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Pragmatic Tips to Teach Crochet, Ages 3-6

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Knitting is not the only craft that can be taught to young children.  I’ve taught young children to crochet , and I’d thought, in another part of the Tips to Teach series, I’d tell you a bit about it.  Some of these will be repeats, because I think it bears repeating, but some will be a bit different too.

Start with Double Crochet.  Double crochet has more of a rhythm, I think, than single crochet, so I think it’s easier to teach.  The way I talk about double crochet is, “Yarn over, go through the stitch, yarn over, pull through (3 loops on needle left), yarn over, pull through two (loops), yarn over, pull through two (loops).”  If you notice, between each step is a yarn over, so it’s easier for children to know which step is next.

Have them start working into a swatch you’ve done.  One of the most common problems I see when students start is that they make really tight stitches, and it’s hard to insert the hook into the stitches when you go to make the next row.  To forestall this, I make a small sample for my students to work into.  This way they can learn to identify stitches and also see how loose the stitches should be.  And if they are too tight at first?  I flip the swatch over and have them try again on the other side.

Show them both the pencil hold and the knife hold.  This is a big one.  I’ve found that teaching both handholds can often really turn the lightbulb on for a student.  Sometimes, one just feels better than the other, and sometimes the switch to something that feels more natural for the student can be all that you need to have them go from struggling to confident.

On the same vein, mention that there are two type of hooks.  A lot of people I’ve met who have been crocheting for a long time don’t realize that there are different styles of hooks.  While you don’t have to talk a long time about it, make sure your kid knows that there are two different ones, and let them try each.  A lot of people have a clear preference for one over the other.

Show kids what they are working toward.  A lot of kids can be really motivated by seeing what they are working toward.  Show them some of the patterns you can do with just a chain and a double crochet (like the v-stitch) so they know that they don’t have to just do one stitch in one stitch designs.  If the kid you are teaching grasps the concepts you are working on quickly, it can be worth teaching them things like the V-stitch (with counting and skipping spaces) before you teach them a new stitch like single crochet.

Also make note: A lot of the skills that are true for children knitting and similar skills for crochet.  While I talk about these more in this article, let me reiterate:
Make sure they’re interested.  
Keep it Short. 
Have them sit on your lap and hold the sticks with you.  
Show them several times, then have them “teach” you.  
Take turns.  
Focus on the skill, not on the result. 
Give them a small manageable project that finishes quickly. I have several listed HERE. 

Stash Sunday – Yarn Love Marianne Dashwood

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I don’t even remember where I got this one, though I love the base.  I think I got it at a destash, along with another colorway that I knit a pair of socks for my mother out of.  No project photos or pictures of the other yarn, sorry, it was a situation that just got away from me.

I love this color, and this yarn.  It’s on Marianne Dashwood, and it’s a very solid yarn with a good twist… nice sock yarn.  My mother has had not complaints that I know of about the socks I made for her out of the other skein.  I also love the title of the colorway… Belle, from Beauty and the Beast (my favorite Disney movie and favorite character.)  I love Belle because she knows when to stand up to Beast, and because she loves to read.  Best gift ever?  Beast gives her a library.  A library.  A library with ladders because the bookshelves are so tall.  How great is that?


I love the colors of this – brown like Belle’s hair, blue like the Beast’s eyes, yellow like Belle’s dress… it all just fits together.

The Deets:

Yarn weight

Sport / 5 ply (12 wpi)
Amount stashed

1 skein = 330.0 yards (301.8 m)
Purchased at

Yarn Love
Dye lot

Colorway

Belle

Farm Share Sushi

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The farm share started last week and Michael and I got our first delivery.  It was filled with delicious fruits and vegetables, which was lovely.  After we made a salad out of the greens for dinner, I was talking to Michael and I mentioned how cool it would be if he made me a sushi roll for each week of the farm share.  It would be a challenge: at least 100% of the core ingredients would have to be from things in the farm share.

This week was his first roll.
If you’ve never made sushi before, don’t be intimidated.  I’m not a fan of true sushi, with raw fish, and will just make rolls with cooked ingredients or with vegetables.  With a few supplies you can get rocking, and really, there’s no wrong way to do sushi.  It’s like sandwiches: you can put anything between the carbohydrates, and in some combination, it will probably taste good.
If you are looking for a good tutorial, go to this tutorial by Pioneer Woman.  She’s got it spot on (with the exception of not being able to make sushi on the stovetop.  I do it, and you just need to practice a little bit more than with a rice cooker.)
Disclaimer: These rolls are not like the normal recipes I sometimes talk about.  They aren’t heavily tested, which means the results can sometimes be interesting.  But it’s fun.
Week 1 Sushi Recipe

Sauce (mix them together)
1 tsp mayo
1 dash coriander
1 pinch sugar
1 splash soy sauce
Inside of Roll
2 strawberries
1 raddish, sliced into sticks
1 handful peas, fresh
1 green onion

Place items evenly along roll, in a pleasing manner.  Roll the sushi, and slice.  Serve and eat soon after.

What were my thoughts on this roll?  With the peas and the Strawberries, this could definitely be more of a desert roll instead of a dinner roll.  The sauce was good, but wasn’t quite the match I was thinking of.  I also think the sauce would have been better served over the roll, and that it would have looked better, presentation-wise, if it had been served inside-out, with the rice on the outside and the seaweed wrap on the inside.  Overall, pretty good.

Do you like sushi?  What non-standard rolls have you encountered that you’ve enjoyed?

Stash Sunday – Three Irish Girls Beachtown Mini Skeins

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I have a lot of Three Irish Girls in my Stash.  It’s not surprising, because The Yarn Spot is one of its carriers, but I was collecting it even before I moved to Maryland.  Let’s just be frank: Sharon knows her stuff.

These Beachtown Mini Skeins go with a normal Skein of Beachtown I have.  I dunno if I’ll be using them together, but the colors are pretty typical of my palette.

Do you find yourself trending back to a particular color combination, or set of colors?  Most people do, but I’m not sure if everyone does.

Anyway, the Deets:

Yarn weight

Fingering / 4 ply (14 wpi)
Amount stashed

2 skeins = 860.0 yards (786.4 m)
Purchased at

The Yarn Spot in Wheaton, Maryland
Dye lot

Colorway

Beach Town Mini Skeins

Train Trips and Stitching

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I’m working on another design that’s under contract, which
is why I haven’t been posting many progress photos recently… gotta keep it
under wraps. 
Riding on the train is prime knit and crochet time for
me.  It’s partly because there’s few
distractions.  It’s partly because
something about the movement of the train. 
And it is partly because I can turn on the music, look down at the work,
and get into the zen mode.
On the way down I’ve finished the sleeve to the contracted
project, worked a little on a vest that was hibernating and I’ve dug back out,
and also worked on another square for the log cabin blanket of alternative
techniques.
Basically, I’ve been using the log cabin blanket to work out
some different ideas.  And stashbust.
I’m starting to brainstorm for the final shawl of the four
shawls I’ll be releasing in the next year. 
We’re going toward the winter one. 
I have to balance my desire to just drape a blanket over my shoulders in
the winter with something that is wearable and flattering.  We’ll see what comes out.
What have you been working on lately?

Six Week Saga

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It’s no secret that I’m not the best cook.  I’m not the worst, but if given my druthers, I’d let Michael do all the cooking, and I’d (mostly) happily do the dishes.  I’m prone to intuitive jumps in logic sometimes, which serves me well in knit or crochet… no so much in cooking.  That’s how you get meatballs that are no longer meatballs and turkeyloaf you can pour out of a pan.  (My philosophy for a long time with cooking was if I didn’t understand a step, I’d just skip it.  Hey, as long as it was cooked, it really didn’t matter how it got there, right?  Right?)

But the next six weeks Michael is going to be in in intense summer courses, which means Monday through Thursday I am responsible for the cooking, even on nights I get home late… because Michael will be getting home later.  *wince*  So before this week Michael and I sat down to brainstorm meals we could freeze, prepare before-time, and have ready to go.  That way I’m not tempted to take shortcuts that won’t work or make a mistake because I’m tired.

So… anyone have any good freezer-ready meals, or things that we can do and prep beforehand?  Anything would be good.

Air Plants

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Okay, brief little weirdness.  I like growing strange things.  Right now, I’m trying to propagate lichen with my tree, and I’ve been known to grow a mean batch of mushrooms.  Chances are, if I like a plant, it’s got an 80% chance of being a type of bromeliad.  That’s just how I roll.

Lately though, I’ve been wanting to grow some air plants, also known as tillandsia (which are actually a type of bromeliad).  They absorb their nutrients through the AIR, which is really cool.  They don’t really need their roots as anything other than the means to hold onto wherever they grow.  Heck, this is one step better than hydroponics!   These things don’t even need DIRT.

THESE

Which means you can do what I really want to do, which is to get some of

… and then get some of

THESE

Glue them together with water insoluble glue.  And then stick them on my magnetic closet doors.

How cool would that be?

Travel, Alone/Lonely, Random Bits, Driving a Manual!

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Michael is traveling for work.  Sometime around my senior year of college I realized I really wasn’t a person that did well living alone.  Now, this is not to say I dislike having alone time.  Being the oldest of four children, I used to beg my mother for some time to play when I did not have to share.  But I always knew I could go back and play with my siblings, or someone.  When I went off to camp I shared a cabin with 7 other girls, and there was always someone to play with.  When I moved to college I had room mates.

That is, until my senior year, when I got a single.  Michael, who I had been dating for a year and a half at the time, was away at sea, and I for various reasons was not as proximal to my friends as I was used to. (Is proximal a word?  If not, I’m pulling a Shakespeare).  I loved being able to set up my room however I wanted for about a week and a half.  Then I kinda just fell apart.  Without a room-mate there really wasn’t anyone to say “maybe you should go to bed” or “maybe you should eat.”  There was no social pressure to shower regularly.  I went to classes because I was a rule follower and because there was social pressure to go to class, but for a semester I was terribly lonely.  It was awful, and it was about then that I realized I really wasn’t happy living alone.  It also took a while for me to develop coping mechanisms to be able to live alone, which involved numerous alarms to remind me to eat, sleep and wake up.

I was so happy when Michael, and many of my other friends the grade below me, finally came back from abroad.  My second semester went much better, especially because Michael practically lived in my room more than his.

Which basically means that when Michael travels, I wander around the apartment looking rather lost.  It helped before we moved that I had a room mate that would basically take me under her wing while he was gone, but now I just sit home alone, and well, it’s kinda sad.  Normally the second or third day I’ll remember how to live alone, but there’s always an adjustment period.

I also have been known to just eat raw veggies and fruit and yogurt and corn while he is gone.  Which is kinda embarrassing.  But really, I don’t even want to eat my own cooking.

~~~

On a brighter note: I drove to the post office and back in the Manual, and only stalled once, in the parking lot, which practically doesn’t even count.  Didn’t stall out or roll back on any of the hills.  And the other day?  I drove across town for an errand by myself.  Be impressed.  This is hard work, when you learned to drive an automatic.

EDIT:  Just to clarify.  I first learned to drive an automatic.  Now I can drive an automatic AND a manual.

Weekend Ravels

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At our house, we have a grand tradition of Game Nights.  We hold them about once a month, and a select group of individuals are invited to indulge in popcorn and lemonade (in the summer) or tea (in the winter).  A good time is had by all, probably because the house rules dictate you must wear a silly hat.

This month we’ve been lucky enough to host two Game events, which included my birthday and also our yearly Formal (where we make all of our friends dress up fancy and we pretend we’re classy by eating finger foods and drinking wine.  Then we ruin the effect by playing rousing games of catch phrase and telephone pictonary).

If you’ve never tried it, you should.

Silly hats rock.

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