A bird in the hand…

...is worth more than…uh…a few hours of sleep?
You see, last night found me suddenly in the mood to try my hand at learning that often maligned-by-knitters fiber art of crochet. So, meet Bosc, my little beginner’s crash-course in crochet. Single chains, turning chains, increases, decreases, joining in the round…this little guy had me do them all.
I’ve been vaguely talking about learning crochet for months, ever since I was seduced by cuteness into bringing this amigurumi book (ISBN4-309026572-3) home.


So that the book would be more useful than just decorating my bookshelf, I even dutifully purchased The Happy Hooker as soon as it hit bookstores so that I could teach myself. But alas, learning crochet turned into one of those things I “really should do” and “will do someday,” and the books collected dust on my bookshelf. Whenever I had craft time, it was always easier to pick up a project in progress than try to learn something new, that is, until last night. For whatever reason, I came home after several happy hours of teaching an expecting friend to knit baby bootees and headed straight for the crochet books on the shelf. After a good hour of puzzling through the directions and diagrams in both books and some ugly false starts, I was on my way to making a little pear in Cascade 220. My size E hook that had proved amazingly ineffective in the dropped-stitch pickup capacity for which I purchased it was infinitely more useful in making a chain stitch. Gee, who would have thunk?
Bosc is inspired by the parrot pattern in the amigurumi book. I say inspired by rather than from the pattern, as I really wasn’t able to really understand it (it makes much more sense now that I have gone through the making process) and fudged a great deal. Happily, crochet seems quite amendable to fudging so the end result looks more or less like the one in the book. I had to make up something for the wing tips and tail since there was no diagram but fortunately they came out in the shapes that I wanted.



I really quite like crocheting so far. There is something very fun and satisfying about chaining my way around and around to make some spherical shape. In terms of the teaching material though, I was a bit disappointed by The Happy Hooker. The book organization is not terribly amendable to dipping in and searching for certain ways to do things. Also, the written instructions sometimes seemed more preoccupied with incorporating the trying-too-hard, pseudo-street lingo typical of the Stitch’N Bitch books than clearly explaining what to do. Still, I think it will make a decent reference, especially if the only other book I have on crochet is written in Japanese.
After finishing Bosc (and sleeping like the dead until noon today), I found myself picking up hook and yarn again to make a friend for Bosc.


Say hi to Snow.


Hmm…I seem to have developed yet another addiction.