Category Archives: Crochet

Crochet illiterate

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I have had this project in my to-do queue since ages. It is the popular Inga bag (I know that is not the name of the bag, but I prefer to call it Inga which is easy to type and pronounce) which looks stunning and apparently easy to make. You make a dozen or so granny squares and stitch them up as it says in the pattern. What could be so hard in that, right?

When one of the Ravelry groups announced a Bag KAL, I thought it to be the right time to work on my Inga. I had all the right materials and I started on my very first granny square. After a bazillion attempts and much frogging and recrocheting with a generous amount of cursing, I successfully crocheted my very first granny square.

grannysquare3_medium2It turned out to be too tight (so I was told by a crochet expert, I am sure she knew what she was talking about). For my second granny square, I decided to use a bigger hook. After making the first square, you would think I would have gotten a fair bit of practice and the second would be relatively smoother. Wrong. The second attempt was an utter failure. I had only 11 “sun spokes” the first time around. And the second time miraculously had 13 of them. I needed 12, but always ended up with a number which was definitely not 12. Now, if this was a knitting project, I could have done a k2tog or a kfb to get the right stitch count, but alas crocheting is not same as knitting the last time I checked. I made so many mistakes, I had to cut the yarn at one place because I somehow managed to create a knot while crocheting. I sincerely tried for two whole days and at the end of the second day when I did not have anything looking like a granny square, I finally gave up.

I can tackle complex knitting techniques. Throw at me intarsia, fair isle, purl 3 together through the back loop and I will master it (it might take a while but I will get there), but as soon as you say crochet, my mind closes up. After this incident, I have finally come to the conclusion that my brain doesn’t have the cells required to process crochet. I cannot follow a simple pattern and neither can I read what I have crocheted. So, the verdict is out. I am crochet illiterate.

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Chocolate ice-cream

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… with mango sauce and cream. That’s what this blanket reminds me of.

When my friend Anuradha broke the good news that she is expecting, I decided I will knit something for her baby. I was thinking of making a sweater and a hat – something small so that I can knit it in my busy schedule. To my surprise, Anu decided to take up knitting too. She started with a hat and made a cardigan and a vest. Now that she was making these stuff already and was a knitter herself, I couldn’t possibly give her a teeny-weeny sweater, could I? I had to make something good enough for a knitter. That’s how this blanket got created.

Crochet has been on my need-to-learn-this-skill-because-the-FOs-are-so-awesome list, but never got around to doing that. When I was finalizing a blanket pattern for Anu’s blanket, I decided it had to be crochet. One, if I don’t learn crocheting now, I probably never will and two, I have heard crocheting is way faster than knitting. I used the Neat Ripple Pattern by Lucy (or Attic24 as she is known in the crochet world) and loved it. She has detailed photos for crochet newbies like me. The photos were a big help!

After an initial swatch, I had enough confidence that I can finish this blanket. Next step was the choice of colors. I had bought this yarn from Pydal’s for what would have been a vest for my hubby. I soon realized that this yarn is too flimsy and has no stitch definition, so the most natural choice was a baby blanket. I had lots of brown and just one skein of yellow and off-white. After a bit of calculation, I decided to do a row each of yellow and off-white for every five rows of brown. I knit until I ran out of the off-white yarn.

There are so many mistakes in there that I can’t count. For starters, the edges are wavy and uneven. Expert crocheters tell me that the edges are meant to be wavy, so one less mistake to worry about. The starting rows are too tight, so the blanket is narrower at one end and wider at the other. Since it’s a blanket, I hope it’s ok and I hope the baby doesn’t  mind.

I worked on this blanket for an hour everyday for 3-4 weeks. It would have taken even lesser if I wasn’t so new to crochet. So, it is true, crocheting is definitely faster. My next blanket is going to be a crochet blanket.  I have even bought yarn for it. Going off to look for patterns. Crochet ville, here I come!

Link to Ravelry Project.