Simon Frankau's blog
More Crochet
Having crocheted a cat, I decided to keep going. Way back when, I crocheted a Groot. What I didn't mention is that I took it into work as a replacement for a previous woollen Groot that was stolen, and it, too, was stolen. Boo.
So, I finally got around to making another. Interestingly, it was a lot quicker to produce this one, so clearly the practice has been effective. The most tedious part was certainly sewing it all together. This one is not going into the office.
After that, as I mentioned in my book review, I wanted to try some different techniques, as opposed to just amigurumi. I ended up making a small blanket from the infamous granny squares. The colours of yarn I had were somewhat limited, so I decided to lean into a full '70s look, with orange and green. It's horrific.
The whole thing was a huge learning experience. After making the first few squares from a somewhat vague pattern in a book, my sibling pointed out that I should be crocheting into the holes, not the loops - very different from amigurumi. I also discovered that the orange and green wools weren't quite the same weight, so that the orange and green squares were noticably different sizes. The mixed-colour ones were pretty uniform, somewhere in the middle. Indeed, the mixed-colour squares were easier to produce, as changing colour made it rather easier to see what's going on.
The book said that the two options for combining individual squares into an overall blanket were to crochet them together as you go, or stitch them together afterwards. I opted for the first, and I think this was a mistake. I think stitching allows for a better join, and it makes creating the invidiual squares rather faster, since you're not trying to work between squares. Still, even with that impediment, I was impressed with how quickly you can make progress. Trebles cover the ground a lot more quickly than doubles, and with a heftier yarn you could probably make a decent larger, holey blanket in a reasonable amount of time.
One thing that was utterly new to me was blocking. The mini-blanket was pretty wonky by the time I was done, and the squares were of varying sizes. There wasn't a huge amount that could be done about the square sizes beyond some mild stretching, but it could at least be made a bit flatter and even. For synthetic yarns (I don't want to waste decent natural wool on my beginner's experiments!), the Internet recommends steaming with an iron; I tried that, it seemed to work ok.
So now I have a small and weird mini-blanket that I have no idea what to do with!
Posted 2024-03-13.