Week 1: The First Week of #52weeksofcrochet
This week I went from magic circle success to tangled yarn defeat. When I saw TL Yarn Crafts’ tutorial for making her Fireside Basket, I immediately wanted to make one for myself. It’s a simple but elegant home decor piece that’s also a good beginner project. I decided this would be a great project to start during the holidays and I one that would be fun to start over the holidays. Toni of TL Yarn Crafts is an excellent teacher and her instructions for the magic ring are the clearest I’ve found. Go check out TL Yarn Crafts.
Getting Started
The body will be in the Lion Brand’s Hue + Me Mustard and the detail will be in in the same brand in Bellini and I’m currently using a Clover Amour crochet hook in 9.00 mm (M/N-13) for the main body. The instructions say I’ll eventually need a 6.5 mm (J-10.5) hook for the detail. I bought everything from JoAnn. I used the app to order the yarn and hooks I needed and everything was available to pick up at the two locations I selected. In store pick-up was a smart decision because when I visited JoAnn on the day before Christmas Eve and a Friday, I found that the roads were especially busy and the stores were low on stock because of holiday shopping. Thankfully, there are two stores in my near vicinity so between those two locations, I was able to find and purchase everything I needed to get started.
Progress So Far
The first few days of the project were great. Smooth sailing. Toni’s instructions were so clear and easy to follow. I got into a rhythm of counting and marking my progress. It was perfect for my holiday binge of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I felt confident and proficient at the required stitches so I was able to concentrate on how I’m holding the hook and the tension on the yarn. Then I hit a snag.
Tangled Yarn
The yarn is doubled so I pulling from both ends. This means that to reach one of the ends, I have to pull out the center of skein. This easily tangled. The first skein was fine, but soon into the second skein the tangles got out of control and whatever I did made it worse. It soon became demoralizing.
(By the way, this is my very first YouTube video. It’s very simple and unedited. I didn’t even add an intro or filter or anything to it. Thanks for joining me on this ride!)
Ugh. So Finally, I was able to untangle the massive ball of mess. It took about two hours and the stubbornness of a friend to unravel the ball of tangled yarn. We ended up cutting the yarn so I could reattach the yarn once entangled or join a new skein. Currently I have the yarn wrapped around two PVC tubes that have art prints rolled up inside, but they are perfect for holding my yarn until I figure out how to keep it from tangling again. I’ll need to use it eventually.
With tangled yarn behind me, I hope to pick up momentum this week. I’m considering whether crochet will be like reading. I typically have 5-10 books in progress at any given time, plus an audiobook or two. If it is, then there’s a sweater that I have in mind that would be perfect for Valentine’s.