A Crochet Top, Stitch Swatching and A Finished Charity Blanket

‘Hellloooooo!’ my friend said as she came gliding through my front door. It was a Friday night and we’d decided to spend the evening watching romcoms and crocheting. We’re working our through a few lists of essential romcoms we haven’t seen. We started just watching the next one on the list that we both hadn’t seen but the first movie we did this with was Leap Year which was utter rubbish so we now have some rules.

1. Neither of us should have already seen it

2. It can’t have a Rotton Tomatoes score of less about 60%. Leap Year has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 22%. Yikes!

3. We can watch a romcom with a shit Rotten Tomatoes score but only if a friend recommended it or it has an AMAZING cast.

She sat at my kitchen bench and crossed reference Buzzfeed listicles, Netlix and Rotten Tomatoes to find the perfect film for us to watch that night. We came up with Man Up which was actually ace, highly recommend it

The movie was actually so good we ended up not crocheting it (blasphemy I know!) but after we finished the movie we watched whatever was on TV and pulled out our projects. Well, my friend got hers out and I just kind of panicked a little and started swatching some stitch samples.

I’m in a deep design phase at the moment because I tend to design better when my head is fully in it. So, quite strangely I’m not really ‘making’ anything right now. I have to be extremely disciplined when I’m designing and make sure I write the whole pattern out in full before I start otherwise I just start making things up and then I can’t reverse engineer how I did it, because I make little tweaks and changes along the way. This makes it almost impossible to teach a pattern I’ve designed so I’ve had to be very strict with myself.

To be honest, I don’t love designing. That’s not entirely true, I love designing and I love making, what I don’t like is pattern writing. I make sure every pattern on Crochet Coach has all the information my makers need and I don’t take that responsibility lightly. If a designer takes shortcuts and doesn’t do proper sizing and gauge, it’s almost impossible for makers to have success with their designs. It’s my mission at Crochet Coach to provide my students with the skills and information they need to make beautiful and useful items. It sounds simple enough but this means I’m often spending hours hunched over a calculator working out exactly how much yarn is required for each size of a cardigan pattern so my makers don’t run out half way through or end up with an extra 5 balls of yarn. To be honest, I don’t hate maths and cracking an equation I’ve been working on for a few hours is actually quite thrilling (I please easily) but my favourite thing is crocheting (obviously) so when I’m in a design phase, I’m always itching to get my patterns back from my tech editor so I can start making the damn things.

I always love seeing what other crocheters are making and their design processes so I thought I’d show you some works in progress and get your advice on a few things I’m working on. Hopefully, I’ll get a few first drafts under my belt this week so I can spend the whole weekend crocheting and watching romcoms…

Crochet Top 

One of my Crochettes asked me to design a simple summer lacey crochet top and I’ve been meaning to design one for ages so I started putting together some ideas and stitch samples. Let me ask you, if you were going to make or buy a crochet top which stitch pattern do you like the most? Top left, top right, bottom left, bottom right? I thought I’d already decided which one I like the most but then I blocked them and they looked totally different so now I’m not sure what I want to do! Which is your favourite?

Circle Scarf 

I’ve been wanting to make a seamless, chunky circle scarf for ages and I finally found some decent yarn to make it with. This is next month’s pattern for the Crochettes so don’t forget to sign up if you want to make it with us! I rarely work with chunky yarn so this was a really interesting experience. Chunky hooks and yarn feel totally different and I found it slowed me right down, which I didn’t actually mind that much.

 

Crochet kimono

I’ve had an idea for a summer swimsuit cover-up/kimono style thing for a while and in typical form, I’ve decided winter is the ideal time to make it. I love making stuff off-season it just seems to be my thang. Here are a few stitch pattern ideas I’ve come up with – which ones are your favourites? Top left, bottom left, top right, bottom right? I asked on Instagram a week ago but I’m curious to see what everyone else thinks!

Tapered Scarf 

I had another Crochette ask a while ago for a tapered scarf pattern and I finally worked out a good way to do this. I’m really excited about this project, it’s made with yarn dyed by one of my Crochettes! It’s a dream to work with; merino and silk and it will make the best little neck warmer style scarf. I’m pretty sure I won’t have enough yarn to make pom poms in this colour so what colour do you think I should make them? I was thinking maybe a dusty pink? Or a darker turquoise in this colour? Thoughts?

Vision in Blue Blanket 

After almost a year, (that’s right a full year!) the Vision In Blue blanket is ready. Click here for more details! Especially if you’d like to give this bad boy a fancy pants new home. I’ve already reached my first goal of raising $500 and I’m so close to raisig $1000 – a donation would be an amazing help but if you can’t spare the $$$ a share the project would be amazing.

 

Extra reading for the keen beans…

Crochet For Charity: Vision In Blue Blanket Project 

Crochet Dress Patterns: 15 Ideas For You To Try

Crochet Baby Blanket Patterns: 9 Ideas For You To Try

17 Beginner Crochet Mistakes You Need To Avoid

If you’re looking some crochet projects don’t forget to join the Crochet Coach hub. It’s full of videos, patterns and lessons to get you started on the right foot. There’s also the amazing Facebook community of Crochettes who are honestly the greatest humans in the world. I just love them.

What are you working on at the moment? Share a picture in the comments!