For the past 2 days, I’ve been working on the contents of my Polish Stars class that I’ll be teaching at the CGOA Conference in Reno, NV in September. I had some swatches already made, but needed to make some new ones that aren’t as big for the class swatches. And, of course, I’ve been writing and checking the new patterns for these swatches, too! I tried following the patterns in some leaflets that I have on Polish Stars, but I’ve found a lot of errors in the instructions, so it’s back to the drawing board! If you’ve never seen a Polish Star in crochet, this is how it looks:
Polish Stars (after weaving loops)
They’re actually quite fascinating to make! They are worked in rows of alternating colors. The stars are formed when you weave the chain loops in a certain configuration. I found a YouTube video on weaving the stars, but she does it wrong! I pity the person who follows her directions!!! Their stars won’t turn out right at all!
Polish Stars (before weaving loops)
Here’s how this swatch looked before weaving the loops:
That’s quite a jumbled up mess, isn’t it? It almost looks as if there are mistakes in it! But have no fear! After weaving the loops, it turned into the well-mannered, finished swatch with the stars that I already showed you. Are you amazed?
Well, a few years ago, I tried the Polish Star technique that was in publication and decided to improve it a little. I came up with a less messy way to work the Polish Stars and I’ll be unveiling it in my Playful Polish Star class in Reno in September. If you’re interested in learning this technique, you can read about my class and sign up to take some crochet or knitting classes here: http://www.knitandcrochetshow.com/fall-special-events.asp?i2s3. This class will be held on Friday, September 14 from 9AM – Noon. There are a lot of other wonderful crochet and knitting classes being taught at the CGOA Conference in Reno that week, too.
If you’ve never been to a CGOA Chain Link Conference before, you don’t know what you’re missing! It’s a week of “crochet heaven on earth”!!!
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!
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 bookback 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 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)!
