Hi everyone! You may have noticed some appearance changes around here — you know me, I love to change it up! This look was inspired by this beautiful blog, although I’m trying to change little things so it doesn’t look exactly the same. As always, the content of this blog/site remains the same. Except, that is, when I add more stuff! Let me introduce to you a new stitch tutorial:
woven double crochets!
This was introduced to me by Carina over at Häkelmonster (thank you Carina)! She suggested it as an addition to our CAL stitches, and the math totally works out. Here’s what it looks like:
It looks neater the more you go. I love the texture! My light is again poor due to the cave I live in and the fact that I’ve been mostly nocturnal for the past few days just because I can. For those of you participating in the CAL, I’ll let you decide whether or not to throw this stitch in your blanket. It does look best in one color, I think, and it takes at least 5 rows to start seeing the pattern take shape, so if you’re wanting smaller stripes of color you might want to pass this one up. However, this is the only stitch we have so far other than the bobble that has dimension, so that’s a plus! Here’s what it looks like in multiple colors, just so you can see:
You can still see the textural pattern but it’s a little more difficult. (And no, my couch isn’t stained, it’s just hard to get the light and color balance right on my phone camera in my living room, haha). If you test out the pattern either for CAL use or something else, let me know if there are any problems in the pattern. It’s got some funky stitches that aren’t used too often, and I tried to demonstrate them as clearly as possible, but if you need assistance or something needs to be changed, please let me know!
I hope you enjoy the pattern, and I hope you like the new look! I tried to find some cute bunting to use instead of the bubbles at the top, but I couldn’t find anything for free and my Photoshop skills aren’t nearly up to snuff. You may continue to see some edits though. Anyway, thanks for stopping by today! Love you guys!
not your average crochet 
Love the new look!
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Thank you!
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The woven double crochets look great. Love the new look too!
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Thanks! I’m glad you like them!
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Very cool stitch. I like ti better in one color. When you do your CAL, will the pattern be written out or are we to do whatever stitches we want? Since I am quite a bit lacking in my crochet skills, I would like to have everything written out for me step by step (spoiled, I know) hehe. I am still thinking about joining, but if I have to wing it on my own, I will have to watch from the sidelines. Is there a definite start date? I have been slacking on my blogging lately. Sorry for all of the questions in your comment block.
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Sorry, I see the start date in your CAL icon. Thanks.
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Those who wish are free to improvise but I’ll write out exactly what I’m doing as far as color changes and stitch patterns so you’ll know what’s coming. There shouldn’t be any surprises with what I do — I’m not going to throw in any crazy hard stitches in the middle of the blanket or anything. I might still add a few stitch variations at this point but I’ll finalize the list before we start. Also, if you practice any of the stitches and find that one is too confusing or difficult, feel free to ask about it or you can just do a row/rows of dc in its place. So I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’ll be writing the pattern as we go but I won’t throw anyone for a loop or leave you hanging with no instruction at all. All of the stitch variations will have a tutorial to reference as we go, and I’ll specify where to start. I hope that’s good!
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I am glad you got along with the pattern I wrote! Here are some more questions for you:
(1) Will you use the beautiful stitches you collected so far randomnly or are you planning on having some sort of a “centerline” to flip the rows (that is: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1)?
(2) Did you ever think of having a “row” of little granny squares?
(3) And did you ever use the “stripe maker” (http://www.biscuitsandjam.com/stripe_maker.php)? Looks like a very helpful tool. Natasja over at crochettime used it for her amazing “Identity Crisis Blanket” (http://crochetime.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/img_1929.jpg) – which has granny squares by the way 🙂
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I was thinking the rows would be pretty random (although you can pick whatever you like the best), but I would like to have any textured stitches evenly spaced. I hadn’t thought about using granny squares as a row. That one might be tricky to come up with the proper maths but I’ll give it a shot and test it out. And I was indeed thinking about using that random stripe generator. It’s so cool! It does sometimes get hard making things look random when they aren’t, so I’m sure that would put a lot of people’s minds at ease. I’ll mention it in a post soon (you can remind me if I forget). Thanks for the suggestions!
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3.56 am – am I reading this right?
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Sounds right. Should have went to bed a lot earlier…
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Just saw this and thought of you. Lots of inspiration here
http://t-jonge.blogspot.nl/2013/04/nog-een-in-zomerkleuren.html
VERY pretty.
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Wow I love that! Especially those scallops/shells. I might try to work those in to the CAL! Thanks!
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Thanks so much for the link love!!! I’m glad that you found some inspiration over in my little corner of the world. Your blog looks lovely!
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Thank you very much!
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