I had my last class of Kids Crochet today–some of the girls brought flowers, it was so nice! We had a fun last class finishing up old projects and learning to crochet in the round by making hair scrunchies.

On Monday, Kathleen Greco sent me a big box of Jelly Yarn. It is stretchy vinyl yarn comes in two gauges and bright, bright colors. On Tuesday, I brought it to the Savory knitting group where it got lots of ooohs and ahs. One knitter recommended I see a documentary called Blue Vinyl which tells how vinyl is made.

I made some mini swatches to experiment with it a bit. Kathleen said that metal hooks work best… The largest metal hook I have is an N–that turned out to be too small for the chunky yarn. On the finer weight one, it worked great. The yarn seems to “prefer” a more open work stitch–double crochets looked much nicer than single crochet, trebles seemed even nicer–the yarn seems to like to have room to stretch and move around.

Kathleen also sent a sample of a beach bag (or market bag) crocheted with the yarn–it is quite stretchy and uses one of the translucent colors. It’s done in a mesh stitch–which is a good idea, because chaining is easier than the more complicated stitches with this yarn.

I’ve been trying to imagine suitable uses for the yarn–Kathleen has patterns for bags and embellishments for shoes. It’s a great yarn for kids–because they love the textures and the colors are so bright–and while it is challenging to work with, most of the kids muddled through because they thought it was cool stuff. At class today, we made necklaces and bracelets out of it–we also made some hair scrunchies. I think a crocheted belt could be cool. One of my students–Ben–said it would make a great crocheted Jelly Fish!


Oh–one other point–Kathleen recommended lubricating the hooks with Armor-all. I couldn’t stand the thought of having that stuff on my hands, so we just put some vegetable oil on a paper towel, and greased the hooks that way. The hooks then slid without resistance. We found that even the plastic hooks worked just fine once we lubricated them. the yarn is slippery, even without grease–so securing the ends could be an issue–I suppose one could melt them a wee bit with a match.


I’m interested to hear if anyone has crocheted with this yarn, and what they’ve made. I feel like it will really appeal to the folks who love to crochet with anything from spaghetti to apple peelings (you know who you are. Oh, and I tried the apple peelings once, with little success.)

Technorati Tags: crochet, Jelly Yarn, kids, vinyl, review

I’m going to be teaching a feather and fan scarf in a couple of weeks and I spent most of last night experimenting with different versions of the stitch, it was one of those things where I couldn’t go to bed until I felt I had what I wanted. Well, at 2 a.m. I went to bed anyway, and feather and fan followed… I dreamed of stitches.

When I was little, my mom would wash all the wool sweaters by hand at the end of winter. When they were clean, she’d roll them in a towel to squeeze out the excess water, (she had special sweater washing towels, they were the old ones) and then she’d spread them on the dining room table to dry flat. I remember she had a sweater that I loved–a ski sweater with orange, blue and green stripes. We were chatting about this blocking method tonight at the Savory knitting group. I think I’ll try it with my next finished garment. Martha says when she has a sweater she doesn’t want to block, she just takes it to the dry cleaners–they’ll clean it and then steam it for her. I wonder if dry-cleaning will remove irritants from dyes and fiber processing. I’m guessing not.

Conversation migrated to felting when one knitter mentioned she had made a felted tote from Debbie Stoller’s Stitch n Bitch and the yellow didnt’t felt as well as the other colors (even though yellow was used in the model in the book.) I never knew that lighter colors don’t felt as well–especially white. Apparently, the bleach used to make wool white changes the fiber so it won’t felt. Someone else said that undyed yarns don’t felt as well as dyed ones because the dyes somehow make the yarn better for felting.

All in all a very educational knitting session!

UPDATE Cecily notes that Rio De La Plata has a white yarn that felts well… I’d love to know the chemistry behind all this, anyone?

CNN & Entertainment Weekly create a weekly top-ten list of “must reads” and “must-see movies.” Debbie Stoller’s The Happy Hooker Made the list this week.

I’ve had the book for a while and have been reading it and re-reading it. I’m really enjoying the profiles of the contributors. There’s a wonderfully diverse group of designers who are published in the book. Debbie has a very good introductory how-to section. (I taught a beginning crochet class last week and half the class were knitters who told me they signed up because of the book, so it seems to already be having an effect on local stitchers here in DC!)

I don’t know why I hadn’t stumbled upon Amazing Crochet before. Ning–creator of the site and the designs has yarn patterns and finished garments for sale. There are some beautiful, elaborate tops with floral motifs–mostly quite ornate. There’s a big selection of pretty standard crocheted baby items. But the adult garments really stand out. My favorite is the Ripple Sweater. She’s also got some cool looking halter tops and bikinis. Ning seems to combine some free-form techniques with her traditional crochet motifs and it her garments seem to have good fit, at least on the mannequin she uses for the photographs.

The other day, I brought this strange orange yarn to my middle school knitting and crochet class. I had picked it up at a yarn swap, and I handed it out to the girls. Lizzie decided to crochet a tie–she used her dad’s tie as a model, and did the whole thing in single crochet. The recipient is a favorite teacher, Mr. Fornay Forney (hence the “F”.) (thanks to “The Claires” for the correction…)

“Matie Trewe lives in a tiny apartment in Eugene, Oregon with one loving fiancé and enough yarn to knit two more.” She’s a biologist who’s web site, Strange But Trewe has become popular for it’s knitted guts (including tongue, anus and 21 feet of knitted small intestine!) created last October. Matie is obviously a fun and clever knitter–also on the site is an incredible lace skull shrug. She’s working on the pattern for the GI Tract–and while you’re waiting you can read and join the Crafster Knit-along. Folks all over the country are knitting this project for their med student, doctor and biology teacher friends. Matie’s taken time off from pattern writing to apply to medical school. Good luck!

After finishing a bunch of big crochet projects, my knitting needles have been calling to me. I had a great time making Julsey’s capelet, and it made me wonder about knitting garments side-to-side.

I read a few patterns, and then, like I do when I’m in the kitchen, I put the books a way, and just followed my instincts. I wanted instant gratification, and also a finished product that someone could use, and I decided the yarn had to come from my stash. I remembered that I had bought a closeout of Classic Elite’s Weekend Cotton on Elann last summer–just three small balls. The yarn is huge. I knit it on size 17 needles and it went very fast–I would never use this yarn for an adult garment, it would just be too heavy, but I liked the result for a baby sweater. I didn’t have enough yarn to make a sweater that would fit Jay, but I think this should fit my nephew who’s only nine months old.

UPDATE: I squeeeezed it onto Jay when he woke up from his nap just to see what it looked like on a real live human.

I really love garter stitch when worked sideways–it has great sort of reverse rib (the bumps stick out and the smooth bits are recessed). It’s stretchy, and of course pretty mindless.

Knitting side-to side isn’t quite as customizable as knitting from the top: you can’t change the sizing as you go, but it’s easy. If you create a schematic before you start, you simply knit to your dimensions. Not a lot of counting. I did the pullover all in one piece. One-piece construction appeals to me, not because I don’t like sewing, but because I like seeing something take shape as I go. I used another sweater I had as a guide, and built my schematic from that.

I made a gauge swatch, measured the arms at the cuff, and cast on the circumference at the cuff. I increased to the widest point (which, with this yarn, was only 2 stitches!) Then I cast on stitches for the front and the back over the next 2 rows. For the shoulder section, I worked the front and the back together, then bound off 3 stitches for the neck hole, put the back on a stitch holder, and worked the front. I did a tiny bit of neck shaping (one stitch on each side) and then put the front on holders and worked the back up to the opposite shoulder. Cast on those 3 neck whole stitches again, join front and back. Work second shoulder. Bind off front, work shoulder, bind off back. Rejoin yarn, work the rest of the sleeves, and that’s it! All you have to sew are the side seams.

I wanted a big neck hole because babies don’t like stretching things over their heads. This cotton is not very stretchy, and doesn’t bounce back, so I added a draw-string at the neck to adjust after the baby’s got it on. The sweater took just over 2 balls of the super-bulky yarn, I may have enough left to make a matching hat.

Speaking of matching hats, one of my middle-school students finished her modular sweater this week. She did a beautiful job. She even designed her own matching hat to go with it. Bravo, Rachel! One of my other middle-schoolers, Lizzie, designed a tie for her science teacher–she just followed the dimensions of one of her dad’s ties, and did it in tight single crochet. It looks amazing. I’ll try and post a picture.

Ever since I started the blog, getting the postal mail has been much more fun. Here’s a “sweet” surprise I got today… It’s a ball of mohair boucle from Be Sweet. I’m going to swatch and hopefully design a cute crocheted top for them. Oh, and I just noticed the scarf I did for them is now available on their web site.

Julsey’s bolero/capelet
Originally uploaded by plainsight.

I made this cute little shrug/bolero in just a couple of evenings–it was really fun! I love knitting from the top-down. This would be a great first garment for a new knitter, the pattern is really easy to understand. Next up–I want to try knitting a sweater from side to side.

This pattern caught my eye this morning and I have to say, I like it. I might even wear it. Why? Maybe because it reminds me of the afghan on the back of my couch? The one my grandmother made thirty years ago? (I do wear a coat she made out of upholstery fabric that looks like I should be a wing-back chair–what can I say, I’m sentimental.) It could be, because it fits the model well, it’s drapy, not stiff, or because it’s a nice take on the popular “shrug” idea, because I like the colors and I’ve been into ripple and wavy patterns lately. But mostly, I like it because it bears a slight but undeniable resemblance to the amazing garment below:

Funny thing is, dresses that look like afghans have been on the mind of a lot of online hookers lately. The folks at What Not to Crochet (a site that’s sometimes fun and sometimes a bit mean–but always interesting–where some blogger with lots of time posts pictures of crochet she doesn’t like) actually got fooled by the Pantalaine Couch Dress. I love the Pantalaine web site. I love imagining the folks who actually take the time to put this bizarre performance art together. I love how totally psyched they must have been when the cynical folks at WNTC actually thought their stuff was real!

THIS JUST IN: Ginny just e-mailed me to let me know that Tina-Marie made the Berroco shrug for her Crochet Olympics project. Nice job, Tina-Marie!