craftiness and such

[saffronhare]

Okay. So I've achieved some proficiency with the going-back-and-forth for knitting (knit and purl stitches) and crochet (single crochet and double crochet). This pleases me greatly, since it's taken me...oh, like 30 years to finally be able to crochet. I'd like to learn maybe one more crochet stitch -- perhaps shells or some sort of "flying V," because I like the name -- and then it'll be time to learn how to read a fecking pattern.

UPDATE: As it turns out, I may have been doing double crochet stitches at least partway wrong. The rows I worked on last night are still a very pretty assemblage of obsessive slip-knotting, so perhaps I was doing some other mysterious stitch entirely. (shrug) I could just make an afghan comprised of squares along the "what happens when I do it like this?" theme.

Any advice or links that would be useful? I seem to learn best with step-by-step visual instructions and then doing it to match the illustrations, though watching a real person is often helpful. Thanks!

Comments

Yay.

[saffronhare.livejournal.com]

A treble? You know, it's pretty funny that sc means you do things twice/in twos, and dc means you do things thrice/in threes. Is treble just another magnitude, or a different technique entirely? And what is this lock stitch of which you speak?

I did not yet succeed in duplicating the flowery granny thing you showed me, but watching you was a big factor in finally figuring out sc and dc. Thanks!

Re: Yay.

[fionnabhar.livejournal.com]

A treble is exactly the same, except that you yarn over (yo) twice and pull through by twos an extra time. It makes a long, lacier looking row of stitches.