Image courtesy of Amazon.com

The Complete Photo Guide to Crochet by Margaret Hubert is in my opinion, an excellent guide. It’s very pretty, goes beyond your standard stitches, and is easy to understand. There are several stitches in here I think I’m going to try.

There is mention of both US and UK term conversions, and metric measurements for hook sizes. You know how much I love that. The only real complaint I have about this book is there is very little discussion about yarn sizes. I know, this is a stitch dictionary and not a yarn book. But if one is going to discuss the tools required, a paragraph about yarn sizes (beyond the statement it’s overwhelming and choose what suits your guage) would be nice.

Both charts and diagrams are included with these stitches, which is nice when it comes time to figuring this stuff out.

There are patterns included, which aren’t fantastic but very suitable to the beginner crocheter, and some nice ideas if you are more advanced (including an entrelac looking blanket using Tunisian crochet which I’m going to have to try).

So far this is the best stitch dictionary for crochet that I have seen. If you are looking for one yourself, I highly recommend this one.

The main body portion before pulling back.

In knitting, I’m working on the Eyelet Neck Scarf (link to the Ravelry download page; I’m sorry I’m unable to find the direct site) by the backward knitter. This pattern is written up in parts, and you can adapt the scarf by adjusting each part to your liking. I decided as this does involve a bit of lace work that I would just follow the recipe as is, however I came across a hiccup fairly quickly. The main body portion has a two row repeat.

My mis-turned stitches

The instructions for the main body state the first portion should be worked 22 times (for a total of 44 rows), however the scarf directions state 22 rows. I worked the 22 times and didn’t like it – it seemed like a fairly large block before I got to the eyelet pattern. In addition, I had to pull back a little bit somewhere in the middle of the block and my stitches got mis-turned. It resulted in a fairly obvious (to me at least) yucky spot on my work. So I’ve pulled it out and started again.

Where I'm at now.

I’ve worked the eyelet pattern twice now and I’m thinking my numbers might be off somewhere. Both times the instructions leave me short on my row, so I have to adapt the pattern. It’s something I’ll have to watch for in upcoming rows.

I’m also working on my second pair of socks. This is my computer knitting. While waiting for groups to form when playing World of Warcraft I pull out my sock and knit away. I’m making some pretty good progress (yay for quick worsted weight projects) and should be done within the next week or so.

And on to stitching. The Guardian isn’t getting as much love as I would like it to, simply because I have a difficult time sitting at the table to stitch. With knitting I can easily put it down and pick it back up, not so much with stitching for some reason. I realize it was a very lofty goal, but realistically this isn’t getting done by the end of the month. That being said, some nice progress has been made.

And that’s where I’m at right now. Happy Thursday!

—xxx—

What am I working on?

Current knitting love: Socks!
Current stitching love: The Guardian

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I’ve spent all my stitching time on The Guardian, as I knew I would. I am so loving this project.  Here’s my progress at the start of the year:

I had some of the castle done and decided it would be best to continue working on that then down that page so that I could get that section done and back on to the dragon.

I am now completed with the castle, and am working on the landscape on each side so that I can backstitch that part and move on to his tail.

I’m curious if, at my current stitching rate, I could look at a January finish? How cool would that be?

—xxx—

What am I working on?

Current knitting love: Socks!
Current crochet love: Granny Hexes
Current stitching love: The Guardian 

Anyway. I was inspired by a friend who is learning to do some new crochet stitches to check out a few “how to” books from the library. She was wanting to learn something different than washcloths and I recommended finding a stitch dictionary to help her along. But then I realized that I really didn’t have a good one to recommend, and so my search.

Image courtesy of Amazon.com

The first is Crocheting for Dummies. Like all “for dummies” books this one covers everything in neat little categories. If you know nothing or very little about crochet this one is nice to get you started. The one thing that really impressed me about this book (and you would be surprised how often this is missed) is the images showing techniques show both right- and left-handed images.

If you are looking for something beyond the basics, though, this may not be the book for you. It has a few how to’s on some more advanced techniques such as Tunisian crochet as well as some simple patterns, but I don’t recommend it if you are already past the beginner level. It didn’t fit the category of a stitch dictionary, either.

Image courtesy of Amazon.com

The second book I looked at was The Knitting & Crochet Bible. While this book is pretty and there is some lovely photography, I was less impressed by this book. I didn’t find the instructions as clear as they could be, and it seems to expect the reader to have some sort of knitting or crochet background already. It has several patterns which are fairly simple if you have the background as well as a nice stitch dictionary section (there are some fantastic knit cables I’ll be trying).

That being said, I was very much disappointed with the crochet section. First it must be stated that this is written in the UK style of crochet, so the terms are different than American terminology (so dc is sc, etc). But that certainly is not a problem, provided the reader knows this (and there is no mention of the different terminology at all in this book so a brand new crocheter would have no idea). Again there is a nice stitch dictionary section. My problem is that every single example and pattern shows some horribly ugly bulky yarn garment. This was written in 2008 and the garments were not even that popular in the 80s. While I’m sure they were trying to balance out the two crafts, I couldn’t help but think this was written by knitters first who believe crochet is just for afghans.

I have a few other books on hold that I will be checking out and further reviews are coming.

—xxx—

What am I working on?

Current knitting love: Socks!
Current crochet love: Granny Hexes
Current stitching love: The Guardian 

I have added, as you may have noticed, the WIPocalypse blogroll to my sidebar. This is a listing of all the blogs participating in the WIPocalypse. I’ve further added them to my feed reader with the well-intentioned goal of reading them all. Unfortunately, after digging through them all for about a week now, I still have over 1000 unread posts in my reader.

That’s a lot of reading, and I likely won’t get through it any time soon. I admit, those that just come up with a title in the reader without the actual post allowed I don’t click through to read. I’m sorry, that’s just too many for me to follow.

I’ve included the listing for any of my readers who are interested in checking out what my companions in this project are doing. Perhaps you’ll find one or two (or hey, all 350+) that you may enjoy and wish to follow further. I know I’ve found several already.

If you’ve read my blog at all, you know I’m horrible at resolutions. So instead this year I’m stealing inspiration from the Knitmore Girls and working with a theme. In honor of the world ending this year, my theme is “completion”. I’m working on finishing things this year, be it in stitching/yarn crafting, organizing my home, etc. We have all manner of boxes that we haven’t unpacked or sorted through in our basement and garage; considering we’ve been living in at our current address for nearly two years (and some of those boxes are still packed from previous moves) it’s time to get rid of stuff and create space. We hope to have a crafting area in our basement (and space for my sewing machine! More on that in a minute), and I want a gardening/planting table in the garage. So we need to start organizing. An impromptu sock hunt yesterday lead to not only my girls cleaning out their bedrooms and getting rid of two giant bags of clothes that no longer fit, but my husband started on the basement and found several empty boxes we’ve been carting around and some plastic tubs that were easily condensed for space. So we are off to a great start.

Secondly I’m adding a crafting theme. This year, since I’m participating in the WIPocalypse, I’ll be focusing on cross stitching and hopefully knocking some big finishes out. (I plan on making 2013 my quilting year – hence a permanent place for my sewing machine!) I’ll still be knitting and crocheting, in fact I’m already making plans for the next installment of Nerd Wars (sign ups start January 15 if you are interested!). I will not be making holiday gifts this year (at least, I don’t plan on it) so my knitting will be just for me. I don’t want to commit to anything, but it would be cool to knit at least one pair of socks for myself each month. Just putting that out there.

Image courtesy of easyknits.co.uk. Clicking on the image will bring you to this companies website.

Just as a quick knitting aside, my participation in Nerd Wars has paid off! I’ve one a skein of the yarn shown here. It’s a sock weight yarn called Luau from Easy Knits in the UK. Hopefully I can squeeze a pair of socks out of that lovely skein!

The before shot

But on to stitching. I have jumped in with both feet and started off with Guardian. This is such a fun piece and I’m currently working on the castle portion (aka the boring brown stuff).

Fortunately it is stitching up quickly, despite the colour changes and confetti stitches Teresa Wentzler is famous for. I hope to make enough progress today to get the backstitching on the castle done and I can then move on to his tail.

The after shot, January 3rd 2012.

And guys? I have an ort jar for the first time in over a year.

This was so easy and so lovely I’ve decided I need to make one for myself. That look on my face is me deciding just that.

This photo shows the colour a bit more accurately. I’m thinking I even have enough yarn left to do the same colour. Then my sister can be twins! (Hee hee!)

My sister enjoys Harry Potter so I thought it would be fun to knit a gryffindor scarf.

The pattern is fairly easy for this scarf. It is knit in the round, 23 rows per stripe, a total of 19 stripes. I found this project took a long time, though. For what ever reason it wasn’t grabbing me. It worked out to be very lovely though, and I’m mostly pleased with the results.

I say mostly because when I was all finished and wrapping it up I discovered an error. For the same reason why I get most of my errors, my inability to count. If you check out the photo to the right, the first gold stripe had a couple of extra rows. Derp.

Either way, the scarf is lovely, very soft, and one day I *may* make one for myself. We’ll see. For full pattern instructions click on this link.