Sophie’s Universe

In August it will be my daughter and son-in-law’s seventh wedding anniversary. I read somewhere that that the seventh wedding anniversary is: Wool – I translated that to yarn, and decided to make them a big blanket.

I had previously bought Dedri Uys‘ book: Sophie’s Universe and my daughter liked the look of the blanket.

The book is written using Scheepjes yarn (Stonewashed XL in 50g balls ~75m), but I decided to use Stylecraft Aran (in 100g balls ~196m) instead.

I hunted round the Internet for colour suggestions and yarn quanities, nona made crochet had a post with suggested colours and amounts for Stylecraft Aran. She suggested Cream for the background but I thought Parchment worked better. She also suggested using Lemon where I preferred Pistachio, but otherwise I thought her colours spot on.

I wasn’t too sure about the suggested amounts of yarns, so I tried to calculate it myself, based on yarn lengths:

I had underestimated the Parchment – and ended up using 11 *100g. All the other colours I have some left but no whole balls, and on the other hand there was plenty left so I wasn’t worried I would run out. If I make it again I will buy 12 * 100g for the background and the amounts on the list for other colours. The blanket itself weighed 2.4 kg, so I guess I have some 600g left in a mix of colours. The size is about 1.7×1.7 metres (5’6″x5’6″) which is about the same as the book suggests.

Lesson learnt: if I had calculated the amount of yarn needed based on weight I would have been closer to the amount I actually used.

For a review of the pattern book see my other blog.

Knitted Tank Tops

Previously I made the Sirdar Tank Top  for both my elder grandsons, but they have both grown. So I have made new ones for both of them, and the new grandson. When I originally made then I used the recommended yarn (Sirdar Snuggly DK), this time I used Stylecraft Special DK. Each one is a different size: The Matador red one is 4-5 years, the larger Denim blue is 2-3 years, and smaller is 1-2 years. I’ve weighed each finished top and they weigh: 126g, 129g and 95g, respectively. Now I would have expected the red one to be heavier as there are  a couple more stitches per row, and it is slightly longer. So I am now wondering if the Denim dye is heavier than the Matador? In which case I will need to revisit my earlier samples I crocheted.

Hugs and Kisses Baby Blanket

I am planning to make a baby blanket using a Ravelry pattern called “Hugs and Kisses” .

I am going to use some Stylecraft Special yarn, so in advance of starting the blanket I made a couple of samples:

The top multicoloured samples with a 4.00mm hook, while the lower one is with a 4.50mm hook, the tension/gauge across the 8 rows of the pattern (not counting the foundation chain or row 1) and 1 wave (valley to valley),  based on 2 measurements of each is:

hook size	height cms	width cms
4.00mm	7.2	13.5
4.50mm	7.5	14.0

The drape of the 4.50mm sample is better than the 4.00mm, so that is the size I will use for the project.

Waffle Stitch

I was planning to make a blanket for a toddler who likes hiding. I was looking for something robust as he will pull it around as he plays. A couple of people at my crochet group suggested Waffle Stitch. So I made a few samples, with different hook sizes, all using Stylecraft Special DK.

The 4mm hook gave a very stiff fabric – would be good for a bag but not for a blanket. The 5.5mm and 6mm ended up very similar sizes and a bit loose, while 5mm gave a good material.

So I made the blanket with the 5mm hook, and I am very pleased with it (I’ve edged it with Linen stitch).

I decided to recalculate the tension/gauge with the finished blanket and I was surprised by the measurements: stitch height 2.19cm; width 1.88cm. Similar to what I would have expected with a hook 0.5mm bigger!

There are a couple of reasons I reckoned that could cause this:

• crocheting looser as I become more use to the pattern
• the weight of the project changing the tension.

To test whether I had become looser I made another sample with the 5mm hook, that gave me: stitch height 1.84cms; width 1.81cms

Giving:

1.80 x 1.66 (original sample)

2.19 x 1.88 (blanket)

1.84 x 1.81 (final sample)

Tentatively I can conclude that with the waffle stitch heigh-wise my gauge (tension) increases by 20% when working on a big project, while width-wise my gauge increased as I became more use to the stitch.

 

 

 

 

Half Treble Tension

Carrying on with my geeky experiment I have now made 7 squares using the UK half treble stitch (that is usually abbreviated to htr it is the same as a half double crochet – hdc – in US terms).

I used the same approach to making the squares and measuring as described in Double Crochet Tension, and the same yarn (Stylecraft Special DK and KnitPro hooks).

If we ignore the square produced with 3.25mm and 5mm hooks the width and height of the stitches are more or less increasing in proportion.

The 3.25mm square does seem to be an anomaly in the stitch height it produces. I may try making another square with this hook size.

The difference between the stitch heights and width is slight when moving from 4.5mm to 5 mm hook with this stitch.

I am making more samples so there will be more geekiness coming soon!

Double Crochet Tension

I wanted to understand a bit more about my crochet tension, so as I’m a geek I decided to set up a series of experiments.

For this experiment I used Stylecraft Special DK and KnitPro Waves hooks.

I made sample double crochet squares (each about 14cm x 14cm) using: 3mm, 3.25mm, 3.5mm, 3.75mm, 4mm, 4.5mm and 5mm hooks – giving 7 squares in total.

(Note: I’m using UK term – a US single crochet (sc) is the same as my double crochet (dc))

Using my ruler and pins I measured out 10cm square and counted out the number of stitches and the number of rows. I used this to calculated the stitch width and height. I double checked my figures by counting 10 stitches and measuring that, and 16 rows and measuring that and recalculating stitch width and height, and to be certain I then repeated all my measurements/calculations. Then I graphed my results:

This shows by changing hook size:

• I make my stitches wider,
• I have varying impact on the stitch height.

I was particularly surprised that with the 3mm, 3.25mm and 3.5 mm hook there was hardly any change in height.

As part of my Swatch Sampler Project I am intending to repeat this experiment with different stitches, and probably redo the double crochet in case there was some anomaly with my stitching, the yarn or something else.