A NOTE BEFORE I BEGIN: My posts will henceforth be written offline and then dragged around on a flash drive until I get somewhere with internet. Hence the date on this and hopefully future posts. I have not lost my mind (that I'm aware of), despite what the contradiction between the written date and the posting date may imply. That is all. As you were, gentlemen.
As I'm sitting here writing this (overly delayed) post, I am mentally facepalming so hard my brain might haemmorhage. If you'd care to listen to my misadventure in the form of a melodramatic rant, read on :) If not, skip to the TLDR (Too Long Didn't Read, for those who don't know) at the end ;)
I've been crocheting for around a year now, after learning how to do so from a series of magazines called The Art of Crochet, which I bought whenever I happened to wander into a CNA. I don't wander into CNA's terribly often, so I have the magazines more or less in pairs with a ten to twelve issue gap between each pair ;) Regardless, I learnt how to do the basic crochet stitches, and learnt that most patterns are simply modifications of those stitches. Simple, right? And really, since all I really want to make is amigurumi, I should be fine, right? So this intrepid little crafter promptly bought all the yarn she could lay her grubby hands on, and started making things from a friend's copy of Creepy Cute Crochet.
And they were hideous. Tiny malformed abbherations which looked oddly ribbed and stretched and god knows what else. I went onto the internet (yay for the repository of all knowledge!! \o/) and the all-knowing internet told me that all I really needed to do was turn my crochet work inside-out before stuffing. Ta-da, no more ribs! Yay, mystery solved, shove the tiny abbherations into the corner, my world is good once more.
Or is it? Ever in the back of my mind was the niggling doubt about the tiny abbherations... their tiny bodies all weirdly elongated... in a night-sweat of being haunted by my past failure (what? crocheting is serious business, yo) I looked up some product reviews of Creepy Cute Crochet, and some others complained of the same problem. So it's not just me... I'm not the problem, right? RIGHT??? And in a fit of denial I have not made anything from someone else's pattern since. I made up the pattern for my Bunnies based loosely off what I have seen in other patterns, and a vague understanding of the effects of increasing and decreasing on the shape of an amigurumi. For the most part, I think I did pretty well. But my stitches still didn't look as tight or neat as some others, and the tiny gaps left by decreases bugged me. I finally sucked up my pride today, and happened upon
Planet June (who has recently come to Cape Town! Where I live!! How cool?? *dies*) and her lovely tutorials.
MIND. BLOWN.
Because I had learnt to crochet normally, for non-amigurumi purposes, I had been taught to crochet in the back loop only (BLO). Which is dandy when you're doing someting like double crochet (UK treble crochet) back and forth, makes a pretty pattern, world is shiny. But as a method for amigurumi, it sucks quite a lot. Your stitches are immediately longer and more open than they would be if you crocheted under BOTH loops. Which makes sense. Also, it makes your invisible decreases, you know, invisible. *claws at face a little*
Which brings me to the point of my long and melodramatic rant... I may have to rework all my patterns, because the shaping is entirely different depending on how you stitch. I do know that how you do it is a matter of personal style, but I feel that the methods suggested by June are far superior to what I've been doing. Wibble. But at least I have learnt something new, and hopefully my amigurumi would be better for it. I wonder if maybe I should try my hand at Creepy Cute Crochet again, and see if my results are better this time round?
Aside from all that, I have been working on some very enjoyable projects and ideas. Now that I'm on holiday I will hopefully do more crafting. And more blogging! My lack of internet has been very frustrating, but I think by writing my blog posts and then just dragging them along on a flash drive until I get to somewhere with internet I will end up being more prolific. Rather than just ranting at myself in my mind like a crazy person ^_^
TLDR:
- Read Planet June's
tutorials. Your life will be better for it.
- I will have to remake my old patterns and am being a big girls' blouse about it.
- Crochet patterns often assume you know things that you don't. Always make sure what they expect of you before whining about your amigurumi looking mangled.
- I hope to blog more by writing my posts as they occur to me, and then posting them when I can.
