Has it been a WEEK?

Wow, this past week went fast!  I have nothing new finished to show you but I still found ways to be creative last week, despite the sadness and distraction over losing one of our favorite kitties, and despite the trauma over the fact that Walking Dead aired it's last new show until next FEBRUARY, and despite the emotional tension of performing a surgical procedure on a case of infected 'bumblefoot' with one of my roosters... (breathe!)  Every couple of days seemed to produce something uncomfortable!  But, I eased the pain with crocheting!  I have been fiddling with two new projects.  One will be a small Christmas throw pillow, and the other is a crocheted market bag.  Hopefully the bag will turn out so well that I'll want to make several of them to use at the grocery store.

First of all, let me just say that I seem to be much more interested in the planning/designing of a project than the actual execution of it.  That's why I sketch things over and over, create swatches, do and re-do parts, trying to find the most unique and creative way to do it.  For instance, I mentioned wanting to make a market bag.  I hear they may be about to ban the plastic ones anyway, so I wanna be prepared with my own.  Now I'm faced with a lot of choices.  This could be a basic rectangular bag, or the slouchy one made with chain stitches that create holes between the loops, that looks more like a hobo bag.  Those are fine looking, and that's the direction I started to head.  But... my inclination is always to complicate things more and more (read: make aesthetic improvements!), so I was sure I could do better.  After having a very respectable start on a 'loopy bag', I tore it all out and went back to the drawing board to create some more scribble.

These doodles were an attempt to figure out something unique... how to combine two different grids, using different colors, and have them 'weave' in and out from each other.  I wanted each grid to be separate, not tacked to the other one, but interwoven so it couldn't shift around very far.  This entails crocheting each colored rows and alternating back and forth, and making the stitch alternate from front to back of the other one.

I made up this swatch using two different kinds of crochet cotton.  I took it apart several times before arriving at this pattern.  (I will be using different threads though.  I'm eyeing some expensive linen and hemp threads at the yarn store.)

I started on the bottom with a scale that would be fine for some other purpose, but too tight to be a market bag.  So, I enlarged the stitches to quadruple crochet and was happy with the spacing on the top section of this swatch.  I made one other change in the larger stitch, and now I've decided I don't like it as well.  In the image below, can you see how the lower part, the smaller weave, has a diagonal stair-step effect?  I didn't do it the same on the larger stitches, so I want to go back to that in the final project.

Okay, so that's all I have to show for myself on this market bag pattern.

But then there's the Christmas tree pillow I've begun as well.  It's barely more than a swatch itself!

This technique can be made into many different configurations.  I have made hot pads in square shapes, which resemble granny squares, only in 3-D.  The concept is to make a grid base for the raised stitches to attach to, and then work three dimensionally to attach the perpendicular stitches in a zig-zag pattern.  (Okay, maybe it's not exactly a zig-zag... it's not a Greek key either, but that would be excellent on a long retangular project.  It's really just a notched row.)  Anyway, my grid here is made with triple crochet stitches, and ch3 sections in between.  I drop a square off each end on each row to get the taper.  The vertical green stitches are also triples, four to a section.  There are no chain spaces between those sections.  You just turn the corner and continue the sets of 4 trc.  Below is how the back looks:

This 'tree' can be made any size, but the important thing is to have an even number of boxes in your first, largest row (bottom of the tree).  Mine has 36 boxes.  However many boxes you want, you multiply that number by four, and that will be the number of chain stitches you create for the bottom row.  Of course, at the turn, you'll want to also have added a ch7 (4+3) to replace your first triple stitch of the next row and the following three chains.  So I did 144+4+3, or 151 chains to start.  The box on the very top row needs to be centered over the second row, which consists of two boxes.  I learned this the hard way, as I originally started with an odd number of rows so my second-to-the-top row had three boxes and my top row had one.  That was all well and good until I started with the raised stitches.  They wouldn't flow around the corners from one row to the next!  I was always ending a row traveling downward, and I needed to go UP!  ARGH!

When you start the raised stitches, it's important to start at the very bottom outside corner and go UP the outer stem.  Any other way of starting will result in problems at the other end.  The idea is that it flawlessly turns the corner and continues onto the next row, which won't happen if you start in the wrong place or go the wrong direction!  Here's a crude example of what I mean:

If you start at the lower right-hand corner as shown, you'll end up turning the corner correctly at the other end:

Just continue working your way up the triangle in the same manner.  These aren't so much instructions to make this as it is a guideline which you can easily adapt to your own project if you are adept at crocheting.

When I've finished the green stitches,  I'll tack it down to a triangular shaped linen pillow, which I will also make.  The fabric I have is an ecru linen, so the color of the grid/base will disappear into it.  I'm debating adding some red beads in the tree pleats, or something similar to 'ornaments' here and there, maybe a trunk sticking out from the bottom, etc.  Can't wait to see how this evolves.

See ya next week...