First Crochet Project That Started It All

Having several unused yarn from the Crochet-edged Cloth Diaper project and with my sister Cha's birthday coming up, I thought of making something unique as a gift. Although there were a lot of free crochet patterns and ideas in the web, it all looked outdated and knowing Cha's taste in fashion I had to come up with something that she would really love to wear and brag about at the same time :-)

Been seeing a lot of those bib necklaces but they were fast becoming generic with the big gemstones and all so I thought I'd make one that was made of crochet: one-of-a-kind, elegant and not outdated at all!

Saw a tutorial on dorset buttons by Diane Gilleland of Craftsylish and it was what inspired this necklace:

work in progress

Made variations on the dorset buttons, some using the cartwheel pattern and some unfinished with just the casting around the ring. Rest of the circles are simple double crochet rings. After lining them up in the pattern above, I stitched the circles with clear beading cord (or fishline) and made the necklace with 1/2" thick satin ribbon in turquoise. 

Here's the finished product as worn by the birthday girl:

close-up

birthday girl happy with her unique necklace

When Cha wore this to their company meeting, she was almost mobbed by the other lady doctors begging her to reveal where she bought the necklace! After telling that it was handmade by her sister, the doctors made her promise to bring the rest of my items (I only had one!) at the next meeting. Also got a lot positive feedback at facebook and even orders! So what's a girl gotta do when the universe is already throwing you all the signs?

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Crochet How-To: Holding Crochet Yarn and Hook

One of the most basic knowledge when starting out with crochet is to how to hold your yarn and hook. Check out the video tutorial:

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Crochet How-To: Matching Crochet Yarn and Hook

http://www.flickr.com/photos/noricum/

Matching your yarn and hook is one of the most important beginner's lesson in crochet. There are two standards in hook sizes, Japanese and International although I am more familiar with the Japanese sizes and I find these hooks more cost-effective being double-ended (2 sizes in one hook!).

I found this very informative blog by snufykin where she lists down crochet hook sizes matching yarn weights. Check the chart here. Thanks to iheartcrochet blog for the link to snufykin.

Converted the chart in that site to text for your easy reference:

weight 3/0 4/0 5/0 6/0 7/0 8/0 10/0 7mm 8mm 10mm
2-ply lace •
3-ply • •
4-ply finger • •
sport • •
sport/dk • • •
dk • •
bulky • • •

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What Got Me Started Crocheting...Again

Most of the women in our family on my Mom's side were always avid crocheters. I remember growing up in my Mommyla's (my maternal grandmother) house where all the full-length window curtains were crochet and there were more than a dozen windows in that big house! It was a craft project by my Mom and Mommyla in the 70s. Mommyla's handmade shawls were prized gifts back then.  Then there were my Grandaunts, Mama Leng and Auntie Bobie who created beautiful doilies and chair dresses. My Mom's last crochet project before she passed away in 2001 were crochet-trimmed cloth diapers for her first grandchild, my son Marti so when my sister became pregnant with her first child last year, I decided to carry on the tradition by making these diapers.

I found this fabulous tutorial from the Jennifer Slaugh of the http://www.mormonchic.com which I hope would also inspire you to start a project like this. It's so unique I haven't found any store here that sell these so it would be a very nice baby shower gift. 

Here's how mine turned out:

Would recommend you use Monaco mercerized crochet yarn which I bought from Carolina's Glorietta 5. Monaco is cheaper and they have monochromatic and multicolored yarns. There's also a brand called Cannon although they're a bit more expensive than Monaco (well not much, I think there's a P 1.00 price diffrence).

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