Ivy’s Vine

Fridays are for podcasts and project photos

On Knit Spirit I pick our poetry contest winner.

Lots of project photos to share this week.  Here is a crochet hat.  This was a stash buster to use up yarn from the summer of swapping.

And a crochet shawl. 200 grams of yarn in a project that called for 100 grams, so I’m glad I had a lot in stash.

A simple crochet scarf.  This was also a stash buster from the yarn swapping.

1 comment June 26th, 2009

Book Review: Hooked For Life

I just finished reading Hooked for Life: Adventures of a Crochet Zealot by Mary Beth Temple, and I’m sort of mixed on this one.  I liked most of it.  She has a real love of her craft, and that comes through in her work.  She has a decent sense of humor, and she weaves a good yarn as it were.  I especially like her walkthrough of a day in the life of a crochet designer.  I will never forget “chimp work”.

There are just four points I’d like to debate.

First, she seems to think that knitters look down on crocheters.  I’ve heard this many times, and I’m bewildered where it comes from.  Yes, there was that one yarn store in Florida where the owner could not accept that I both knit and crochet, but that’s Florida.  I can count the number of times anything I’ve ever encountered in Florida made sense on one finger or less.

When I hung out with the group at St. Francis, the knitters and the crochets sat together, and the conversation sounded like:

“That’s a pretty color?”
“What are you making?”
“I haven’t seen your daughter in a while. How is she?”

When I was with the craft group at Lunacon the conversation sounded like:

“That’s a pretty color?”
“What are you making?”
“Did you catch the panel on zombie preparedness?”

The photos of the group over at Trinity Church has knitters and crochets sitting together, hanging out, seeming to be chatting amiably.

I think part of this stems from the fact that knitters always try to teach crochets how to knit. It’s nothing against crochet; we try to teach everyone how to knit. Pretty much, if you’re breathing, you’re fair game.  Crocheters are easier targets because A- they probably have a decent yarn stash already. B- they already understand things like gauge and dye lot and how to tension the yarn.  C- They’re not going to gripe about how they have no time, then stare blankly out the bus window for 45 minutes.

Second, she claims that crochet is better than knitting for community projects, because crochets can make rectangles to sew together, while knitters have to pass the project around to let everyone do a few rows.  I think she was kidding.  For anyone who wants to try to either knit or crochet rectangles to sew together for a blanket, Warm Up America has rectangle patterns.  Shh. Don’t tell the Crochet Liberation Front, but many groups sew the knit and the crocheted rectangles together in one blanket.

Third, she claims that, aside from a few pamphlets, hers is the only crochet book.  Hooked for Life was published in April 2009.  Prior to that we saw Debbie Stoller’s, Stitch ‘N Bitch Crochet: The Happy Hooker published in March 2006, Crochet Liberation Front First Ever Book published in September 2008,  Contemplative Crochet: A Hands-On Guide for Interlocking Faith & Craft published in November 2008, and many more.
There is even a series of crochet mysteries, the first of which is Hooked on Murder published in May 2008.  Crocheters have plenty to read.

Forth, she raised the point to dispute a myth that crocheters are cheap. Honestly, that’s not a myth I heard about crochet until the crocheters complained about it.  These are the ones I know, and I think some of them are true.

Crochet takes more yarn than knitting.  This only holds if the pattern and drape are similar.  Knitted cables will take more yarn than crocheted lace.  You can easily demonstrate the knitting takes a lot more yarn than crochet if you make two items the same size, one crochet with a size N hook and the other knit with size 0000 needles.

Crochet is faster than knitting.  This also holds if the pattern and drape are similar.  Knitting with size 35 needles will go much faster than crocheting with a size 14 steel hook.

As a side note, what is it with crochet hook sizes?  Aluminum hooks go up in number as they get larger, and steel hooks go up in number as they get smaller.  So a size 7 aluminum doesn’t fall between a size 0 and a size 14; it’s bigger than both.  And why do we insist on calling the hooks used for yarn “aluminum” when many of them are made of bamboo or other woods?  Seriously, crochet needs some help with the naming systems.  Let’s just standardize what we mean by “double crochet” first, though.  Right now, it’s a very different stitch depending on whom you ask.

Moving on to the third “myth”, all crochet stitches are balanced.  This means that, unlike some knit patterns like stockinette, there are no crochet patterns that roll.  The stitch pulls evenly in all directions.  While it is true to my experience that all crochet stitches are balanced, I can’t really say the same for all crocheters, myself included.

Overall, I give this book a 4 out of 5.

3 comments June 24th, 2009

Felting for the apartment dweller

Felting is weird.  You make something way too big, then shrink it down to a form.   This work with almost all animal fibers–wool being the easiest to felt.  Silk doesn’t felt at all, and the camelid fibers (alpaca, llama, camel) felt slower than wool.  To my knowledge qiviut doesn’t felt, but I’m not about to test that.

To felt an item, all you really need it hot water and agitation.  This is why you can scrub a fleece to your heart’s content in ice water and not felt it, but when you put it in hot water to break up the grease, you can’t move it around much at all.  Felting can also happen through shocking the fiber–plunging it first in hot water, then in cold.  This is something dyers need to keep in mind when taking the skein out of the near boiling dye pot and rinsing out the residual dye.

Felting the swatch gives you an approximate idea of how the final project will felt.  It’s not an exact science. Water temperature can vary.  The amount of agitation can vary.

Felting should be done with a top loading machine, and the item being felted should be checked regularly to see how it’s doing.  This isn’t possible for an apartment dweller in NYC.  We don’t have a washing machine.  We use a laundry service, and if I wanted to do this at a laundromat I’d still have my choice of a small front loader machine, a medium front loader machine or a large front loader machine.  Front loaders don’t open midway through to let you check the item.  So I send out the item and hope for the best.  It’s a game of chance.  I had no idea how it would come out, and no way to reverse the process.   I could felt it further, but if it felted too much, I couldn’t undo that.  Yes, I know I can felt it in my kitchen sink, but honestly, I don’t have the patience to swirl a hat in hot water for half an hour.

This week, two felting projects fell into my lap.  This beret is a stash buster project–more of the yarn from the swapping season. It was knit, then felted.

This purse was crocheted and then felted.

I sewed the button on after the felting.  This is the first of the Annie’s Hook and Needle Club projects.

One advantage of felted projects is that, after they are completely felted–if they are to be completely felted–they are machine washable.  There is only so far wool can shrink.  The hat is felted as far as possible.  It has the warmth of a good wool.  It’s waterproof.  It’s safe to put in the machine.

Another advantage of felting is that it locks down the fibers.  The yarn used in the bag had a lot of long, stiff fibers poking out.  Clearly it was from a long staple sheep, or a mix of long staple breeds.  It was not comfortable next to the skin–draped over an exposed shoulder for example.  Felting pins those fibers down, so they don’t scratch or itch anymore.  Now it’s comfortable to wear.  It could felt a little more, but I’m not going to do that.  I like it as it is.

Felting gives an item like a bag stability and strength.  There is very little stretch left in that bag, and that’s as it should be.  The hat holds its shape as a beret should.

I generally don’t seek out felting projects.  I like stitch definition.  But, like blocking lace, it’s an interesting sort of knitting magic.

Add comment June 23rd, 2009

Ah Crochet

This will be a rather sizable potholder.

It starts by working sc (or dc depending on your nomenclature–crochet is odd that way) down one side of the chain, then work 3 on the edge and go up the other side.  I’ve done this for baby booties many times–it’s what taught me how to properly enter a chain stitch (you get a weird gap if you just pick up one side of the V).  This time I found it a bit tricky, which means my skills have gone a bit rusty, but I’m in love.  True and unreasonable crochet love.

Sharron was Very Sad until I assured her it is possible to crochet socks.

Add comment May 28th, 2009