Crochet patterns – Page 9 – The Crochet Architect

August 16, 2013August 16, 2013

New Book – Complete Guide to Symbol Crochet

Complete Guide to Symbol Crochet book front cover

Complete Guide to Symbol Crochet book back cover

It’s been a while since I’ve reviewed a new book, so I thought I’d review a new book for you. This one is special to me because I did a lot of the work in it (and my name is on the cover, too). The name of this book is “Complete Guide to Symbol Crochet” and it’s published by Leisure Arts. I worked on this book, on and off, with Rita Weiss over the course of 5 months during the last year. It was another one of those “labors of love”, just like another book I worked on with Rita Weiss and Jean Leinhauser 5-10 years ago called “Crochet Lace”. I love working on crochet books, whether I’m designing projects, tech editing patterns, writing patterns, making filet crochet charts or symbol crochet charts for them.

This book is special because it teaches how to read crochet symbol charts, which I absolutely LOVE!!! I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t know how to read symbol crochet charts. They are a visual representation of the crochet project and if you’re a visual person, like me, I’m sure you’ll love them, too. I learned to draw crochet symbol charts a few years ago with Adobe Illustrator. It’s really quite fun (and challenging sometimes) to draw them. But since I love a good challenge, it’s right up my alley!

Our symbol crochet book includes symbols for 47 crochet stitches (or combinations of stitches, such as clusters, popcorns, etc) as well as instructions and diagrams for how to work each of these stitches. It also includes photos, symbol charts and written instructions for 9 projects: 8 of the projects are “easy” and 1 is “intermediate”. Here are photos of the 9 projects in this book:

This book is a digest size book (8.5” x 5.5”), so it’s perfect to take along anywhere and it will fit in just about any size of crochet bag, too!

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about this new symbol crochet book and you’ll give symbol crochet a try. Some of the current crochet magazines include symbol crochet charts in them, such as Crochet Today. And some good “older” magazines with lots of symbol crochet patterns in them are Magic Crochet and Decorative Crochet. They are/were both published in France and have lots of thread crochet patterns in them. Each pattern starts out with some written instructions, but then says to “follow chart”. And if you’re really adventurous, you can purchase some Japanese crochet books or Russian crochet magazines. Both of these have symbol crochet charts in them. I have many of each, but I can’t read a word of Japanese or Russian to save my life! However, I can follow the symbol crochet charts in both of them. In fact, I crocheted a cardigan several years ago (the one I’m wearing in my Annie’s videos) from a Japanese crochet pattern. The symbol charts were fantastic and the cardigan turned out really nice. I used 2 strands of size 10 DMC Cebelia thread to make my cardigan. Here are photos of the project in the book and me wearing it:

Isn’t it beautiful? I’m really pleased with how it turned out. Because I have gauge issues (I crochet too tightly quite often), I had to block the heck out of it so it would fit me! I added some waist shaping to my cardigan, too, which wasn’t in the original pattern. My cardigan came from this book:

It’s a great book and was well worth the $20 or so that I paid for it (directly from Japan).

To celebrate the publication of the Complete Guide to Symbol Crochet book, Rita and I would like to give away a free, autographed copy to a lucky winner. To enter this contest, you’ll need to leave a comment on this blog post (like if you know how to read symbol crochet charts, if you’d like to learn how to read them or something like that). You’ll also need to be subscribed to my blog. Both of these are quick and painless! To leave a comment, you’ll need to be registered on my website (this cuts down on “spam” comments, so registering is necessary these days). There’s a tab at the top of each page of my website that says “Login”, then a drop down tab that says “register”. Just fill in the blanks and click on the button at the bottom. After you’re registered, you can leave your comment on this blog post (and you can comment on any other blog posts here, too). To subscribe to my blog, simply scroll down a few inches and type in your e-mail address in the field that says “Subscribe to blog via email” on the right-hand side of the page. Now wasn’t that easy? Oh, this contest will end on August 28^th (my youngest son’s 21^st birthday). So enter today for your chance to win!

I wish everyone the best of luck in winning a free copy of this new book (although, realistically, only 1 lucky person will win). And if you don’t win, I hope you’ll consider adding this new symbol crochet book to your crochet library.

Happy crocheting,

Susan

June 30, 2013June 30, 2013

Jewelry to Crochet

Are you an avid crocheter who likes to crochet jewelry? Have you admired crochet jewelry for a long time and wanted to make some for yourself or others? I love to design and wear crochet jewelry! If you’re like me, you might be interested in a new crochet book I have by Annie’s. It’s called “Jewelry to Crochet” and it was just released for purchase last week. Included are 7 sets of jewelry, made with size 10, 5 or 3 cotton crochet thread, or with Kreinik metallic thread. Many of the sets also include beads. Each set includes a necklace, as well as a bracelet, earrings or both.

I haven’t received my designer copies of this book, yet, so I don’t know how the inside looks. But I think they did a nice job with the photos!

Here are some photos from this book:

There are many reasons why I love crochet jewelry. Here they are (in no particular order):

1. It takes only a small amount of time to make a crochet necklace, pair of earrings and/or bracelet, so I get almost instant gratification!

2. I can make my crochet jewelry in any colors to coordinate with my various outfits.

3. Crochet jewelry doesn’t require much money in materials to make!

4. I love crocheting with thread and crochet jewelry is very conducive to thread crochet!

If you love crocheting jewelry, too, what are the reasons why you love it?

I had a blast designing and crocheting these sets of crochet jewelry. I designed some of them years ago and others just last year. If you’re interested in crocheting some jewelry, you can read more about this book and purchase it on the Annie’s website.

Why not crochet some jewelry today and wear it tomorrow?

Happy crocheting!

Susan

June 11, 2013June 11, 2013

Continuous Crochet Motifs (Part 2) and New Crochet Pattern

In May of last year, I blogged about the Continuous Crochet Motifs method of making and joining motifs so there are less ends to weave in at the end of the project. This is a really cool crochet technique/method. You can read that blog post here and see photos of the Japanese crochet book that I bought to learn this crochet technique. Since then, I purchased Kristin Omdahl’s book called “Seamless Crochet”. I haven’t had the time to make anything from that book, but it’s definitely the same method of joining motifs as in the Japanese book I bought.

At the time I wrote that blog post, I was designing a shawl to enter in the CGOA Design Contest, made in the Continuous Crochet Motifs method. Well, I got the shawl finished and entered it in the contest. Unfortunately, I didn’t win anything for this shawl and I think the reason was that I didn’t have an edging on it (I couldn’t think of an edging that would work at that time). A few months ago, I added an edging to the shawl and it really finishes off the shawl nicely. I tried many different color combinations for the edging, but in the end, I decided to make the edging all black so it wouldn’t take away from the beauty and design of the shawl itself. I’ll be publishing this shawl design when the pattern is ready (it still needs a little tweaking first!). Here’s a photo of the shawl before I added the edging:

Byzantine Shawl in 2012 CGOA Design Contest

I still need to take some new photos of this shawl with the edging added before I can publish this pattern. But I promise to get to it sometime soon! I’ve veered from my original topic of the Continuous Crochet Motifs method a little, so I’ll get back to that topic now.

After designing the shawl, I designed a scarf using the same Continuous Crochet Motifs method and some of the same motifs as the shawl. It’s called the “Byzantine Scarf”. I just finished up the pattern and added it for sale here yesterday. You can see the pattern here.

Here’s a photo of the Byzantine Scarf:

What I love about this scarf (besides the colors) is the Continuous Crochet Motifs method I used for the 2 rounds of black, which are joining the red and orange motifs together (not the final round of black, but the black rounds inside the lime green rounds). With this method of crocheting, I was able to work these 2 rounds of black edging around each of the 15 motifs in the scarf in one long pass! And that means I only had 2 tails of black yarn to weave in on these 2 rounds.

Okay, I realize that the rest of this scarf has plenty of tails to weave in. But by using the Continuous Crochet Motifs method of joining the motifs, I saved myself 28 whole tails to weave in (30 – 2 = 28). I don’t know anyone who enjoys weaving in the tails/ends on their crochet work and I don’t, either. But it’s a necessary evil and has to be done! I love using color in my crochet designs, so I’ve been known to weave in hundreds of tails on larger projects with multiple colors. I just bite the bullet and do it!

I realize that not everyone wants to learn a new crochet technique, so I included the instructions for joining the motifs in the traditional motif joining method (joining with a sl st to the adjacent motif). But when you join the motifs this way (in the traditional method), you’ll have 30 tails of black to weave in on these 2 rounds of motif edging (2 tails for each of the 15 motifs in the scarf). So to me, it’s a “no brainer” to use the Continuous Crochet Motifs method to join the motifs together! But I’m an adventurous crocheter and I love to learn new techniques. I’m sure that not everyone is as adventurous as me, so that’s why I included the instructions for joining the motifs the other way.

Here’s a close up photo of the scarf:

Now you can see the 2 rounds of black around the red and orange motifs better. I also made a symbol crochet chart for each method of joining the motifs (these charts are included in the pattern). So if you like symbol crochet charts and learning new crochet techniques, you might want to give this scarf pattern a try!

Here are photos of 4 swatches of motifs that I made from the Japanese Continuous Crochet Motifs book a few years ago (right after I got the book in the mail!):

These swatches haven’t been blocked, so they don’t look as good as they could. What I want you to notice is the number of tails and the number of motifs in each of these swatches (I didn’t weave in any tails at all on them). Each swatch has 4, 7 or 9 motifs that are joined. But since I used the Continuous Crochet Motifs method to make these swatches of motifs, there are only 2 tails that would need to be woven in (if I were going to make these into projects). There would normally be 2 tails to weave in “per motif”! This is a HUGE time saver!!! It means I can spend more time crocheting and less time weaving in ends! Of course, it only works when you’re using the same color of yarn/thread for each motif (or to join each motif). But it’s not a bad thing to use 1 color of thread/yarn. It’s a design decision! And the savings in time it takes to weave in the tails is HUGE!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this closer look into the Continuous Crochet Motifs method and will come back again soon.

Happy crocheting,

Susan

May 30, 2013June 2, 2013

Crocheted Chinese Dragon

Last week, my husband and I drove to Los Angeles to pick up our youngest son at LAX (the airport). Our son had been in China for 2 weeks visiting his brother (our middle son) and our daughter-in-law (our middle son’s wife). I asked my youngest son if he would look for crochet books in China for me. I know there are fabulous Japanese crochet books because I have some of them. I absolutely LOVE Japanese crochet books (and Russian crochet magazines, too, but that’s a different story)! Anyway, my son said they didn’t have crochet books in China, but he bought me something he thought I’d like instead. And here it is:

Isn’t it cool? It’s a Chinese Dragon! And it’s crocheted!!! I LOVE it!!! It has nostrils, a tongue, eyes, feet, and more (I don’t know all the parts of a dragon, so I’m at a loss as to what to call everything on it). His body is bendable with some sort of wire down the middle. It’s hard to tell exactly what kind of wire was used because it’s encased in crochet stitches (it looks green and might be some sort of thick floral wire). The head easily rotates so he can see everything that’s going on in the room! There is a hanging cord so I can hang it, if I desire. But for now, he’s sitting next to me and looking very inquisitive!!! Judging from the shine of the yarn/thread that was used, I’d say he’s made out of nylon. I love the colors that he’s made of and the cute look on his face!

What do you think? Isn’t he cute? I already posted a couple of photos of him on my Facebook page and a few people asked me for the pattern. I had to explain that I didn’t design him and he came from China. I don’t have the pattern for him, but if I had the time and inclination, I could probably write a pattern. However, he may be copyrighted, so I won’t do that. Besides, I have other crochet patterns that I’m working on to bring to you very soon! Stay tuned for more to come!

Happy crocheting,

Susan

March 9, 2013June 25, 2013

New Thread Crochet Jewelry Pattern Available

Faux Tatted Jewelry Set

Faux Tatted Jewelry Set

It’s finally done! If you’ve enjoyed making (or have thought about purchasing) my Faux Tatted Necklace pattern, you might be interested to learn that I just self-published a pattern for a whole set of jewelry (necklace, bracelet and earrings). If you’re wondering why I call this “Faux” Tatting, it’s because it isn’t tatted. It’s crocheted to look like tatting! The only stitches used are chains, slip stitches and single crochet. The pattern is easy to follow, includes step-by-step photos and a symbol chart for the necklace (once you’ve made the necklace, the bracelet and earrings are a piece of cake!). Each of these jewelry pieces is crocheted with size 10 cotton crochet thread (for all of us “threadies”), using any buttons, beads or charms you desire.

I designed the bracelet and earrings for this set last summer before the CGOA Conference in Manchester, where I taught a class on making the Faux Tatted Necklace. But in my usual “procrastinating” style, it’s taken me this long to self-publish it! In my defense, though, I’m busy with other crochet work, I’m a perfectionist and I may possibly have ADD because I get distracted very easily (just ask my husband)!!! Aren’t all creative people like that (or many of them)?

Focus, Susan! Back to the jewelry set. I just love making these necklaces! It only takes a few hours to make each one, so I have less chance of getting distracted! Now I can crochet the matching bracelet and earrings for each of the necklaces I’ve made for a complete set (my ears won’t be bare any more). And now YOU can have coordinating sets, too!!!

Here are some close-up photos of the bracelet and earrings for you to see:

The bracelet pattern includes instructions for buttons/beads/charms on 1 side (in the brown/blue bracelet photo) or on 2 sides (in the black/green bracelet photo). The bracelet uses 12 or 23 buttons, beads or charms. The earrings have just 1 button on each of them and use earring wires (or your favorite earring findings).

I hope you enjoy this new pattern. And I hope you’ll share photos of your Faux Tatted Jewelry Sets with all of us.

Happy crocheting,

Susan

February 27, 2013June 23, 2013

Last Stop on Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths Blog Tour

This is the last stop on the Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths blog tour. Boohoo. I’m sad to see it come to an end! It’s been a lot of fun!

Today, we’re going to visit the blog of Andee Graves. I first met Andee at a CGOA Conference (I think it was in 2009 in Buffalo when I had a broken wrist – I definitely wasn’t able to crochet for a while then!). Here’s a photo of Andee and I, along with Shari White (one of my mentees and a very talented designer) and Joyce Bragg (another very talented designer), waiting to meet with the editors at the Buffalo conference (from left to right: Shari, me, Andee and Joyce):

Waiting for Editors at CGOA Conference in 2009

If you’ve been reading my blog for more than a few weeks, you might recognize Andee’s name. I wrote a blog post for Andee’s blog tour of her new Texting Mitts booklet, published by Leisure Arts, on February 10^th. Here’s a photo of the front cover of her booklet:

Andee’s texting mitts are fun to make! I made 2 pairs of them when I was preparing for her blog tour. You can read more about this booklet on my Feb. 10^th blog post or on Andee’s blog!

Andee is a fantastic newer designer (newer than me). She is a bundle of energy and a wealth of information! And she’s a really nice person, too! Andee already has over 50 published designs in just the last 3 years! Wow! Way to go, Andee! You can see all of Andee’s published designs on her Ravelry designer page. This is one of my favorites of Andee’s designs:

Andee's Heart Pillow — Andee’s Heart Pillow

This heart pillow was published in Crochet World magazine’s Feb. 2012 issue. Isn’t it pretty?

Please hop on over to Andee’s blog to read what she’s written about my Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths booklet and the dishcloth she’s made from the booklet.

Since this is the last stop on my blog tour, I will be picking and announcing a winner for the free autographed copy of my Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths booklet on Friday. If you haven’t entered yet, just leave a comment by 6PM (Arizona time) tomorrow on my blog post from either Jan. 27 or Feb. 9. I wish you all good luck in the giveaway!

Happy crocheting,

Susan

February 25, 2013June 23, 2013

4th Stop on Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths Blog Tour

Today we’re visiting a very talented crochet designer named Kara Lyon. Kara designs amigurumi dolls that are absolutely amazing! Here’s a photo of one of her dolls:

Kara Lyon's Viking Doll — Kara Lyon’s Viking Doll

Isn’t that awesome? To see all of her amigurumi dolls, visit her website.

When I first saw Kara’s amazing dolls online, I contacted her and encouraged her to attend the CGOA Conference in Manchester, NH in 2010, where we met face-to-face. We had previously communicated through e-mails and it was wonderful to meet her in person! Here we are at that conference:

Kara took my wiggly crochet class at the conference and I think she really enjoyed it. She designed her own wiggly crochet rug the following year. You can see and read about her rug on her blog. It’s very creative!

Today Kara is blogging about my Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths booklet. I can’t wait to read what Kara has written and see what kind of wiggly crochet dishcloth she’s created (she’s so creative!). I hope you’ll visit her blog to read about what she’s done!

If you haven’t already entered to win a free, autographed copy of my Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths booklet, you still have a few more days. Just leave a comment on either my Jan. 27 or Feb. 9 blog post to enter. Good luck!

Happy crocheting,

Susan

February 21, 2013

3rd Stop on Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths Blog Tour

Our 3^rd stop on this blog tour is with the very talented Ellen Gormley of Go Crochet. Ellen has been blogging for many years and always has something wonderful to share with her readers! She’s a very talented designer and one of the experts on the Knit and Crochet Now show.

Ellen Gormley (right) and Susan Lowman (left)

In 2010, Ellen took my Beginning Bruges Lace class at the CGOA Conference in Manchester, NH. She really took to Bruges Lace and started designing in it almost immediately. Last year, she had a booklet published by Annie’s called “Learn Bruges Lace”! Here’s a photo of Ellen and me in that class:

And here’s a photo of Ellen’s Bruges Lace booklet:

If you missed my blog post about Ellen’s booklet, you can read it here. Bruges Lace is a lot of fun. I’m not sure which I like better: Bruges Lace or Wiggly Crochet!!! They’re both wonderful crochet techniques!

Last year at the CGOA Conference in Reno, I had some of my wiggly crochet projects on display in the Designer Showcase that the extremely talented Doris Chan spent many hours organizing! Thanks so much, Doris!!! Many crochet designers participated in the Designer Showcase and it was a huge success!!! Here’s a photo of my Wiggly Fish Rug on display there:

I self-published this pattern last year. It’s available as a PDF download right here on my website (under “Patterns”), on Ravelry, and on Craftsy.

If you’ve never tried wiggly crochet, please download my “FREE” May Flowers Hot Pad & Coaster pattern on the Coats & Clark website. That way, you can give this crochet technique a try before purchasing any wiggly crochet patterns to see if you like it. After giving it a try, you might be “hooked” on wiggly crochet (pun intended!) like I am! And if you’d like to make some Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths, you can purchase my Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths booklet on the Annie’s website as a hard copy in the mail or as an instant PDF download for $8.95.

So head on over to Ellen’s blog today to read what she has to say about wiggly crochet and crochet in general!

Happy crocheting,

Susan

February 10, 2013June 23, 2013

Book Review: “Texting Mitts” by Andee Graves

My good designing friend, Andee Graves, has had her first crochet booklet published by Leisure Arts. Way to go, Andee!!! Woohoo!!! It’s always very exciting to have your first crochet booklet published and Andee has done an excellent job with her designs in this one! If you’re not familiar with Andee’s work yet, you can read about her and follow her blog here.

This booklet includes patterns for 8 pairs of fingerless gloves, which are ideal for texting! I suppose you could use them for doing just about anything that involves having your fingertips free while keeping your hands warm, like talking on your cell phone, crocheting, etc. Since I’m not a big texter (I have to put my reading glasses on to read the small letters, so I don’t text every day), I’d be more likely to use these gloves for keeping my hands warm while crocheting!

These 8 patterns are very nicely designed, mostly starting from the wrist and worked to the fingers. With different stitch patterns and skill levels, there is something for everyone! There is 1 beginner pattern, 3 easy patterns, 2 easy+ patterns (Whatever that means! Perhaps it’s somewhere between easy and intermediate!) and 2 intermediate patterns. Andee has used super fine weight yarn (#1 weight on the yarn label) and a size E (3.5mm) or F (3.75mm) crochet hook for each pattern. A list of the specific yarns used in each pattern is included at the back of the book.

What I find to be very exciting and innovative in this booklet is the online videos for different stitches and techniques that are available on the Leisure Arts website for some of their booklets. Whenever there is a different/challenging stitch in this booklet, a video camera icon is printed in the booklet, letting the reader know that she/he can watch the video online for that particular stitch/technique! I LOVE that!!! If you’ve never done a Front Post double crochet, a foundation single crochet or any of the other “special stitches” in this booklet, all you have to do is watch the video for that stitch/technique that is associated with the pattern in this booklet on the Leisure Arts website and you’ll be mastering that stitch/technique in no time!!! It’s almost as good as having a crochet teacher right next to you to show you how to do these stitches/techniques! Make sure you type in the website link on the first page of this booklet to go straight to the videos for these texting mitts patterns, though. I spent a while looking around their website one day trying to find the videos and finally found them after a lot of time spent looking!

Another nice thing in this booklet is how they used different colors of print in the patterns for the stitch counts and information in each of the 3 different sizes of mitts (some of the mitts patterns include 3 sizes and others have only 1 size). This makes it much easier to find the information you need associated with the size of mitts you’re making!

I made 2 pairs of these mitts last week. Here are photos of the texting mitts I made:

The lighter-colored mitts are from Andee’s Diamond Back Mitts pattern (intermediate skill level) and are made with Patons Kroy Socks yarn. The darker-colored mitts are from Andee’s Seashell Mitts pattern (easy skill level) and are made with Red Heart Stardust yarn. I had both of these yarns already, so I was able to make a small dent in my stash crocheting these mitts!!! I really enjoyed making both of them, especially since I’ve never crocheted mitts/gloves before for some strange reason! I decided to make a few modifications to the lighter-colored mitts (I couldn’t help it! It’s the designer in me! Or maybe it was my “gauge issue” rearing its “ugly head” again!). Anyway, I can still crochet while wearing these, so they’re very handy for keeping hands warm and still being able to crochet (or text or type or whatever) with your fingertips!

To see and purchase this booklet online (and see photos of all 8 of the texting mitts), visit the Leisure Arts website. This booklet is available in print or digital format.

All in all, I like Andee’s first booklet very much. The patterns are well-written and easy to follow. Well done, Andee!!! I look forward to seeing your next booklet when it comes out!

Happy crocheting,

Susan

January 27, 2013February 9, 2015

“Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths” Announcement and Blog Tour

I’m very excited to announce the publication of my newest crochet booklet, “Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths”, published by Annie’s! Here are photos of the front cover and the other 3 dishcloths that aren’t shown on the front cover:

Front cover of Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths

: Concentric Squares dishcloth

This booklet includes photos, instructions and charts for 6 different wiggly crochet dishcloth projects. These dishcloths are made in an array of beautiful colors of Omega Sinfonia yarn, which is a light worsted weight cotton yarn. Each project measures from 10 ½” x 11” to 12” square, the perfect size for dishcloths. These dishcloths are fun to stitch and make fantastic gifts! If you’d like to order a copy of this booklet, you can find it on the Annie’s website.

If you aren’t familiar with Wiggly Crochet, let me tell you how it’s done. Wiggly Crochet is made in 2 steps. The first step is to crochet the foundation mesh. This mesh looks a lot like the open mesh of filet crochet, made with double crochets and chain-2 spaces. Here’s a photo of a Wiggly Crochet foundation mesh:

The next step is to crochet the “wiggles” onto the top of the foundation mesh, which makes these wiggles stick up and gives the wiggly crochet piece dimension and thickness, which is not found in most other crochet techniques. The wiggles are usually made up of double crochets worked on top of the foundation mesh: around the post of the double crochets and in the chain-2 spaces (not IN the chains themselves, but in the spaces created by the 2 chains). You work the specified number of double crochet in/around each post/chain-space, making a 90 degree turn each time to fill the appropriate areas with the wiggles. It’s the act of turning 90 degrees that makes these stitches wiggle and stick up instead of lying flat! Here’s a photo (taken from the top) of the first round of wiggles worked on a wiggly crochet foundation mesh:

Here’s a photo of those same wiggles (taken from the side), so you can see how dimensional they are:

"Hot Stuff for the Holidays" booklet — “Hot Stuff for the Holidays” booklet

Isn’t that cool? I love this technique so much that I’ve previously had 2 crochet booklets published on it. The first one was “Hot Stuff for the Holidays”, published by Jeanette Crews Designs in 2003. There are patterns and charts for 6 “holiday-themed” hot pads and coasters in this one (for Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, July 4^th, Halloween and Christmas). This booklet is extremely hard to find, so if you find one for sale online (and it’s not too expensive), you might consider snatching it up! These designs are worked with size 10 cotton crochet thread (for all of us “threadies”!). Here’s a photo of the front cover of that booklet:

"Wiggly Crochet Rugs" booklet — “Wiggly Crochet Rugs” booklet

The 2^nd wiggly crochet booklet was “Wiggly Crochet Rugs”, published by Annie’s Attic (now just called “Annie’s”) in 2009. This booklet has 5 wiggly crochet rugs in it, complete with instructions and full-color charts. These rugs are made with yarn: the foundation mesh is made with sport weight yarn and the wiggles are made with worsted weight yarn. This booklet might be easier to find, since it was published just 4 years ago. Here’s a photo of that cover:

I’ve also designed some other wiggly crochet projects, which were published by Annie’s (mostly in Crochet World magazine from June 2008 to Feb. 2010). If you’d like to see all of them, please visit my Ravelry designer page. Oh, I almost forgot! I have a FREE wiggly crochet pattern, available on the Red Heart website. You can try this technique for free and see how you like it! Isn’t that great?

If you’re more of a “hands on” type of learner and would like to learn to do wiggly crochet, I’ll be teaching a Wiggly Crochet class at the CGOA Conference this year in Indianapolis. The class schedule hasn’t been made yet, but this class should be scheduled between July 17 and 21 (either from 9AM-12Noon or 2-5PM). To read about this CGOA Conference, please visit the CGOA website (look under the “events” tab on the left-hand side of the page). I would be thrilled to meet you and teach you how to do wiggly crochet in my class!

To celebrate the publication of my new Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths booklet, I’m doing a Blog Tour in February with several of my crochet friends/designers. Each person will blog (or post on Facebook) about this new booklet and possibly give away a copy to a lucky entrant. Please visit each of these blog posts to find out more about my new booklet, as well as reading the blogs of these extremely talented individuals!

The blog participants are as follows (dates to be announced next month):

Andee Graves, Kathryn White, Ellen Gormley, Kara Lyon and Brett Bara

At the end of the blog tour, I’ll be giving away an autographed copy of this new booklet to a lucky winner (US residents only please). To enter the contest, just leave a comment on this blog post telling me which of these dishcloth patterns is your favorite. It’s that simple! A winner will be chosen at random from all of the comments at the end of the blog tour. Good luck to you all!

If you’ve never tried wiggly crochet, you don’t know what you’re missing! If you have tried it and are looking for more wiggly crochet patterns, we have a few of them here at The Crochet Architect. Here they are for your viewing and crocheting pleasure:

Our Wiggly Flower Hot Pad & Coaster Set is the perfect pattern for learning to do wiggly crochet. The small size of the coaster is a quick project and the hot pad is a natural progression for increasing your wiggly crochet skills. The cotton crochet thread that is used makes them ideal for soaking up the moisture from any glass or pitcher in humid weather!

This Wiggly Crochet Playing Cards Set includes a centerpiece and 4 coasters: one for each of the suits of playing cards. This set is unique and would make a great gift for that special person!

When you’ve learned to do wiggly crochet and want to take your skills to the next level, this Wiggly Fish Rug is just the thing! It’s great in any fish-, seashell-, ocean- or tropical-themed bathroom. The texture of the wiggly crochet makes this rug “squishy” to walk on, too!

I hope you’ll give wiggly crochet a try and come to love it as much as I do!

Happy crocheting (and good luck)!

Susan