Author: Susan L

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Memories of the 2012 CGOA Conference in Manchester, NH

I returned home last Monday, July 2nd, from the CGOA Chain Link Conference in Manchester, NH. It was a blast!!! I taught 6 classes and met a lot of really nice crocheters, knitters and tatters there. If you have the chance to attend the conference, I recommend that you go. You won’t be disappointed!

My plane took off from Phoenix Sky Harbor Int’l Airport, heading to Manchester on Tuesday, June 26, 2012. The flight made a scheduled stop in Denver, then continued on straight to Manchester from Denver. That morning, I remembered that a designer friend of mine, Andee Graves, lives in Colorado. I was wondering what flight Andee might be taking, so I watched for her when the new passengers came onto the plane in Denver. To my surprise and delight, Andee got on the plane!!! After I got her attention, we sat next to each other and talked the whole way to Manchester, which made the time pass a lot faster!

The first day of the conference was Wednesday, when I attended Professional Development Day (PDD for short). It was a day packed with information for crochet professionals or aspiring crochet professionals. At PDD, I learned more about designing, tech editing, self-publishing, using social media, teaching and producing crochet videos. These and many more topics were presented by other crochet professionals there. KJ Hay’s presentation about tech editing was hilarious and very creative! Instead of reading the information she wanted to present, she made a little “skit” out of it, complete with her bunny slippers! It was a riot! I’ll be presenting the topic of “Contract Crocheting” at PDD in Reno in September. It should be a lot of fun.

Kathryn White at PDD
Terry Kehrer at PDD

At PDD, I sat at a table with Kathryn White, Michele Maks, Theresa Kehrer, Joyce Bragg and Karen Ballard. Here are photos of 3 of them:

Michele Maks at PDD

Then on Wednesday night, I taught my first class at the conference: Symbol Crochet. All the students were eager to learn and did very well in class. It was a little difficult to teach a class after a full day of PDD because I’m a morning person, not a night person! But I persevered and was able to think straight, must to my surprise and delight! I must have been running on adrenaline!

On Thursday morning, I taught my Faux Tatted Necklace class from my pattern with the same name. Here’s a photo of the necklace:

Faux Tatted Necklace

 

Carlotta and her necklace
Kim and her bracelet

And here are some of the happy students with their necklaces (or bracelets) in progress:

 

 

 

Victoria and me

There was also a mother and daughter in that class. This is the daughter and me:

 

I was amazed and extremely surprised that one of the students in that class had taught herself to crochet the night before! She was still learning how to hold the hook and thread, but she was patient and persistent and she did great!!!

I had Thursday afternoon off from teaching, so I spent it with one of my mentees, Theresa Kehrer. On Thursday night, they held the Design Contest Awards. Here’s a photo of the center of the display with all the entries, located on the show floor (Note: Not all the entries are shown in this photo, just the ones in the center of the display):

Design Competition Display

I entered my new shawl pattern that I made in the continuous crochet motifs method (I blogged about it on May 19), but I didn’t get a prize for it.  Here is a photo of that shawl:

Byzantine Shawl in Design Contest

All of the black around the large red and orange motifs is done with one strand (actually 2 strands because I needed to use 2 balls of black yarn) so there are only 4 ends of black yarn to weave in when you’re done crocheting the shawl instead of 128! I’m thinking about designing an edging for this shawl before I publish the pattern. I think it needs a little something extra. It’s too bad I didn’t add an edging before entering it in the contest. Oh well! Better luck next year!

Kathryn White, who is a good friend of mine, won 4 prizes in the contest! She took first and third places in the Accessories category, third place in the Thread category and first place in the Artistic Expression category! Her designs (and all the winners’ designs) are amazing! You can view the winners here on Doris Chan’s blog: http://dorischancrochet.com/2012/06/28/cgoa-2012-crochet-design-competition-results/. You can see all the entries in the Design Contest here: http://www.flickr.com//photos/14498426@N03/sets/72157630091305846/show/. Enjoy the eye candy!!!

After the Design Contest Awards came the shopping floor preview, which is always a lot of fun! Who doesn’t love looking at and touching beautiful yarns?

I went to the Dance Party for a little while after that, but left in plenty of time to get a good night’s sleep so I could think straight the next morning to teach classes again! It’s important to me to be my best and think as clearly as I can when I’m teaching. I owe that to my students. And that doesn’t include staying up until the wee hours of the morning!!!

Whenever I have to travel to the East Coast for the CGOA Conference, I start adjusting my internal clock 2 weeks before the conference so I don’t have to try to adjust to the 3 hour time difference in one night! It works great! Over the course of the 2 weeks, I was able to eventually go to bed and get up in the morning 2-3 hours early before I left for the conference, so I was already used to East Coast time when I got there!

On Friday, I taught my Beginning and Intermediate Bruges Lace classes. Both of these classes went well and the students enjoyed learning how to form several styles of Bruges Lace tapes, how to curve them, join them to each other (and to motifs) and loop the tapes over themselves. It was a great day!

That night, the CGOA Annual Member Meeting took place. Normally, I sit with the other members in the audience, but this time I sat at the head table with the CGOA Board members. I had to keep the secret for weeks of me filling a vacancy on the Board: Karen Whooley is leaving the Board due to family matters. This is the first time I’ve been on the CGOA Board in the 10 years that I’ve been a CGOA member. I’m looking forward to giving back to CGOA and helping to improve the CGOA Masters Program (I’m the new liaison to the new Masters Committee: Jane Rimmer and Carol Moore are taking the places of Karen Whooley and Kathleen Sams as co-chairs of the Masters Committee).

On Saturday, I attended my first CGOA Board meeting bright and early at 7AM with the other Board members (I’m glad that I’m a morning person!). However, I had to leave the Board meeting early in order to teach my Shuttle Tatting class all day! Every one of the 11 students in the class learned to shuttle tat at various skill levels. It’s not exactly an easy thing to learn, but they were all patient and persistent students! I’m very proud of every one of them! I can’t wait to see what they create in shuttle tatting!

The Fashion Show and Dinner was held on Saturday night. I modeled in the Fashion Show and pinned a Masters Pin on one of my mentees, Carlotta Craig. Here we are in the pinning ceremony:

Pinning Carlotta!

It was a wonderful night and it was hard to say goodbye to many friends at the conference, as many people leave that night or the following morning. I saw Karen Manthey, Bobbie Matela, Carol Alexander, Kathleen Sams and many, many more friends and colleagues at the dinner and conference. Here is a photo of me at the Fashion Show (in the center) with 2 of my mentees: Theresa Kehrer (on the left) and Shari White (on the right):

 

 

Terry, Shari and Me

 

 

I taught my last class, Writing Crochet Patterns, on Sunday morning. The students in this class were all very eager to learn more about writing crochet patterns and improving their pattern writing skills! Many of them were newer or beginning designers. I look forward to seeing their design careers grow!

 

After having lunch with Jane Rimmer and Carol Moore on Sunday afternoon, I walked into the show floor and found myself volunteering to help take down the Red Heart/Crochetville booth. It was a lot of fun! I received many skeins of free yarn and crochet thread for my efforts!!! Normally I wouldn’t accept so much yarn at a conference because I’d have to find a way to get it home! But I knew I had extra space in my second suitcase because I gave out so many handouts in my classes and that space was now vacant to fill with yarn on the way home!!! Thank you very much, Kathleen! I will use the yarn for some crochet designs as soon as I find some extra time to make them! Here’s a photo of Andee Graves wrapping up the boxes on the pallets with plastic/shrink wrap before the driver took them away:

Andee wrapping boxes

All in all, I had a wonderful time at the conference and I’m looking forward to teaching 6 more classes at the CGOA Chain Link Conference in Reno in September! I’d better get to work and prepare those classes before time slips away! It’ll be here before I know it!!!

 

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Jean Leinhauser: A Crochet Legend Remembered

If you are a crochet enthusiast like me, and especially if you’ve been crocheting for as long as I have, then you have certainly run across the name of Jean Leinhauser. Jean was one of the pioneers and legends in the crochet industry. If you’ll indulge me, I’d like to tell you a little about Jean.

Jean was born in August, 1933 and passed away one year ago, on June 12, 2011. She worked in the needlework field for 4-5 decades! Back in 1964, she was working as Design Director for the Boye Needle Company in Chicago. She had put together a knitting program that could be used in inner city high schools and was asked to do a crochet program, too. But Jean didn’t know how to crochet! So she spent 4 days at home teaching herself to crochet and came up with the crochet program for Boye. She also wrote the information for their packaged crochet products and started doing leaflets with crochet patterns for them, as well. At that time, the only crochet patterns that were published were by yarn companies.

In 1971, Jean realized how much money Boye was making on the leaflets she was doing, so she decided to start her own company! That was the beginning of Leisure Arts, the first needlework pattern publisher that was not associated with a yarn company. Six years later, Jean sold Leisure Arts and started American School of Needlework (ASN), where she also published needlework leaflets. Sometime in 2002, Jean sold ASN to Dynamic Resource Group (DRG), the owners of Annie’s Attic, the Needlecraft Shop and House of White Birches. Jean stayed with DRG for 2 years as editor of Crochet! magazine. Then in 2004, she left DRG and started producing crochet books with her good friend, Rita Weiss, who worked with her for many years at ASN. Over the past 5 decades,Jean Leinhauser published hundreds, if not thousands, of crochet books and leaflets. I have dozens of Jean’s books in my crochet library to this day. Here is a photo of Rita and Jean at a Crochet Guild of America (CGOA) Conference (Jean is on the left and Rita is on the right):

Jean and Rita

I first met Jean in January, 2002, at a craft trade show (HIA) in Anaheim, CA when Jean still owned ASN. Jean was sitting at a table with Rita Weiss and Bobbie Matela. I was in awe of meeting this crochet legend and a little scared, too! I was a new designer and didn’t have many designs published at the time. Jean looked at photos of some designs I had made and to my surprise, she bought a couple of them!

Fast forward 2 1/2 years to the summer of 2004. I was working on a paper quilling book that God had dumped in my lap (without me even having to submit a proposal for the book). Jean and Rita had just started their new book producing company called Creative Partners and were looking for someone to hire as a technical editor for the crochet patterns in their books. I had never done this type of work before and said I had an interest in being a tech editor. To my total shock, Jean remembered meeting me at the trade show over 2 years before! She gave me their tech editing test and I passed the test, to the surprise of all 3 of us!

Jean was always encouraging, kind, loving, understanding and more. She always encouraged new designers. She loved people and took a genuine interest in everyone she met. She was my biggest and best mentor, teaching me the ropes of tech editing and starting my tech editing career. I will always be indebted to her. We had great fun e-mailing each other for quite a few years about editing and the challenges it poses. Whenever I felt like pulling my hair out, Jean would say something in an e-mail that made me laugh, which eased my frustration. She had a funny sense of humor, or as Marcy Smith, the editor of Interweave Crochet magazine called it, “a wicked sense of humor”. She was always interested in what was going on in my life and always had love and encouragement to share with anyone in need. Jean attended all of the CGOA Conferences, along with Rita Weiss. She was my “class angel” at the 2009 conference where I taught 4 classes with only one hand because I had broken my wrist 2 1/2 weeks before! Here is a photo of Jean and me at that conference:

Jean and me

Jean and Rita were 2 of the 3 members of the “Old Broads” club. The other member of the club was Margaret Hubert. All 3 of them wore sparkly rhinestone pins that said “Old Broads Rule” at the CGOA Conferences. It is a little uncertain to the rules of club membership. Some say members in this exclusive club had to be over a certain age or had to be in the publishing business for as long as Rita and Jean. Others say you had to be a knit/crochet designer still working in the industry and you had to have your first book published before 1968! In any case, the 3 of them wore their pins with pride and we all laughed at this exclusive club!

In July of 2011, at the CGOA Conference in Minneapolis, MN, Jean Leinhauser was the first inductee (posthumously) into the new CGOA Hall of Fame. The CGOA Board of Directors voted to rename the Hall of Fame in Jean’s honor. It is now called the Jean Leinhauser CGOA Hall of Fame. This year, Margaret Hubert will be the second inductee into the Hall of Fame. To read about the Hall of Fame, visit the CGOA website here.

Several years ago, Jean and Rita decided to get “glamour” shots for including in some new books by Leisure Arts. Here is Jean’s glamour shot:

Jean’s glamour shot

She was beautiful to me, with or without makeup!

I will never forget Jean. She impacted so many lives and is deeply missed by many people. She was an inspiration to all designers, many of whom were extremely afraid to meet her (according to the stories I’ve read)! But Jean was humble and approachable, even though she was a “legend” in the needlework industry.

She was a huge blessing to me. I thank God for bringing her into my life and for allowing me to be her friend, as she was mine.

Rest in Peace, Jean, knowing that you are loved and missed by thousands of people worldwide.

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Dress Form and Turtleneck Sweaters

A few weeks ago, I walked into my local Hobby Lobby craft store and saw a dress form in the lobby. It was a decorative dress form that someone could use in their home décor, I suppose! When I saw it, I knew I had to buy it for photographing some of my crochet garments and accessories that I’ve created for publication. The dress form is not adjustable in width like typical sewing dress forms, but the legs come off for ease of moving the form and the height is adjustable, too. The only drawback with this dress form (if you can call it a drawback) is the fabric covering the form, which is a black and white print. Here’s a photo of the dress form by itself:

Dress Form by Itself
Dress Form with Shirt

I like the fabric, but I think it might be distracting for photography! So I thought I’d cover it with a solid black top I have. Here’s how it looks with the black top covering it:

I like it with the black top covering it, but I think the print on the neck sticks out like a sore thumb!!! A good friend suggested I use turtleneck sweaters so the neck would be covered up. So I set out on a quest to buy nice turtlenecks in various colors. I found some nice turtlenecks online for $3, but every color was out of stock! That certainly didn’t help! So I decided to try some local thrift stores. First, I went to the Stepping Stones Thrift Store in Prescott Valley. They had a very nice, glittery knitted turtleneck marked down to 29 cents, so I bought it. The sales lady there suggested that I try the Disabled American Veterans Thrift Store in Prescott, so I went there later that day. To my amazement (and delight), they had a lot of turtlenecks in various colors. I found 16 more turtlenecks there for 25 cents each! So for a total of $4.29, I bought 17 turtlenecks for my dress form! Did I score or what!!! Most of these turtlenecks are my size, too, so I can wear them when I need a turtleneck (if I don’t have hot flashes from wearing them)! Here is a photo of all the turtlenecks washed and hung up:

Turtlenecks for Dress Form

You can tell that I didn’t get every color in the rainbow, but it’s a great start! I can fill in with some other colors as I find them at more thrift stores along the way.

Now I have less excuses not to self-publish my garment and accessories crochet patterns! If I could just find some extra time (and much needed discipline) to get these garment and accessories patterns done!

Stay tuned for some new patterns coming to The Crochet Architect website soon!

 

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Intermeshing Pendant Necklace (and pattern corrections)

My Intermeshing Pendant Necklace (aka: Double Take Pendant Necklace) was just published in the Summer 2012 issue of Crochet! magazine. Here are some photos of the necklace:

Pendant Necklace
Both sides of Pendant Necklace

I designed this necklace pendant in the Intermeshing Crochet Technique where each side is different, as you can see in the second photo. You can learn more about this technique at Tanis Galik’s website here: www.InterlockingCrochet.com. She calls it “Interlocking Crochet”, which is the same as “Intermeshing Crochet”. She has a full book of beautiful Intermeshing/Interlocking Crochet patterns, called “Interlocking Crochet”, which is published by Krause Publications. On her website, you can see photos of some of the projects in her book, along with a link to order the book from Amazon. I have this book and it is very nice!

Anyway, back to my necklace. This is a small project that would be perfect for learning the Intermeshing/Interlocking technique of crochet. There are some step-by-step photos in the pattern, which are very helpful in understanding how the technique is done. Unfortunately, you’ll find a few mistakes in the pattern that were added during the technical editing process (many of the turning chains were moved from the end of the rows to the beginning of the wrong rows!). Here are the corrections for this pattern:

Row 2A: Remove “ch 2” at beginning of row.

Rows 2B, 3B and 4B: Change “ch 4” to “ch 2” at beginning of row.

Rows 3A and 4A: Change “ch 2” to “ch 4” at beginning of row.

Row 5A: Add “ch 4” at beginning of row.

Also, in the “Pattern Notes”, it says “After sewing pieces together”. That should say “After weaving pieces together”. These pieces aren’t “sewn”, they’re “woven”!

If you’d like to learn the “Intermeshing Crochet” technique in person, I’ll be teaching a class on Intermeshing at the CGOA Conference in Reno, NV in September, 2012. For more information about both of the CGOA Conferences, go to www.knitandcrochetshow.com. For specific information about my Intermeshing class, go to http://www.e-offinger.net/knitandcrochet/fall-classes.cfm. The class number is S209C and it’s going to be held on Saturday, September 15 from 2-5PM. I’d love to meet you in my class and teach you the Intermeshing technique!

I think Intermeshing is a fun, fascinating technique and it’s almost limitless in what you can make!

Happy crocheting!

Susan

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Continuous Crochet Motifs

I bought a crochet book last year called “Continuous Crochet Motifs” from a Japanese seller on EBay. I paid $40.00 for this book, which is a lot to spend on a crochet book, but it is very much worth the money! It is a Japanese book with only Japanese writing inside, but it has crochet symbol charts throughout the book, which I can easily read. I quickly digested the book and learned this technique, in which motifs are made continuously, meaning there are less ends to weave in at the end (hooray!!!). You have to follow the symbol charts very carefully, but the book also includes a front section where there are both symbol charts and step-by-step photos of the motif being worked. It’s a great book and if you’re at all intrigued by this crochet technique/method, you might want to buy one of these books someday. Kristin Omdahl has a book with this technique called “Seamless Crochet”. I don’t have her book, yet, but I plan to get it soon. Here is what the Japanese Continuous Crochet Motifs book looks like on the front and back covers:

front cover of book
back cover of book

Keep in mind that when you’re using only one color, there are only 2 ends to weave in “total” because you work the motifs continuously, no matter how many motifs you make, and only fasten off at the end! That’s a huge improvement on weaving in 2 ends for every motif made!

 

A few weeks ago, I decided to use this technique to design something for the CGOA Design Contest, which will be held at the CGOA Conference next month in Manchester, NH. The deadline to enter something into the contest is June 6. I need to get it done within the next few weeks so there will be time for my entry to travel to the destination where it needs to be by June 6!

Luster Sheen colors

I can’t tell you what I’m designing, but I can tell you that I’m using some Red Heart Luster Sheen yarn to make it. I love this yarn! It is a size 2 (fine weight) yarn and is 100% acrylic. It provides beautiful drape and the colors are really nice. Here’s a photo of the yarn I’m using:

You can see that the bottom skein is different from the rest. That’s because Coats & Clark is repackaging this yarn into 3.5oz/100g skeins (they used to be 4oz/125g). There are 307 yards/281 meters in the new skeins, so it still goes a long way! The bottom color is from my stash and the top 3 colors are new. I’m using their cherry red, black, orange and vanilla colors. Since I’m using so many colors in this design, there will be plenty of ends to weave in. But I will only have 2 ends to weave in of the color that I’m using continuously around the other motifs to join them all together. That will almost CUT IN HALF the number of ends to weave in! Now that’s a big improvement in my book!!!

I used Luster Sheen yarn in my Two-Way Rose Pin design (you can see it on Ravelry here: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/two-way-rose-pin). I also used Luster Sheen yarn when I crocheted a filet afghan to be photographed in the book “Afghans for All Reasons & All Seasons”, which Jean Leinhauser and Rita Weiss produced for Leisure Arts. Here’s a link to a photo of that afghan on Amazon (it’s on the front cover in the top right-hand corner): http://www.amazon.com/Afghans-Reasons-Seasons-Leisure-Arts/dp/160140672X#reader_160140672X.

wrong and right motif

I noticed last week that I made one of the motifs wrong for this project, so I had to rip out a whole row of work! Ugh!!! I had only worked the second round and left out the first round in each of the motifs (that’s what happens when I’m preoccupied and don’t look at the symbol chart I made!). Here’s how the motif looks (the left motif is missing round 1, but the right motif has both rounds worked):

 

joined and unjoined round 1

I took a few minutes to decide if it was going to make a difference before ripping it out, though. I decided it would look better if I made the motifs the right way (the chain spaces are more pronounced in the correct motif on the right), so the extra time would make a difference in the look of the project. When I ripped it out, I decided to engineer the motif a little differently. Originally, I had designed it with 2 rounds and both rounds were joined at the end. However, I tried it with not joining the first round and only joining the second round. Here is a photo of the difference between the two joinings:

The motif on the left is joined at the end of both rounds. The motif on the right is joined at the end of the second round only. I see less bulk in the joining area, so that’s what I’m going to do for these motifs. The new motif goes straight from the last sc in the first round to the first sc in the second round without the usual “sl st” at the end of the round and “ch 1” before the first sc of the next round. What do you think? Do you like the newer motif better or do you not see any difference between them? I know, it’s very minimal, but if I had to rip them out anyway, I might as well make the change!

Let’s hope I stay on schedule and get this done in time for the contest (if I don’t get distracted with something else along the way)!

Happy crocheting,

Susan

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The Finishing Touch: Steaming and Trimming Fringe

Do you every wonder why some people’s crochet projects look better than others? Sometimes it’s because of the difference in skill levels of the crocheters. But other times, the difference is in the little details, like blocking and finishing, which can make a big difference! Here is an example of a project that turned out much better with a little added effort.

Before steaming

I crocheted a scarf the other day and added cut fringe to the short ends. The fringe looked scraggly and not very attractive. Here’s how it looked:

 

 

 

 

Left half steamed

It looks very messy, doesn’t it! The yarn I used was acrylic, so I decided to steam it to straighten out the kinks in the yarn. Here’s how it looked after steaming the left half of the fringe:

 

 

 

 

After steaming

You can see that the kinks are gone on the left half now. Here’s how it looked after steaming all of the fringe:

 

 

 

 

Steamed and trimmed

That’s quite a difference! But look at how uneven the strands of yarn are at the bottom. That doesn’t look very good either! The final thing I did for this fringe was trim the bottom of the strands. Here’s how it looked after trimming the fringe:

 

 

 

Before steaming
After steaming and trimming

Now doesn’t that look much nicer than the kinky, scraggly, uneven fringe I started with? Take a few minutes for that finishing touch of steaming (or blocking, depending on the fiber content) your fringe to remove the kinks in the yarn and trimming the fringe to an even length. You’ll be glad you did! The difference is like night and day!

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The CGOA Chain Link Conference

Do you love to take crochet classes and learn new crochet techniques? Do you enjoy meeting people who have the same love of crochet as you? Do you live close to Manchester, NH (or Reno, NV) or have the means and ability to travel to one of these cities? Then the CGOA Conference is for you!!! You’ll meet many designers, yarn manufacturer representatives, publishers and crochet enthusiasts at the conference. You will be able to take crochet (and knitting) classes that will push your crochet knowledge and skills to the next level! It’s a little slice of “crochet heaven” here on earth!!!

In addition to the crochet and knitting classes at the conference, there is a CGOA dinner & fashion show, shopping floor (with yarn, patterns, tools etc), design contest, dance party, designer meet & greet (with the editors in attendance), Professional Development Day, CGOA Masters Program, book signings and more!

There will be 2 CGOA Conferences this year: one in Manchester, NH at the end of June and another in Reno, NV in the middle of September.

I will be teaching 6 classes at each of the conferences this year.

These are the classes I’ll be teaching in Manchester:

Simplifying Symbol Crochet, “Faux” Tatting Crochet Necklace, Beginning Bruges Lace, Intermediate Bruges Lace, Tatting the Old-Fashioned Way (sold out!) and Crochet Pattern Writing 101.

These are the classes I’ll be teaching in Reno:

Beginning Filet Crochet, Intermediate Filet Crochet, Playful Polish Star, Simplifying Symbol Crochet, Intermeshing 101 and Reading & Understanding Crochet Patterns.

The other crochet teachers at the NH conference are Vashti Braha, Lily Chin, Joan Davis, Darla Fanton, Margaret Hubert, Karen Klemp, Marty Miller, Carol Ventura and Karen Whooley. They will be teaching some fantastic crochet classes, too! Congratulations to Vashti Braha, whose 4 classes are sold out already!!!!! You must be doing something right, Vashti! That makes me want to take one of your classes soon (when I’m not teaching classes, too).

For more information about both of the CGOA Chain Link Conferences and all the classes being taught by various teachers, click here: http://www.knitandcrochetshow.com/.

The conference is really a blast! If you decide to attend, you won’t regret it! And please introduce yourself to me at the conference. I’d love to meet you in one of my classes or at the conference in general!!!

Happy crocheting,

Susan

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Designing a Crochet Garment from a Sewing Pattern, Part 1

I decided to start designing a garment today (it’s a long process, but if I don’t get started, it’ll never get done!). Last Fall, I took a class at the CGOA Conference in Greensboro, NC, taught by Joan Davis, called “Crochet Fabulous Fashions from Commercial Sewing Patterns”. In the class, I learned some things about designing a crochet garment and I’m ready to give it a try! Anyway, I’m going to design a garment using the sizes and shapes of the pieces in a particular sewing pattern and see how it works out (hopefully it will look great or it’ll be back to the drawing board for me!).

I decided I wanted stronger pattern pieces than the pattern has in it so they wouldn’t get torn too easily. I also wanted to keep an uncut original pattern with the 3 sizes that the pattern comes with intact (to make sizing the crochet garment pattern easier to do later on). So I got started with tracing the sewing pattern pieces for the garment I want to make.

Step 1

The first thing I needed to do was read the pattern, cut apart the pattern pieces and decide which size I wanted to make. Then I taped the pieces, one at a time, to my sliding glass door like this:

 

 

 

Step 2

 

 

 

After taping the pattern piece to the sliding glass door, I taped a big sheet of paper to the door on top of that. I used part of an “end roll” from my local newspaper printing facility. They sell the “end rolls” for a few dollars and they’re really handy for all types of crafts! Of course, I had to do this during the day because I’m using the sunshine outside to see through to the bottom layer of paper! Here’s what it looked like after taping the top layer onto the sliding glass door:

Step 3

 

 

 

After taping both of these pieces to the sliding glass door, I drew the cutting lines from the size of the pattern that I want to make onto the top layer of paper like this:

 

 

 

 

 

Step 4

 

These cutting lines on the pattern are for cutting out each piece of fabric to make the garment. Most people know that sewing patterns have a built in seam allowance (usually 5/8″) on each pattern piece. But for a crochet pattern, I want to remove the seam allowance because crochet seams aren’t that wide. So I drew lines 5/8″ in from the cutting lines that I traced from the pattern pieces (after verifying that there were 5/8″ seams around all edges of the pattern pieces per the instructions in the pattern). Here’s what the pattern piece looked like after drawing those new lines:

 

Step 5

 

 

 

After drawing the new cutting lines (5/8″ in from the sewing pattern cutting lines), I cut out the pattern pieces along my new cutting lines like this:

 

 

 

 

 

Step 6

And here’s how my new pattern piece looks after cutting it out:


I now have a new pattern piece for each of the pieces in this garment pattern with the seam allowances removed. I will use each of these pattern pieces to crochet a front, back and 2 sleeves for this garment that will be the size and shape of each pattern piece. Then I’ll sew the crocheted front, back and sleeve pieces together to form my crochet garment pattern. And I’ll be able to calculate the different numbers of stitches and rows for each size of the crochet pattern by using the original, uncut sewing pattern, which is sized already (I’m a visual person, so these pieces should help me tremendously!)! Since this particular sewing pattern comes in 3 sizes (XS, S and M) per pattern packet, I also bought the pattern packet with the larger 3 sizes (L, XL and XXL) to grade the pattern fully. I bought the 2 patterns when they were on sale for $1 each, so that didn’t break my bank account! I can’t believe how expensive sewing patterns are now. The retail price of each pattern says $17.95! I’d never pay that much for a sewing pattern, especially a pattern rated “easy”!

Now all I need to do is play around with some yarn, different sizes of crochet hooks and crochet stitch patterns to decide how this garment will be made. That may not be as easy as it sounds, but I’m up for the challenge!

I’ll post more as this garment progresses (unless it’s a total loss!). Wish me luck!

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Rules for Working in Rows

Do you ever wonder why the edges of your crochet project aren’t straight or why your project gets wider or narrower from the bottom to the top? It’s just possible that you aren’t working your first or last stitch of the rows in the proper place. Here are the rules for working in rows with single crochet, double crochet and half double crochet.

 

Note: These rules apply when no increases or decreases are to be worked.

 

Sc (Single Crochet) Rows
When working in sc rows, the first sc of the row is worked in the first stitch and the last sc of the row is worked in the last stitch. A turning ch-1 is used so your first stitch will be at the height of the sc to be worked. This turning ch-1 does not count as a stitch.

 

Dc (Double Crochet) Rows
Note: Beware! Most patterns won’t automatically tell you this. You are expected to know this already. This is a crochet rule (except when the rule is broken!).

 

When working in dc rows, the first dc of the row is worked in the next (second) stitch. The reason for this is a turning ch-3 is worked at the end of the previous row (or at the beginning of the current row) to bring your work up to the height of a dc to work the dc row. This turning ch-3 counts as the first dc of the row, so the first stitch on the previous row is skipped (if it wasn’t skipped, you’d have an increase). Since the turning ch-3 counts as a dc, the last stitch in the row is worked in the 3rd chain (top) of the turning ch-3 of the previous row (which counted as the first dc of that row) to keep the stitch count the same. This also keeps the edges of the work straight. Turning chains can be worked at the end of the row or at the beginning of the next row. For instance, a pattern can be worded with “ch 3, turn” at the end or beginning of the row instructions.

 

Hdc (Half Double Crochet) Rows
There are 2 ways to work hdc rows. The first is to use a turning ch-2, which counts as the first hdc of the row. When working hdc this way, work the first hdc in the next (second) stitch of the row. Work the last hdc in the 2nd ch of the turning ch-2 from the previous row. This will keep the stitch count the same in each row.

 

The second way to work hdc rows is to work a turning ch-2, but not to have it count as a hdc in the row. When working hdc this way, work the first hdc in the first stitch of the row. Work the last hdc in the last stitch of the row (not in the turning chain). This will also keep the stitch count the same in each row, but the edges will stick out a little where the ch-2 is located.

 

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Blocking

If you’ve never blocked your crochet projects after you finish them, you’ll be amazed at what a difference it can make! It’s almost like night and day! For a professional look, this is how I block my crochet projects:

 

You will need a blocking board to pin the edges of your crochet pieces to the right size. My blocking board is a 4 foot square piece of pink foam which is used in homes for insulation or under stucco. It retails for approx $20 for a 4 x 8 foot piece (I split a 4 x 8 foot piece with a friend). Use a permanent black marker and yardstick to draw lines on the board (I spaced my lines 2” apart in both directions). If you plan to block anything round, also draw some circles on your board, using anything you can find that’s round (like the lid of a pot or pan). Next, cover the board with plastic wrap, overlapping the plastic strips and pinning the edges of the plastic wrap to the edges of the board.

 

There are many ways to block your crochet. One of them is to immerse your crochet piece in tepid water for 10-20 minutes (if the yarn label says you can wet block it, of course!), then gently squeeze out the excess water (do not twist or wring) and pin it to your blocking board.

 

Another way is to pin the piece directly onto the blocking board (to the desired measurements) while it is still dry and spray it with water until it is all wet.

 

IMPORTANT: Only use rust-proof (stainless steel) pins for blocking.

 

Allow plenty of time to adequately pin the edges of your crochet pieces to the proper measurements on the board (if your piece has lots of picots around the edges, this can be time consuming). Allow your crochet piece to dry thoroughly before removing the pins. In some areas, it may take up to 24 hours for your crochet piece to dry completely before removing it from the blocking board. To help speed the drying process, try using a ceiling fan or box fan to move the air around more in the room!

 

In the end, your effort will pay off with a professionally blocked crochet project!

 

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