When I started giving lessons at La Maison tricotée last winter, Céline asked me: “Could you give crochet lessons? ". Of course, I answered yes. I have been crocheting for more than 10 years, so I could easily teach the basics of this textile art to dozens of future crocheters. And yet, like many knitters, I have a strange relationship with crochet…
Nothing can replace the beauty of jersey knit. If I want to make socks or a sweater, I will naturally go for knitting. For my mittens too… So what am I crocheting?
Even though I have already seen crocheters succeed in several very pretty pieces of clothing, I prefer to keep crocheting to create small objects, jewellery, blankets, trivets, etc. It is with this type of project that crochet reveals all its qualities: speed of execution, ease of working in three dimensions and in a modular way, as well as the instinctive side of this activity. In addition, crochet is an excellent complement to knitting: it can be used to cast on and bind off stitches, to add borders and even to create false seams. And the best part of it all is that the basics of crochet are easy to learn.
The most difficult thing when learning to crochet is to integrate the basic movement, that of catching the yarn with the hook and passing it through the stitch on the hook. Once you do that, you're in business! Then, the second difficulty is to remember the basic points. Because it's not long (an hour or two) before the budding crocheter is able to make double crochets, slip stitches, double crochets and half double crochets. Then a world of possibilities opens up. Thousands of really pretty patterns use just these stitches. The only difference is how you put them together. To allow my students to fly over as many facets of crochet as possible, I created the crochet blanket course.
crochet blanket
Going from total neophyte to crocheter mastering petals, shells and hazelnuts in ten weeks, it's tempting isn't it? Well that's the goal behind THE CROCHET BLANKET COURSE . The first nine weeks, we learn some techniques to crochet a new square in each class. The tenth week, we finish the blanket, we join the squares and we crochet a border, and voila! Sure, a crocheted blanket is going to have more "holes" than a knitted blanket, but that's the price you pay for creating beautiful flowers, Celtic knots and chain spirals.
For my part, the square that I prefer is the one that I put in the center of the blanket. It is a flower created with the crocodile stitch which is very popular these days. Petals give students a good understanding of three-dimensional crochet work, because as you create the petals, you have to bend them toward the center to work behind them. Before we put the petals back in the right position, it almost looks like an artichoke!
The designer of this bob, Joyce Lewis, is super nice and she gave me permission to use her bob for the class. We are very lucky, we crocheters and knitters to be part of such a friendly community!
maude
Maude is a knitting and crochet teacher and designer, seamstress in the making, gardener and writer the rest of the time.
She is passionate about small plants, the boreal forest (she comes from Abitibi after all!), sheep's wool, colors and everything that allows her to learn constantly.
Maude blogs under the name MAUDE DESIGN . You can also find her on FACEBOOK , PINTEREST and RAVELRY .