The Bates and Boye No-tell.

I went to Michael's on Monday to get a new hook and some stitch markers. Normally I shop at Hobby Lobby but I needed to get my daughters guinea pig some goodies, and Michael's is right next to the Pet Smart. I could go into a rant about how they are so very limited on chunky yarn but I will save that blog for another day. This blog is about my hooks and what the people at the Bates, Boye, and other manufactures are doing to us crocheter's and knitters.
 I bought a size N 9.00 mm Boye crochet hook. When I got it home and tried to size it using my Susan Bates Knit Chek. To my horror my new hook fit none of the holes but one: 8 mm knitting needle size 11, and the kicker ladies and gentlemen, crochet hook size L! "How can this happen?" I asked my husband. He said different makers have different ideas on sizing. But why? Why would they not standardize the industry and make all of the hooks the same? It makes no sense and is highly annoying. Clearly no one in the industry today crochets and knows the importance of GAUGE.
 Without gauge our projects can not come out right. Without gauge we end up with short blankets and hats that don't fit. Gauge is everything in knitting and crochet. We who create and craft need a certain standard to go by. Call it a star to guide us. Without this star we get left to our own devices and try to compensate for not having the proper materials. Susan Bates, Boye, Yarnology these are just to name a few. These are the companies that we count on to bring us accurate and precise materials. If each one of these companies has a different idea of what needle size is correct or what crochet hook size is right, then how are we supposed to have accurately sized projects? The answer is: we don't and can't!
There is a small light at the end of the tunnel though. I bought, three years back, a hook from Yarnology. This hook is a K, 6 1/2 mm and it fits the Susan Bates Knit Chek. Yarnology apparently is in tune with Susan Bates' Knit Chek. And so I can tell you that I will be buying only Yarnology hooks. They are cheaper, yet well made. And they are the only hooks that are true to the Bates No-Tel.

Crocheters of the world unite!!!

So in 3 days it will be March. March to my utter enjoyment, is National Crochet Month :). In honor of crochet month I went to Michael's and bought a new pink N hook (aluminum), and a pack of beautiful stitch savers. My husband hates when I go into hobby store because he says I act like a kid in a candy store lol. But it is a candy store for serious crocheter's. I will never apologize for wanting every skein of yarn I see or lusting for every hook in every size.
 With our month up coming I am proud to have the blood of the Irish in me from whence our trade of crochet came. Ireland gave us crocheting and the CGoA (Crochet Guild of America) is reminding us all that crocheting is a beautiful hobby and skill to learn. So it is our duty to teach the kiddies, or even your friends that have asked about crocheting. Get the word out there and help encourage the wild growth of the crochet craft by teaching the young, and I mean boys as wells as girls :o). Make sure that the art of crochet does not die out. Google has reported that the words "How to crochet." is in the top ten search list for 2012! That means there are are tons of peeps looking to enter into the vast yarn land that is crochet :o).
As for me, I am going to continue to teach my neighbor how to crochet, remind my daughter to finish her crochet project this month,  shred on in my projects that I started, and continue to post on this blog, no matter if I have 1 or none followers. I LOVE CROCHET! And I will sing it from the moutains.... If north Texas had mountains lol. Crochet is not old, nor is it an old woman's craft. The possibilities of what can be made with a hook and a skein of yarn is limitless and the sooner my generation remembers this the better my daughters generation and her children's generation and so on, will be. Happy Crochet Month to all my fellow Hookers. Make it great, make it right and always make it with love. :o)

The beauty of books :o)

I am a multi project type of crafts woman. I love doing two items at once. So I am doing hubby's Aran Afghan and "I Love This Yarn"'s Cables Afghan. The Cables Afghan was one of the first patterns I had ever done on my own. Everyone in the knit and crochet world knows that reading patterns and performing them correctly as read is not always easy. So imagine me with my Rosey Cheeks skeins ready to give this pattern a shot.
Let me say now that I had NEVER learned to read a pattern. My neighbor Miss Mary taught me how to do patterns. But she would crochet it and I would video tape what she was doing in my head. I would then go home after her lessons and recreate what she taught me from memory. She didn't do "patterns". She created her stuff from her imagination. So me not knowing that a treble is a series of yarn overs was the first problem I ran into. I know now that the number of YO's depend on what you want to achieve. But I didn't know that when I started lol. So I had to Google it. Ok I got that down. Next after the 10 dc's is a fpdc. Huh? What the heck is that? Ok Google didn't have a vid at the time so I begged (yes I said it begged) hubby to please help me. And by help I meant let me buy the help if I could find it lol. So I go back to Hobby Lobby an start looking for any help I could find. I found this: Crochet The Complete Guide by Jane Davis.
 This book has almost everything! This book taught me how to read patterns. It taught me about yarns, threads, ribbons, textures and more. I know reading is fundamental but knowing how to read patterns for crocheting is definitely a must. I now know how to treble :o)  I can make an Irish sprout, berry, leaf, and rose! Woohoo go Ireland! :o)
 Buy it, read it, learn from it. It saved my projects and has taken what Miss Mary had taught me and enhanced it :o)