Some Crochet Experiments And A Bad Dog

I often see a stitch combination/pattern or a pictured project which instantly inspires me to pick up my hook and yarn.  Sometimes – a few times – I find something so great for me that I make it into something larger or make more than one.  Most of the time, I’m not so impressed with the looks of the project that I create.  That is probably more a factor of my own lack of design expertise or color selection or a hundred other things rather than a failure on the part of the person who designed the piece that grabbed my attention.

Clockwise from lower left:

pale salmon fisherman’s scarf in worsted weight acrylic

DC ripple with variegated baby yarn and some lime green yarn

sock yarn fingerless mitts (more on these later)

infinity scarf in variegated blue/green worsted weight yarn

DC double circle in green variegated acrylic (meant to circle the neck twice)

Making a scarf is a great way for me to try out a stitch pattern.  It’s not such an investment of time or yarn or money if it doesn’t turn out as anticipated.  Smaller projects are nice that way.  So, here you see some of my scarf experiments.  There are lots more.  Most of them wind up as gifts, especially if I discover a friend has a particular weakness for a color that I’ve worked with.  I like orange, for instance, but it doesn’t like me very much.  My mom loves orange, so she is often the recipient of a piece that contains orange.  Why, you may well ask, do I continue to crochet with orange yarn if I won’t wear it.  Well, it’s a great color to use to make other colors pop.  I think it’s second only to black in that way.  And, I am gifted a great deal of yarn – which I never turn down.  LOL.  So, I get perhaps more than my share of orange.  Right now, I have 4 large skeins of orange mohair yarn.  Gotta come up with a good idea for it……

This scarf is one of my few experiments with Tunisian.  I loved Kim Guzman’s Tunisian Short Row scarf but was not very successful crocheting it.  The way the colors worked out in this experiment mimic Kim’s short rows in Tunisian.

Another reason to make scarves and fingerless mitts in easy care fibers (usually acrylic or superwash wool) – I walk every day, almost always outdoors, and get a lot of scarves pretty sweaty.  I don’t want to ‘baby’ these scarves.  They get hard use and must hold up well in the washer and dryer.  I reserve prissier yarns (Can a yarn be described as prissy?  Yes!  I just did!) for my dressier scarves which I don’t mind hand washing and laying flat to dry.  Just not these experiments!

See those nice fingerless mitts in that picture?  They’re some of my favorites!  Sadly, a very bad dog decided she liked them too.  It’s not that clear in this picture.  She chewed through the seam on the side where the thumb hole is on the top one.  I think I can fix them since they’re not fancy.  Bad dog!

Looking for more Crochet patterns using the Ripple stitch check these out on Etsy?

Looking for pet supplies, toys, food or gift ideas? Check these out.