New Year, New Book!

Last year, I crocheted my way through Triple Play Pattern Stitches by making a baby blanket out of each of the thirty stitches.  That's thirty baby blankets in a little less than four months.  I was thoroughly sick of making them when I finished.  I think I'm finally over it, and I have another audacious plan. 

I went home for Christmas and went shopping with my mom and sister.  Part of that shopping was naturally for yarn.  While browsing through the patterns my mom found a book for me that I'm actually using.  When I first looked through it, I saw several stitches that looked exactly like some that are in Triple Play Pattern Stitches.  They were so similar, that I even commented to my mom that there would probably be a law suit about it for copyright infringement.  Weeks passed, I started using the book, and I finally noticed that it's by Darla Sims, the same person who wrote the Triple Play book.  Apparently I'm a fan of her work. 

So the audacious plan I mentioned earlier is that I'm going to do it again.  I'm going to work my way through the book, testing out all of the stitches by making a baby blanket.  But this time, it's not thirty stitches; it's fifty stitches!  The new book is 50 Stitches for Afghans, and I'm going to try them all. Unlike her previous book, these stitches only show one colorway instead of three.  That feature was what initially drew me to the Triple Play book, and I still really like it.  It helps in understanding the stitch and planning your color scheme.  So, I am going to make an effort to try the stitches with a colorway different than the one in the book, so that there will be two colorways for each stitch.  That won't be for all of them, but I'm going to try.

Here's the info: Published by Annie's Attic.  ISBN: 978-1-59635-302-2.  Author: Darla Sims

Math and Shells

The last stitch I introduced, the spaced shell stitch, was a variation on the simple shell stitch.  Well, I decided to make another variation of the shell stitch, replacing some of the '5 dc' with chains.  While I was working on it, I began to wonder how other possibilities would look.  After more consideration, I realized that each of the 5 dc could be either a dc, denoted by a 1, or a ch, denoted by a 0.  Since there are 2 possibilities for each of 5 different spots, there are 2^5 possibilities, so 32 different combinations to try.  Everything from a ch 5 (00000) to the simple shell stitch (11111), and everything in between.  I suspect that some of them will look pretty much identical.  For example (10000) and (00001) probably look the same.  I intend to try the combinations and see what results. 

Carrying Colors

You may have noticed that many of my projects have lots of thin stripes of color.  Using the normal method of changing colors, where you cut the yarn at the end of each stripe and tie on the new color, strings would be everywhere.  I don't know anyone who enjoys weaving in the ends of a crochet project.  So, a method of carrying colors makes doing stripes more practical.  You can simply pull the color up the sides along the starting chain of each row and the last stitch.  Doing this minimizes the number of loose strings to work in.  This helps to keep your project neat and vastly reduces the amount of work you have to do after washing it when all the strings that can come out, do come out.  There are several striping patterns that can be made this way.  My next few posts will be devoted to these color patterns.

I have a plan!

There is a wonderful book of stitches that I have used for numerous projects.  It's great because it shows each stitch with three different color patterns.  This allows you to see what individual rows look like which helps in discerning what the pattern means.  I've decided to work my way through the book making a baby blanket out of each stitch.  Some of the stitches I have used for other projects, but the majority are new.

I am going to post pictures of the completed baby blankets along with instructions on how to make them, assuming that you own the book.  I highly recommend purchasing this book.  It's available at 

various craft stores as well as online.  Details are 

shown below.

Leisure Arts #4576, Triple Play Pattern Stitches

by Darla Sims