Tuesday, November 13, 2012

More about crocheting by measurements rather than stitch count

As most of the people who have followed my blogs [BettyAtkins was "The Old Hooker"], I crochet with measurements, not stitch counts. I have two granddaughters who learned to crochet this way. One is 19 and the other 20. They have been crocheting since they were around 12-13. The 19 yr old came by the other day wearing a really cute hat that has a finished design of rows of hdc that bulges out and one row that sinks in to create an indentation... think of the design of a pumpkin. I was amazed that she was at the stage of designing already. That may be because I taught the eldest g-daughter and she taught the younger one.

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Yarn Snob

My parents went through the great depression before WWII. I suppose it was for this reason that we didn’t spend hard earned money for something as ordinary as yarn to make hats and scarves for winter. After all, especially for us kids, they would get lost before spring.

So, I grew up crocheting with the cheapest yarn Mama could find. The one exception was mercerized cotton for doilies and lace for trims and bedspreads. Those items would be handed down to the next generation. Mama always bought her yarn at the Five & Dime. The Five & Dime was a lot like the 99 cent store today.

When I had children of my own, I followed suit and looked for the lowest priced acrylic yarn I could find. It was usually on sale. Fifty-nine cents a skein was a real find.
Now that I am crocheting professionally, I find myself getting more and more taken with the finer yarns. If I use acrylic, now, it has to be by a good company. Mostly I have gotten into Alpaca’s and high mountain wools. Just recently I bought cashmere. I could barely believe that I actually did it! Cashmere is the greatest yarn to work with and soft just doesn’t describe it well enough.