First Crochet

The yarn for the owl jumper was on sale but only if you bought bulk so I was left with a load of (lovely) red wool. What to do? What to do?

I've recently been teaching myself to crochet using the stitch 'n' bitch crochet book ("Happy Hooker" Stoller, D). Used up a couple of balls of really cheap acrylic practicing the various stitches/techniques and I've really come to love it, even though as a knitter it feels all wrong to be dropping stitches all over the place! The huge advantage of crochet is that I can do it on the train without poking the person next to me with knitting needles. Stoller's book is really excellent, I picked up the basic idea immediately and there is a nice balance in the book between suggested projects and information/stitch patterns - the history of crochet at the start is a nice touch. Unlike when I learnt to knit the instructions in the book are really clear AND well illustrated, with knitting I couldn't even work out how to cast on from a book.

Anyway, to come back to my owl-jumper surplus. I decided to try one of the projects in Stoller's book and thought it would be a good opportunity to use up some stashed yarn. I chose in the end a lovely open-grid hat (in pic) and scarf. The pattern has contrasting trims on both hat and scarf with the scarf being inverse colours to the hat but I decided on a plainer version. I also made the scarf wider and longer than the pattern suggested; skinny scarfs are not my dish. The hat in particular is great because the openness means your head doesn't get too hot when walking about. On the other hand the book suggests wearing them in spring yet it kept me perfectly warm in sub-zero January. Guess it wouldn't be so good if you were standing around though. I'll snap a picture of the scarf and put it up later.

tbp.x