How Did I Miss This?

In my last blog post I talked about how much I hate trying to work that first row of crochet into the starting chain, and contemplated starting with a knitting cast on in place of that traditional crocheted chain. I haven't gotten around to trying that just yet, because I discovered the Foundation Crochet in single, half double, and double heights. I stumbled across them completely by accident while perusing patterns on Ravelry.



No more starting chains for me! :D

A Turning Trick for Hookers

The date on this post is wrong. Today is March 34. ;)

Traditionally, when you're crocheting something with more than one row in it (which is anything other than a simple edging, of course), you get from the end of your current row to the beginning of the next row by crocheting a few chain stitches, which count as the first stitch of the next row. On flat pieces, this can make an edge that's a little wobbly looking, and on round pieces, it leaves a visible seam.

YouTube video poster TXCr1cket demonstrates a method for creating a freestanding double crochet stitch to replace those wobbly, seam-ly chains. It makes a nice even edge in flatwork, and a nearly invisible seam in round works. Watch and learn:

Art from the Needle

I realised this evening that it's been a really long time since I visited the craftgrrl community on Live Journal, so I went over there to check it out.

I'm so glad I did.

Miss Maya (LJ username "missychacha") draws linework on fabric with her sewing machine, fills in the basic colors with gouache, then brings the whole piece into the third dimension with various beads. My favorite of the pieces shown in the above linked post is the first one, titled "Love and the Ocean," but I also love the more sombre "Hal," and there isn't a single piece there that I wouldn't love to have mounted and hanging on my wall!

Miss Maya also draws and paints in more conventional ways. Her work can be seen at her Deviant Art account.

You'd be melancholy, too...

...if you were a lambsquid.

Melissa Sue Stanley is a crafter after my own heart. She paints, crochets, embroiders, and finds interesting ways to put them all together. She calls her creations that have yet to find new homes "free-loaders," adjuring them to "go out and earn a buck, you bastards."

Surely, you need a free-loading melancholy lambsquid monster in your house!