Jane's Hooked on Crochet

A place to write about my crocheting, things I'm learning, book reviews, ideas, projects in mind, works in progress, patterns, photos, fair entries, whatever...

Monday, June 23, 2008

more on that Block stitch swatch

Isn't that a pretty swatch? It's worked like a puff stitch on to the side of a double crochet. Now, who thought of that? Was it's first existence due to a mistake? Then perhaps the crocheter said "That's nice, can I make another one?"
Or did it come about by a plan? A crocheter who said "I wonder what it would look like if I did...?"
How about you? If you make a mistake doing a familiar stitch, do you automatically pull it out and put in the correct stitch or do you take time to look at the "mistake" stitch and see if it has any potential? I'll admit that I usually just pull it out quickly and make the "correct stitch".
Do you ever just pick up a hook and some yarn and play around? Ask "I wonder what it would look like if...?" "I wonder what would happen if I joined this stitch to another stitch?" When I first got my Easy Tunisian hooks, I thought that I had never tried the technique. But when I started doing the Tunisian Simple Stitch, I remember having worked the stitches off in that manner way back in the early days of my crocheting. I remembered that it was the "afghan stitch". The hooks came with a "learn to" book that had about 5 stitches which I picked up rather quickly. But then I wanted to try more with the hooks, I allowed myself "play time" with the hooks and the yarn. I "discovered" some "new" stitches, yes, I later found them in books that had a lot more Tunisian techniques and stitches, but I really enjoyed that time of exploring and discovering. I'm finding that exploring and playing time a good background for my current research. I'm searching for old crochet books because they have Tunisian techniques and stitch patterns in along with the "classic" crochet stitches; not separated into "new technique" books like we find so often today. When I read over a stitch and try to create it, I frequently have to "translate" the instructions. Those old pattern books are like a foreign language sometimes! Sometimes it seems to click with something that I created in the playing around and exploring stages.
I made that swatch as an attempt to help another crocheter interpret pattern instructions. I do love to swatch new stitch patterns and new yarns. It's playing!

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