Crochet's Unsung Heroes

It is true; I've been joy riding several new crochet hooks, not just the one I mentioned over Thanksgiving break.  What's up with that?  I suffer from HAS: Hook Acquisition Syndrome!

If this 1800s crochet hook could talk, what crochet adventures would it tell us?

It was during all this giddy-glee of playing with new crochet hooks that a thought started repeating itself to me as I worked each new stitch, each new project:

"Crochet Hooks are the unsung heroes of our craft."

Think about it.  When we see a project, in person, or pictured online, we want to know:

• if not an original pattern, then who designed it? 
• is the pattern for free or for sale?
• where can a copy of the pattern be obtained?
• can it be made/altered to fit me?
• what is the skill level: beginner? Intermediate? Advanced?
• what yarn was used?
• how much yarn is required?
• what size hook was used?

Did you read anywhere above "What hook was used?"
   Did we learn if the hook belonged to your great, great grandparent?
      Did we learn if the hook was hand-turned from a descendant of Moby Dick?
         Did we learn if the hook brought you pleasure with each stitch it helped you create?

No, sadly, we usually don't share these kinds of details, do we?  We, do, however, usually hear when a hook breaks -- I've been known to accidentally kill a hook or two in my time (linky).  And we usually hear the woes of missing hooks, too (linky).  But what about the crochet hook that was pressed into your hand as a distraction when a loved one was in the hospital.  Or the hook you bought to make your first crochet chain.  And what about the hook that helped wrap an adorable baby with a crocheted blanket you crafted with your own two hands?

All I'm saying is, that without our crochet hooks we'd be pretty much limited to finger crocheting.  (Doable yes, but try making a dainty doily with sausage fingers!)  Let's give a little praise to the hooks we love to use; regardless if it was mass-produced or hand created, I'm betting there's a story behind it.  And I, for one, would love to know about it!  :)

Joy Riding

Ever buy a crochet hook that feels and looks almost like a hot rod?  I think this one classifies:

This hook was custom made for me by The Knitting Glass Guy.  For the maiden drive, I'm working on a scarf that will be donated locally; part of the 2011 "60 Scarves in 60 Days Challenge."  I'll be writing up an official post about the hook in a few weeks over at HooksNStitches. 

"Fear is the Project Killer"

It seems I got my stitches in a bunch and it wasn't looking good for finding a fix.  I wanted to create a new hat for my newly-teenaged son -- something more in line of  his current fashion sense.  I went shopping in my yarn stash and found two hanks of Berroco's Inca Gold, a blend of merino wool and silk.  I picked up one of my new crochet hooks and set to work using half-double crochet stitches.

All was going well, very well indeed!  Then it came time to create the brim of the hat.  At first I thought, "wouldn't it be cool to knit it?"  To, you know, make my first official bi-stitchual project -- without the use of a crochet hook.  So I rummaged through my little knitting needle stash and found a pair of circulars I thought would do the job.  Unfortunately the cable proved it was too long and thus it became too big of a pain to deal with.  I ripped out all the knitted stitches I had made.

So I went to my next game plan ... use the Dyak Craft Interchangeable crochet hook and "knook" it. (Not familiar with the term "knook?" Look it up on my Types & Techniques page on my website)  That seemed to be working quite well.  It was working so well, so well indeed!, I decided to pop the DVD in of The Black Swan and continue on my merry little way with my stitching.

Unfortunately, in looking at my work this morning, I shouldn't have.  I found a few errors.  Normally, even with my limited knitting experience, I know how to fix the errors ...  first secure the stitches that are good, then pull out the bad column of stitches, and then rebuild them back up using a crochet hook.  No problem, right?

Wrong.  I decided I had to use the Twisted Knit Stitch.  That's right; I had to complicate things; lol.  I had to figure out how to retwist the column of stitches I had pulled out so that they would be uniform to the rest of the brim design.  Unfortunately I couldn't find any help sites on the Internet on how to do this, so I vented on Twitter a little:

I stewed a little.  I agreed with Chicken Little that the sky was falling.  I thought about giving up -- after all I could give it as a Christmas gift instead of a Birthday gift, thus buying me some time.  I might have cursed a bit too, although I won't admit to that. {{whistles innocently}}

And then it came to me:  pull out the column of stitches that include the error, insert hook into loop, give it a counter-clockwise twist before pulling up the next loop. Repeat until column has been rebuilt.

I gave it a try AND it WORKED!!  My fear of  having to kill the project turned to pure joy!

And the really cool part is, aside from figuring out how to fix an intentional twisted knit stitch -- my project is 100% made with crochet hooks.  Three to be exact.  A few more rows & this project will be done.  Whoot!

Crochet Hook Binging Leads to Blog Revival

Ok, so I admit it.  I've been crochet hook binging all week.  I've been combing the internet looking for beauties to add to my collection.  It's been a rough week; a rough month; a rough year.  I think it's time to declare this as my time to adorn my hand with some new bling -- not as in diamond rings, but as in beautiful crochet hooks.  You know, sorta as my reward for surviving all that Murphy's Law has thrown at me this year.

During this week of crochet hook binging, several of you have asked me if I sell crochet hooks.  As a rule, I do not. If I wind up with an overstocking for a class I taught, then I might.  But for the most part I collect them.  To me, they're like a fine wine, or a fine piece of chocolate, or a "cantlivewithout" ball of yarn.  I'm sure you get the picture, yes?  LOL

And during this week of binging, many have asked about who I buy them from, how I display them, do I use them ... and so on.  I gave these questions serious thought and you know what? You're all onto something here.  No, seriously!  Where are the blogs dedicated exclusively to the crochet hooks we love??  While I begin my search for such blogs, I decided in the meantime to revive a blog I wanted to start as an off-shoot of this one way back in 2005.  I didn't do anything with it for the past six years as I guess I was waiting for the right motivation, or rather, the right muse.  (Funny how it's been right in front of me all this time!!)

If you are a regular reader, you may have noticed my CrochetingWithDee blog has a new look -- it is now in line with my website, CrochetWithDee, and with my Twitter.  I took the old background of the steel hooks and put it on my revived blog, appropriately called Hooks N Stitches because it fits there.  My goal is to post images of the many crochet hooks I own, and those I covet, at least once a week, and to include bits of information about them. 

I'll still show my crochet hooks here, and discuss other topics related to crochet (and sometimes knit), but the other blog will be for those who share my lust for crochet hooks.

Our Favorite Crochet Hook Makers

My state of Connecticut is finally getting back to normal after experiencing a freak autumn snow storm that delivered in many areas over a foot of snow.  Because trees still contained full canopies of leaves, many came crashing down under the heavy weight of snow, causing massive power outages.  (Our second major outage within two months!) We were one of the nearly one million families that were effected by the power outage -- ours lasted eight fridgid days.  My father's, who lives right down the road from me, lasted nine.  And as I type this, there are still many residents without power. 

Fortunately cities and towns, such as mine, opened their schools as emergency shelters.  My family and I spent many hours there, taking advantage of having (generator) power to recharge batteries, get a warm meal, shower, and most importantly, to keep warm.  For me, the emergency shelter offered more than that:  it was also a social hub for keeping up with the news, as well as an outlet to "crochet in public."

Tempers Flare Over 6 Days Of Conn. Power Outages: MyFoxNY.com

I met many wonderful crocheters (and knitters); I helped two young girls learn how to finger crochet; and on one evening, showed how a swift and ball winder worked in turning hanks of yarn into quick, usable cakes (balls) of yarn.  At one point my activities caught the eye of a reporter and I was interviewed briefly for an evening segment on Connecticut's Fox News ... 

One of the most frequent questions I was asked was, "Where do you get your crochet hooks?"  The majority of my crochet hooks are handmade/handturned.  Although I have created a crochet hook on my own (I took a class with Nancy Nehring a few years back on how), I am more of a collector.  We call the art of collecting crochet hooks as HAS.  HAS stands for Hook Acquisition Syndrome. 

Some of the hooks I own that were purchased online: Graydog (formerly sold on eBay for a number of years); Brainsbarn, DyakCraft (formerly GraftonFibers), Celtic Swan, and many, many others.  If you follow me on Twitter, then you already know I have been discussing rewarding myself  (for surviving a stressful week without power) with a custom GLASS crochet hook, to be crafted by Chris of www.knittingglassguy.com.  Naturally once I officially add the hook to my collection, I will be photographing it and featuring it in an upcoming blog entry.  

I also purchase crochet hooks from various events, such as a few years ago from The Eastern States Exposition; from Stitches East (back when it was held in New Jersey); or I receive them as gifts, such as the crochet hook I recently mentioned that my brother-in-law gave me (maker is unknown as it was handcarved in the 1800's).  Collecting hooks is not hard, you just need to give it time and keep your eyes open.

And this brings me to question who are your favorite crochet hook makers?  Go ahead and be an enabler; I have room in my heart & home for more crochet hooks.   ;)

Question From Reader: Tunisian Hooks a Pain?

Dear Dee,

I am learning Tunisian crochet and find I have too many loops on my hook. How do you deal with this? Thanks, Marnie

Dear Marnie,

prototypes of DyakCraft's Interchangeable Crochet Hooks

What a great question! Tunisian crochet requires us to load up our hook with many loops, much like a knitter would load up one of their knitting needles. The problem of having too many loops on the hook causes the loops to stretch out, fall off the hook -- or worse! -- cause an actual physical injury!


Since I have experienced all three issues (yes, I sprained my thumb a number of years ago from too many loops/too much weight on the hook) I now almost exclusively use cabled Tunisian crochet hooks.


My current "go to" cabled Tunisian crochet hooks are the proto-types for www.DyakCraft.com that I mentioned this past January {LINKY} ~ based upon the discussion on Ravelry, their interchangeable hooks should be available anytime soon!  The interchangeable crochet hooks, including the Denise version (which I also own) and others on the market, do tend to cost a bit more, but in my humble opinion, they are well worth it!  The interchangeable's are great because you can change the hook size and/or the cable size for your project.  In the picture above I have nearly 200 loops on the hook & cable; by moving the loops down the cable I disperse the weight of the work.  {{both the Dyak Craft & the Denise interchangeables are made in the USA!!}}


The interchangeables are also good for the "amazing needle" (aka knooking) technique, and the crochet-on-the-double technique.  If you're not sure what these techniques are, visit my website at www.CrochetWithDee.com and check out my Crochet Types & Techniques page.

Maybe now is a good time to put an interchangeable crochet hook set on your Holiday Wish List.  :)

Sincerely,
~Dee

Hello, I'm a Beadaholic and my name is ...

As a very young child I always loved when my mother decided to clean out her jewelry box as she would pass the treasures she no longer wanted to me.  Usually this meant pierced earrings with various beaded assortments relevant to the then fashion trends.  Being one of the few kids on the block without pierced ears, this would mean that my Barbie dolls would inherit them.  I'm not sure what happened to all those treasures mom gave to me, but I do recall all the many hours I spent adorning my dolls with them -- not just their ears, but in hanging them off various garments too.

Through the years, that fascination with bling-y bead stuff never left me.   In all seriousness, I can understand why Manhattan sold for $24 worth of beads; I think I would have sold it for the beads too.  Today, I still collect Barbies, and  I still love playing with beads -- just not together (Barbie has enough stuff thankyouverymuch!).  Now I pass on the tradition of cleaning out my own jewelry box, handing down various items I no longer want to my own kids: Mini~Dee and Dee Jr. 

Sometimes items from my jewelry box never make it to their eager hands -- did I mention that I like to crochet with beads and sequins?  I do!  I will get my pliers out and enjoy a little cannibalism.  LOL  (Apparently I'm not alone in thinking various jewelry components will look great on my crochet!)  I think adding beads and sequins to crochet projects adds a little zip; a little glamour to the intended project.  Of course, from time to time I will cut corners and buy pre-beaded, or pre-sequined yarn, such as Deborah Norville's Fashion Jeweltones to save a little time ...

Recently I started to make my own beaded stitch markers, such as the ones above.  In fact, I brought two sets of my stitch markers to show at one of my Chapter meetings recently and the members all "ohhhh'd" and "awwww'd" over them. This month is Part I of our Chapter's 10th Anniversary, and next month is our Part II of the Celebration; I decided to make three sets of stitch markers:

Our CGOA Chapter is represented by 3 colors: Purple, Silver and Gold.  Purple for our passion for crochet, Silver for making new friends, and Gold for keeping the old.  I wanted to avoid creating "cliques" with the stitch markers  and encourage them to mingle, so I mixed the three sets up.  (photo credit: the hook in both pictures is a Graydog crochet hook.)  Each set is on a ring so they can be worn while working on a project (preventing the sofa from gobbling them up!)  Come this time next month, three lucky HHCC members will each win a set (hook not included).

What about you?  Do you look at your jewelry with cannibal eyes?  Does your bead stash demand nearly as much shelf space as your yarn?  If so, you're a beadaholic too!  :)