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Knitting Friday

 

To return briefly to those sleepless early morning hours on Monday when I skimmed three years of my blogs: Well, I never found the pattern I was looking for but I did find a comment from Magnolia Blossom thanking me for my review of the KP Sunstruck interchangeable needles. I'm really very sorry I never saw your comment MB but let me follow up (hope you are still reading me) by saying that I still like (love?) these needles. They are the smoothest of all my KP interchangeables at the joins and the least likely to unscrew (in fact they never have.) My only regret is that I didn't buy two sets before KP moved the factory to China. I'll still looking for good reports on the needles being made there (as opposed to their first factory in India) but almost all of the reviews are negative. I know that they lowered the prices of all the interchangeable sets by about 20% because of the money this move has saved them but I want to be sure the quality is just as good. Still looking for that answer.

 

What started me on my midnight quest was the pattern for a mitered crochet square which starts from the outside, in. That is, many miters start with chain 3 and then you increase. I wanted a pattern I had seen and blogged about which started with chain 22 and you decreased every row. It's only with that second type of square that you can make a shawl/blanket where you work from that first square and never have any ends to weave in except your starting and ending strand of yarn.  Like this in #1

 

#1 No sewing lapghan

This is a crocheted lapghan for DM. It's made from remnants of green hued wool and the first square I made is by that strand of yarn you see about midway up the left side of the picture. Once I made that first square I just kept picking up stitches and making more squares. I made 8 more squares across for the width. In #1, you see that I've worked back and forth across these 9 squares and now I'm ready to complete row 4 in the length.

 

Here's the link to the original square:

 

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/decrease-crochet-miter-square 

#2 One mitered square

 

I've made these squares before but I think Cindy has the best pattern for it.

 

Since I took a lot of pictures, let me explain how to make a blanket from your first square.

 

#3 Chaining 11

First, here's a picture of just one square in #2. I followed Cindy's directions and started with a chain 22 and then worked the pattern just as she wrote it. (One tweak I made: at the center decrease, I cut a long strand and placed it in that center stitch (SC DEC) after I made it. I moved that yarn into every center decrease as I moved from row to row so that when I got to that stitch I knew I had to have the same number of single crochets before and after it.) From #2. you can see that my chain 22 started at the long strand to the right and the square decreased to where my hook is on the right. One square was completed and I was ready to begin my blanket.

 

Just where I finished the first square (upper left in #2), I chained 11 stitches (1/2 of the original Ch 22 - always use 1/2 of your original chain # for this) and you can see in #3 that I've formed an L. I'm going to work my next square into that L. (Just make sure with subsequent squares the the Ls are all going the same way or you'll get one wacky shape.) I went back to Cindy's directions for Row 1 and worked 9 single crochets down that chain 11 as she sats. Then I worked the decrease (SC DEC) at the V part of the L. 

 

OK, here's where my design kicks in: Once you work down the CO chain with your single crochets and make your SC DEC at the V, work 9 single crochets along the top of the first square. Your goal is to get the correct number of single crochets across this edge. You can fudge the placement of these stitches, even decrease a stitch to make them fit evenly.* Once you reach the end of this first row (you're at the top right corner of #3) just follow the directions from the original pattern until this square is completed. #4 shows the L of the second square being filled in.

#4 Filling in the L

 

That's it. Except for a few exceptions, the L you will be filling in will have a side edge from the square you just worked and a bottom edge from the top of the previous row's square. You just work Cindy's pattern in this space. Here are the two exceptions: 1) On your first row of squares (#3), for each new square you must ch 11 (or 1/2 your original chain) for one side of each square. 2) Once you complete that first row, you will only have to chain 11 for the first square of every row. All the other squares in every subsequent row (except the first square) will be worked in Ls formed by previous squares.

#5 Working along, so easy

You can see in #5 that I'm making the first square in a row. The white yarn marks the center decrease and you can see that I'm making the right "wall" of my next square (pictured at the left in #5) as I work. (BTW: the bottom "wall" of my next square is the horizontal stitches on the left.)

This is such an easy and fast way to make a blanket and, using wool and an I hook it's going to be very warm. I've never made this blanket in anything else but remnants but I think it would look great in so many types of yarn.

 

Also this week I've been looking into wool eating patterns to gobble up my remnants. For these projects I gravitate to crochet because it is so much faster. Here's one I found: 

 

http://sarahlondon.wordpress.com/2009/08/25/wool-eater-instructions/

and here's a horrible picture of my progress with it:

#6 Wool eating project

I really have to throw out the scrap yarn I use for swatches but I'm moving along smoothly here and there is only one more row which then becomes the repeat row for the entire pattern. Apparently, this pattern is from Australia so you're looking at British crochet terms.

And finally, some knitting:

#7 Pi in the Sky

This is the Pi in the Sky shawl I linked to last week:

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/pi-in-the-sky-ii---seaweed--sand

You can see a row between the top finished lace pattern and the one on the needles. That row (really two) is the one where you increase your stitches for the shawl. So you're really knitting pattern sections where you make no increases and dividing sections between these patterns where the shawl gets its needed increases (you double your stitch count on these rows.) It's a creative design element and fun to knit because there is no increasing inside the pattern.

OK, enough for today. See you next week. Maybe I'll review a LYS I haven't even visited yet. (It's amazing how much you can learn searching the web.) Happy knitting.

*It's usually only when you make this first row of 9 single crochets across a previous square's edge where you might have to be creative. Once this row is done, you'll have the smooth top of single crochet stitches to work into.