Hello, hope you have all had a splendid Christmas! Mine was very lovely indeed as I've been enjoying a week in my home town of Edinburgh with the delights of spending time with family & friends, delicious home cooked food, planning crafty & arty makes for 2013, dangerous trips to Hobbycraft (find it hard to retain spending control) and seeking inspiration in my new book of Grimm Tales (by Philip Pullman).
While there's been a remarkable absence of tension in our household this festive season, there has been tension of other kind (please be generous & excuse the pun). I've been told that my crocheting is very neat which sounds like an unequivocally good thing but others have warned that my tension is too tight. While I've not been at all concerned about this, I do realise that attempts to crochet something larger than my small creatures/ foods and which require to be a more specific size, ie a piece of clothing, are likely to come out far smaller than intended. Nonetheless, I've not worried about it until me & Mamma C decided to entertain ourselves with some festive crocheting. We used the same pattern (by amigurumi guru June Gilbank- Planet June Pine Cones Pattern) and the same wool to make pine cones but ended up with wildly different results (see pic, mine in brown wool). Mine were made to the same instructions but with a larger hook (4mm, rather than 3.5mm used by Mamma C) to try to adjust for the tighter tension. As you can see, my cones are so much smaller and the scales lie pointing out or downwards rather than up, possibly because the chain stitches were too tight. This would explain my baffled & slightly cross response to a set of biscuit patterns recently where the jammy dodgers ended up as a distorted, tiny one-bite, very unappetising biscuits. It's curious that my first pieces (apples, pears & a set of crochet toast) are much looser than anything I make now. Although I definitely have improved, I now see that overly tight tension can cause problems and it'll be something important to consider if I sell my own patterns in the future.
Aside from The Greatest Story Ever Told, the big source of wonder & joy this Christmas has been the discovery of Clover Soft Touch aluminium crochet hooks (see pic, copied from Purplelinda clover soft touch hooks). These are simply brilliant! Again, wise Mamma C can take the credit for this discovery after they were recommended to her by the editor of a crocheting magazine. Initially, I didn't really understand why she was so enamoured of these, especially as I usually prefer to use a thinner hook. But what a revelation! Now I can't recommend these highly enough,
especially for tight crocheters like me who grip the hook fairly tightly
& can get callouses developing on fingers and have aching hands. Both of
these issues have stopped since I've been borrowing these. Fortunately
my birthday this weekend means a full set of these wondrous hooks will
be ordered & sent onwards to Wales for me! We purchased ours from a great website Purplelinda Crafts which is devoted to mainly selling crochet items http://www.purplelindacrafts.co.uk/
While there's been a remarkable absence of tension in our household this festive season, there has been tension of other kind (please be generous & excuse the pun). I've been told that my crocheting is very neat which sounds like an unequivocally good thing but others have warned that my tension is too tight. While I've not been at all concerned about this, I do realise that attempts to crochet something larger than my small creatures/ foods and which require to be a more specific size, ie a piece of clothing, are likely to come out far smaller than intended. Nonetheless, I've not worried about it until me & Mamma C decided to entertain ourselves with some festive crocheting. We used the same pattern (by amigurumi guru June Gilbank- Planet June Pine Cones Pattern) and the same wool to make pine cones but ended up with wildly different results (see pic, mine in brown wool). Mine were made to the same instructions but with a larger hook (4mm, rather than 3.5mm used by Mamma C) to try to adjust for the tighter tension. As you can see, my cones are so much smaller and the scales lie pointing out or downwards rather than up, possibly because the chain stitches were too tight. This would explain my baffled & slightly cross response to a set of biscuit patterns recently where the jammy dodgers ended up as a distorted, tiny one-bite, very unappetising biscuits. It's curious that my first pieces (apples, pears & a set of crochet toast) are much looser than anything I make now. Although I definitely have improved, I now see that overly tight tension can cause problems and it'll be something important to consider if I sell my own patterns in the future.Aside from The Greatest Story Ever Told, the big source of wonder & joy this Christmas has been the discovery of Clover Soft Touch aluminium crochet hooks (see pic, copied from Purplelinda clover soft touch hooks). These are simply brilliant! Again, wise Mamma C can take the credit for this discovery after they were recommended to her by the editor of a crocheting magazine. Initially, I didn't really understand why she was so enamoured of these, especially as I usually prefer to use a thinner hook. But what a revelation! Now I can't recommend these highly enough,
especially for tight crocheters like me who grip the hook fairly tightly
& can get callouses developing on fingers and have aching hands. Both of
these issues have stopped since I've been borrowing these. Fortunately
my birthday this weekend means a full set of these wondrous hooks will
be ordered & sent onwards to Wales for me! We purchased ours from a great website Purplelinda Crafts which is devoted to mainly selling crochet items http://www.purplelindacrafts.co.uk/
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