Making Squares

I borrowed a new crochet book from the library last week: Crochet Inspirations by Sasha Kagan. It has about 200 crochet stitch patterns: ranging from the simple double crochet up to complicated pineapple mats.

It has re-inspired my Learn to Crochet blanket.

Peephole granny(144):



Catherine Wheels (39 - unfinished):
In the book the wheels are more circular and stacked: mine are off-set and more blocky. I still like the effect.

This is a good book of stitch patterns. There are plenty of clear pictures, and every pattern has both written instructions and a chart. The written instructions use US terms, as does the chart key, but it includes a conversion table from US to UK/Australian terms.

This is not suitable for a complete beginner as it does not include a guide on how to make the basic stitches (eg a double crochet). OTOH, any extra explanations are extremely clear: for instance in the description of the "cluster 7" stitch (needed for the Catherine Wheels), it tells you to do the partial stitch 7 times, then "draw through all 8 loops on hook". These little details make it very usable. Another little detail is that the website has a list of all the yarns used in the book.

I've also been making a stripy square, but have no photos. My next pattern from the book will be crosshatch (61).

I made another friendship star using a different method.

I wanted to reduce the amount of bulk (I was not trying for accuracy), and I succeeded in that. But I didn't like making it as much. It was fiddlier in the sense that it took more thinking - I was sewing triangles to a parallelagram, and appliqued the other star points in place. I expect it was like making a Dear Jane block, but it just seemed like too much pfaffing.

I even prefer the look of the proper Friendship Square