watched as the hat grew very quickly over the next four days. Our teacher was Mrs. M and she was a Drill Sargent with the Marine Corps (yeah, now they call 'em Drill Instructors). If we started our period, our grade for the day would be marked with an "M" and we'd sit out class up in the stands and still get a 100 for the day. She'd give us four "M"s . So, if we started on Monday, we'd get an "M" for the next four days.

[vitugglan]

Heck. We still had to do PE but we didn't have to take a full shower, just stick the corner of the towel in the water and scrub pits and wherever else we sweated.