Crocheting class

I taught my first crocheting class yesterday. It made me realize how much of the motions I perform automatically - like holding the hook, holding the yarn, hooking and pulling the yarn through the loops. Explaining these steps in words was a challenge.

I am going to create a how-to-crochet memo and post it here once it is ready.

Window treatment for a restaurant

I am more comfortable with my crocheting and knitting skills than with my sewing skills. Fate has it, however, that my most "public" project was going to involve sewing.

It all happened like this: I met Altaf in a French class. He was going to open a restaurant just over a block from where I lived. After his restaurant opened, he realized that its windows looked bare. He asked me to make some curtains. I searched online, went to the library to get inspirations and instructions on how to make such things. At that time, I didn't even own a sewing machine, so I borrowed one from my friend to do this project. I couple of hard weeks later, I hung the curtains in his restaurant.

It was one of the best things I have done with my skills. There is a restaurant in Point St. Charles where I can get a great lamb Madras and look at my creation. It makes me rather proud.

Star of India Express

1170 rue Ropery

Montreal

514-315-7006

Course cancellation

Community centers sometimes offer really inexpensive classes. I found a center near me, and decided to register for the sewing class (topic: recycling of clothes). The course was supposed to start next Monday and I had been very excited about it. Then I received a phone message telling me that the class got cancelled.

Sigh. I guess a class that inexpensive ($75 for 30 hours of class) needs quite a few students to make it worthwhile for the teacher and the center. I wish they had set the course fees a bit higher so that they wouldn't need so many students. Then again, it is that inflexibility of established community center that leads me to think that my online community center idea might work.

A project for 2010 - recycling sweaters

I am not proud to say this, but I often ruin my sweater by washing it in the washing machine. I would put a sweater (or two, yes, I am bad) in a bag and wash it using the gentle cycle. I have quite a few sweaters that have thus become too small for me. I would take them to a cloth depot at the end of the season, or whenever I feel overwhelmed by the number of the shrunk sweaters.

Well, that was in the past. I found that old sweaters can be made into other things. The common advice seems to be to felt the sweater, which would give you smaller, but sturdier (and easy to hem) material, but there are projects that do not involve the felting method. It was a huge revelation for me that one can sew sweaters. I think I am going to try making slippers and cardigans. Who knew. Shrunk sweaters have just become my friends again.

A hat with bobbles

"Experimental" is how I would describe my crochet style. I often crochet without consulting a pattern and just follow my intuitions. However, a lot of my intuitions are probably guided by the patterns I saw somewhere on the web. A lot of patterns I look at are listed in Crochet Pattern Central.

I like special stitches. They break the monotony of doing the same stitches all around. So I enjoyed making this hat, which has bobbles spread at every 10 stitches in every second row. I thought I was going to be clever so the bobble happens at the 10th stitch first round, then at the 5th, to spread them in an "interesting" way.

The result? I am not sure. It looks kind of bumpy.

Amigurumi

My grand mother had a big crocheted dragon in her living room. I never asked her how she made it. I just assumed that it would have taken a lot of time and skills. I now know that it would take a lot of time, as it was a big dragon, but it probably wouldn't be so difficult.

I tried a few amigurumi projects and I have mixed feelings about it - I like how it crochets up quickly, but I don't like the amount of materials and tools I need. See, I often crochet on the go, so more tools a project takes, more stuff I have to carry. I also haven't found the best weight to put at the bottom, so my crocheted birds would lie on their side. I was really not happy about it because I felt like I was surrounded by dead bird amigurumis. Then I saw this amigurumi elephant pattern (sorry, Lion Brands requires registration). It has four legs. That means stability, without the need for weight! It doesn't solve the too-many-materials problem, but I am much happier with the creation now. When I have time to crochet in one place, I might try to make one again.

BYOB bag - crochet

I am normally a bit hesitant about crocheting a bag. In order to make it heavy-duty (and I don't see how I can survive with non-heavy-duty bags), I would need to make a lining. I will try it one day, but so far, the prospect of crocheting a bag, making a lining, and putting them together overwhelms me.

A bag for just one bottle, though, doesn't have to be lined! I was a bit nervous the first time I used it, as I kept imagining the bag falling apart and the bottle of rum falling and breaking on the street and covering me in glass shards and rum.... Well, the bag survived and now I am more comfortable using it.

Multi-colored yarn is the best way to make a simple project look so much more complicated. This one is crocheted in non-continuous rounds. Once the body of the bag was long enough, I continued crocheting to make the handle and stitched up the end to complete it. Using double or treble stitches make this kind of project really quick!

I found this cotton yarn in Mouliné Fils De Qualité.

My favorite crochet project - hats

My mom taught me very basic crocheting stitches when I was a child. So I knew how to make chain, single and slip stitches. The problem then was, however, I didn't know about turing chains or increases/decreases. I tried to make squares and they all came out some sort of quadrilateral. I was puzzled, and then lost interest when I got a pile of quadrilateral pieces that I couldn't find any use for. I wasn't really experimental back then. So it was only when my friend (the same one that showed me how to knit - Goodness bless her!) showed me her crochet works that I appreciated the possibilities of crocheting. She also taught me doubles, half doubles, and the way to increase and decrease stitches. Sooo many possibilities opened all the sudden!

I think I made this hat in two evenings. I put a pom-pom on the side. I am very happy with this hat - I still wear it.

My first knitted hat

My friend taught me to knit in 2005. After making a few practice patches, my first project was a hat. She told me to get the gauge (which I never did. I just went by the feeling.) and start knitting in rounds.

I started with a circular needle, no ribbing. So the end curls up a bit. Then I started to decrease and switched to double-pointed needles when the round became too small for the circular needle. Simple, except that I used beginner's yarn. It's supposed to be good for beginners because, if you mess it up a bit, it doesn't show. I don't know why that is a good thing. I prefer to see my stitches. If you are a good counter, you can keep track of the number of stitches and know when to do the decrease. I find it easier to see where the decreases happen, so I like simpler, straighter yarn. I liked the pattern, so I continued to knit more hats until I discovered the joy of crocheting.

Hamster Tower

This is an old project from 2004. Back then, I lived in a two-bedroom apartment in Ohio and my roommate was a hamster.

I was one of those pet-crazy ladies, so I made some of his toys myself. The best materials were cardboard boxes, toilet paper roles (when he was little), paper towel roles (when he got bigger), and then, I discovered popsicle sticks!!!!

So this is a watchtower I built for him. It has an entrance that goes down to the ground and a larger window on the side. My hamster had already grown too big to go through the toilet paper rolls that I had set aside, so I cut them lengthwise and added a popsicle stick floor. The side window is there because I thought I could condition him to associate the tower with good food.

Well, he was more observant than I thought. I would wave a grape in front of the tower window and he would climb up my leg (I was sitting on the floor), up my chest, down my arm, to get to the grape. So it did not get to be used much. I had a lot of fun making it though.