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Thursday, January 6, 2011

Easy Afghans Part 1

I learned to crochet while living in New Zealand my Jr. year of high school. I did different squares but found that I loved knitting as they are so good at it there. They have their own way of kitting that is so much easier and quicker than the European knitting. Flash forward 5 years from then. I was married and was crocheting afghans for my home. I did several patterns and styles.


Then life hit with kids, nursing school etc and I didn't crochet until a few months ago. You have to laugh as your look at the afghan at the top of the blog. I worked on it in the car and in a meeting and wasn't paying attention to the count of stitches and lost one on each row for some rows. I then noticed it and started adding stitches. I then added enough and then in the car again lost stitches so added some and finished it. I laughed and laughed at the finished afghan. My kids said it had curves in all the right places. I made it for my sister and should have started over but it has character now. :-)

This afghan is one of the quickest and easiest of the afghans I have made. The first thing you do is pick three colors that you think will look good together. Julie showed me to wrap the three threads around your fingers like this to get an idea of how it will look. You can do this at the store fairly easy. If you have the yarn already, just chain a few and back onto it like a hot pad to get an idea if the colors look good crochet together.


You use the biggest crochet needle you can find. The afghan at the top is crochet with a needle half that size and is so heavy and tight it is a really warm blanket but uses twice the amount of yarn. The baby blanket above showing the large crochet needle shows how airy the crocheting is with the largest needle.


Next, you create a slip knot to start the chain. I wrap the yarn around my index and middle fingers and slip the long end between them once the yarn is around them and then pull the yarn through pinched between my fingers and it makes a slip knot. You can see it in these photos.


Then, I chain how many ever stitches I want in the blanket. If I am using regular yarn and want to make a baby blanket, I chain 40 stitches. If I am using baby yarn, I chain 50 stitches. The regular yarn is thicker and makes a bigger stitch as you can see in this photo.


To make a chain, you wrap the yarn around the hook and pull through. You do that as many times as you need to create the amount of stitches you need. For a full blanket, I think 60 in regular yarn would be great for a one person blanket. My friend Julie just holds it up across her lap and guesses. It is funny how you start with three skeins of the same brand yarn and you will run out of one much quicker than the others.



I learned how to hold my yarn while knitting in New Zealand. I don't know if everyone holds their yarn this way but it helps me regulate how tight the stitches are and move the yarn through at an even tension. I wrap the yarn around my pinky finger and then up the palm and over the pointer finger so that I can use the pointer finger to tighten the yarn if needed by placing the finger closer or further from the needle as needed.
Once you have the chain the length you want, you wait for me to post Part 2! :-)

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