Lotus Flower Broche

WebRep

currentVote

noRating

noWeight

Crochet Beaded Crocodile Stitch Scarf

Hello all, how are you today?
I have  36 hours before packing my luggage. We are traveling home to Indonesia Insya Allah on Friday. I am happy but sad at the same time because this time for the first time all four of us will travel at the same time but with two different airlines. Me, my youngest and my hubby will be with Qatar Airways, but my oldest son will be with Emirat. What can I say, our travel allowance dictate our tickets...  

But the good news is I have a bit of time to start with a new project which is light enough to carry in my travel bag to the airplane. I have been wanting to do this crocodile stitch for long time now. I have now purchased the yarn I need. I choose Alpaca, wool, and acrylic mix in lilac by ICE yarns. The yarn is size 2 and My hook is size G/4mm. 

Here are the first few rows I made. I will continue this as I travel. I learned how to make triangle crocodile stitch from Bob Wilson's tutorial on Youtube.  It is so much fun to do. To know the number of beads will be needed, I counted the number of petals I will be making first. Mine is going to be a 30 inches long scarf and my gauge is 2 petals = 1.5 inches. It means that I will have to make  30 : 1.5 = 20 rows of petals. I know that the petals is increased by 1 in every rows and the number of petals in next row is always n + 1 (n is the number of petal in previous row).  I made the table in Excel spreadsheet to calculate the total petals in a triangle scarf according to the number of rows you are making. Mine says I have to load 210 beads to the spool prior crocheting. I added more beads to the total just incase I made mistakes in counting it. I used Japanese Toho Magatama  from Bobby beads since it has larger holes and you can tread it easily. I don’t use any pattern, just as above and follow the tutorial above. 

I finished one ball of yarn while I was on vacation. The height match to my calculations and the amount of beads were perfect in fact I have to remove the extra beads I loaded. I will continue crocheting it and make it a bigger scarf. Will see how long that will take me since I still have 7 balls of yarns to go (sigh).  

Would love to read your comments.

Have a nice vacations. See you soon.xx

Custom Made Hats

Making hats was our Lagos Crochet Group topic in past two weeks. Perhaps this chart is also useful for anyone making his or her own hats.

I thank Cherry Thayer Drake for publishing the chart in FB group I am in.  I retyped the chart according to our group needs. For detail instructions in English on how to design your own hat go to Loraine's Blog

Hat Sizing Chart

Age	Head Circumferences (inch)	Hat Circumferences (inch)	Hat Crown Diameter  (inch)	Hat Height (inch)
0-2  mth	10-12	8-10	2.00-2.75	2.5-3.0
0-3	13-14	11-12	2.75-3.50	04.0-4.5
3-6	15-16	13-14	3.50-4.25	4.5-5.0
6-12	17-19	15-17	4.25-5.00	5.0-5.5
1-2 yr	18-20	16-18	4.50-5.25	5.5-6.0
2-3	19-21	17-19	4.75-5.50	6.0-6.5
4-10	20-22	18-20	5.00-5.75	6.5-7.0
Teens	21-22	19-20	5.50-6.25	7.0-7.5
Adult Women	22-23	20-21	6.00-6.75	7.5-8.5
Adult Men	23-24	21-22	6.25-7.00	8.5-9.5

Bahasa Indonesia

DISAIN DAN BUAT TOPI SENDIRI

Buat topi 2-3 inci lebih kecil dari ukuran kepala sebenarnya agar “snug fit.”

1. Tentukan diameter lingkaran atas kepala (crown):

Caranya: Ukuran topi dibagi 3.14 (rumus lingkaran waktu SD/SMP)

2. Buat crown sesuai ukuran yang diperolah. Lihat cara membuat flat circle di post terdahulu pada blog ini.  

3. Lanjutkan merajut tanpa penambahan tusukan dari crown sesuai panjang topi yang dikehendaki sesuai motif yang dikehendaki. Selaraskan jumlah tusukan dengan pola yang digunakan dengan menambah atau mengurangi jumlah tusukan pada round terakhir dari crown.

Jika lingkaran kepala sebenarnya diketahui, gunakan ukuran sesuai hitungan diatas. Namun, jika tidak diketahui ambil angka rata-rata sebagai patokan mengukur diameter crown. Misal:   

Ukuran topi minimun =16 in : 3.14 = 5.0 inch

Ukuran topi maksimum =18 in : 3.14 = 5.7 inch

Rata-rata = 5.0 + 5.7 dibagi 2 = 5.35 (bulatkan menjadi 5.25)

Jika ingin menambahkan pinggiran:

Tambahkan 1-1.5 inch dari panjang topi untuk  topi bayi, 3-4 inch untuk dewasa.

Sunhat, clochet, flopp, kurangi 0.5 inch dari panjang topi.

Yay, I was Featured in a Crochet Magazine

Hi everyone, I have been wanting to share this with you for ages.  I am very excited. My design was featured in Dec issue of Entwinemagazine. It's the strawberry crochet bag at the bottom. Also a leading craft magazine in Australia (Homespun) recently contacted me wanting to publish the stitch design in their print and web publication. Alhamdulillah, thanks all to my fam and friends for your support in doing what I love to do. It's the crochet strawberry bag at the bottom.

Entwine Magazine

Good Hooks VS Bad Hooks

How many times when you crocheted a fabric, the yarn splits and breaks. Many times we blame it on the quality of the yarns we are using. While it is probably true in some of the cases, to be fair, we also need to look at the hooks we are using.

As crochet becomes increasingly popular, the variety of hooks available in the market is also growing. Some hooks are made of metal and some are made of plastic, wood, and bamboo. Choosing the right hook for the job can be a daunting task for the beginners.

Whichever the style and brands you prefer, the anatomy of the hook remains the same: point, groove, throat, shaft, thumb rest, and handle. In the picture on this post I’d like to show you the close up look of the top section of several metal hooks. I skipped discussing the handle, as this subject is more of a personal preference. While I am sure all hooks were designed for its purpose, I just would like to share my own experience after using all of these hooks and how you can manually filter among them. These hooks are part of my own collection and I have tried them all.

First of all price is not always an indicator of a good hook. However, good quality hooks are usually priced higher than lower quality hooks. There are hooks especially the steel hooks which are very reasonably priced. However their size is usually small as they are used for crocheting delicate crochet fabrics or tapestry crochet only. For thicker yarns you will need larger hooks.  

Look closely at the shape of the point of these two hooks.

The lip of the left hook is sharper and pointier whereas the right hook is rounder. We need the hook, which has a rounder lip. The sharp lip can damage the yarn and make crocheting difficult as the hook often gets stuck in between the ply of the yarn.

Also look at the throat; the hook on the left is very roughly made. The hook on the right is very smooth. While you wont spot this with you naked eye, you can feel it with the tip of your finger if you try rubbing it. The purple hook has a rough surface; it can damage the yarns too, while the silver colored hook is smooth. The silver hook glides nicely on the fabric making crocheting much more enjoyable.  

So now you know,

Happy hooks hunting.

Knitting Love through Crochet

We had our first crochet group and class yesterday. Leaving in foreign country and not much access to all the crafty stuffs we decided crochet is way to go to kill the boredom and have fun together learning new things. We started with basic knowledge about crochet, the tools and the type of fibres we can use. It was a lot of fun, a lot of love and laughter. It's amazing how crochet knit people together. Love from West Africa.

WebRep

currentVote

noRating

noWeight

Reusable Pickle Glass Container

Look what I made? I have this big empty glass jar from cucumber pickles so I thought why not just put some plants in it and cover the jar with this pretty crochet made from some acrylic scrap yarns. The pattern is from Chain Reaction Afghan Project by Crochetme.com



Hope you like it:-)

My Fav Crochet Spot

When kid gone to school and you are alone on your own...
Morning sunshine and a little flower at the balcony... And perhaps a cup of aromatic Java coffee to sip in between several double crochet... In the place where I live right now this is a luxury...

Incorporating Wires Into Crochet Leafs - Tutorial Video

Strawberry Crochet Pattern in Round - Tutorial Video

In this video I’d like to show you how to make strawberry crochet pattern in round.

In here I make it in multiple of 3dc. You can make it in multiple of 4, 6 or any number. Even number of multiplication would be easier to do than odd number if you are making a piece which require many rounds or rows of strawberry repeats. 

In this video I was using turquoise and bright pink size 2 acrylic yarns, and a crochet hook size F/3.75mm.

The pattern:

Ch4, join with sl st to first ch.

R1: 3ch (count as 1dc), 17dc.

R2: 3ch, (5dc in 1, inset hook from first dc through the last dc, pull up a loop, sc4 tog, 1ch, 2dc) repeat 5 times, join with sl st to the 3^rd ch from the beginning ch-3, 1ch.

R3: 2sc in ch-1 sp,  (2sc in 1) in all st around. Pay attention to the tip of the strawberry making sure not to skip it. If you do, your next round will become narrower and your work puckering.

Continue the circle of the strawberries in this manner if you wish to make a larger round. Refer to the magic circle recipe in my previous post on how to increase the stitches in every round to create the round and flat circle.

I hope you enjoy this video.

I begun to like doing video editing hehe… I am learning everyday.