Hooks and Fire

Just some of my favorite crochet things - Merry 'Chetmas, Y'All!!

Weather has been sooo summer like and it's October! I actually slept with the AC on last night - a rarity in the Northeast. I love it! It's October Summer! :-) Since it's so summery - I'm posting another of my needlearts on the beach picture - this time it's crochet! Yes, I did both while there. I find myself switching back and forth between them - different movements for each.

September was sooooo busy! I ended up taking alot of sign language interpreting work and the agency didn't assign another interpreter to work with me. I ended up with a pinched nerve, inflamed arms, shoulders and wrists - keeping me away from the computer, the needles and hooks and my beloved torch. Last week, a team interpreter arrived and I've got my schedule under control now so physically, I'm feeling much better. I even did a few rows this past weekend on a scarf and made a batch of beads!

On another note, the Barnes and Noble near me is re-locating to a larger store and they're having a 50% off sale. I've got my eye on the Teva Durham crochet book - Loop d loop - I'm loving that piece on the cover!

Has anyone done any of the projects in the book? Do you have it?

Like many of us, I take my crochet and knit projects with me anywhere - easy to pull out and do a few rows. While on vacation, I settled down on the beach while my son and hubby went swimming. Nothing like a good beach chair, a hook, yarn and a beach to make me happy! Life doesn't get much better than this!

We all know the old knit versus crochet war - knitters don't crochet and crochesters don't knit. People always ask - which do you think is better? knit or crochet?

I grew up with the crochet versus knit. My mother crocheted and my aunt knit. I crochet because that's what my mother taught me. It suited her personality - no rules - you make what you feel like and if in the middle of it you want to change it, you can.

My aunt, my mother's sister, was the knitter. She made beautiful Mary Maxin sweaters - not a stitch out of place and they wore beautifully. She made me a beautiful black sweater with turquoise and yellow snowflakes when I was 8. Gorgeous!

I knitted and crocheted for awhile when I was an early teen. I still have the garter stitch scarf that I knitted out of Wintuk yarn in pajama blue. I still have the garnet colored afghan that I crocheted in double crochet stitch.

It's back - my marriage of crochet and knit. When I was a teen, I never got past the garter stitch. Impatient, the crochet went faster than the knitting so I gravitated to crocheting. My mother could help me, my aunt didn't live close enough to encourage me on. Crochet it was - it fit the rebel, unpredictable self I was at that age.

Lately, I've been enamoured of stockinette stitch. It looks so lovely, like weaving. So I decided I had to learn how to do it. I went off to the bookstore and bought a learn to knit visually book (I'll talk about that in another post). It worked. I figured out how to do stockinette.

Here's my very first effort - in Metro yarn. I crocheted a shell edging because the short scarf needed something.

Some might think I'm a traitor - but I think it goes right along with the free spirits who crochet - I want to be free to do whichever I please. Aunt Alice would be proud!

I thought I posted this already but it seems I haven't! This is a hat I made for my son who has thick thick hair like his mom! It's worse for him, though because if you cut thick thick thick hair short for a male, it tends to poof out. It drives him insane! Can't say I blame him. So, I made a hat for him that will tame his wet morning hair and keep him warm when he goes outside. It's made of Paton's wool yarn and is crocheted using a half double stitch then it was felted. The spiral is a kick I'm on in beadmaking so I repeated the idea in his hat - the spiral is needle felted onto the hat.

Last fall, I picked up a copy of the premiere issue of Craft excited that there was a cool crochet amigurumi style robot pattern in it. Craft seemed very crochet friendly and I liked it! So, I was thrilled to buy the current issue. Their homepage featured a picture of a crocheted bag and a print version, Craft 2.0 featured article on Stephanie Syjuco's Counterfeit Crochet Project. I was very pleased. Craft was indeed turning out to be a very crochet friendly magazine!

Once I started to read Craft 02, it fell from its crochet friendly pedestal. The article's author, Garth Johnson, perpetuates the myth that crochet is a lesser craft than knitting! He writes: "Any way you slice it, crochet is a less refined medium than, say knitting (p. 56).

Ouch!

How can anyone look at the Counterfeit Crochet Project bags and say they aren't refined?

Craft has featured crochet prominently yet bashes it at the same time. What's that about?

I really love Craft - it's fresh - I'm sorry to see it bash a craft that I love so much.