I just ordered a Granny Square Afghan off e-bay

Why? I could have crocheted it myself.

I actually do like making blankets.  But in this case, the blanket is so I can quickly have ready made squares and color coordinating yarn to do a lot of demonstration photos.

I'm planning a Crochet Design Series for the New to Crochet Crafter/Designer

I wanted to call this person the Young Crochet Designer, but age is not the point.  There is something about crochet that makes people feel new, rebellious, like diving in and going off-pattern.  It has the potential to make any dabbler think like a designer, whether they want to write patterns or not.   I like that mindset.  I want to encourage people to think about the design process, alterations, and good fit.  And I’d like to demonstrate the steps to alterations and good fit for as a supplement for the folks who feel nervous about it all, not inspired.

Crochet gives a piece so quickly compared to knitting weaving, or sewing, and that piece can be tried on and altered rapidly.  There is no loop, frame, or long needles to poke the model as they try on the garment!  The craft itself is flexible, stitches may be placed in a stitch, the front or back loop or a stitch, the back bump, around the post to front or back, in the side of a stitch, in a gap between stitches, in a loop of chains…and I’m probably missing something from my list!  This flexibility of work and rapid creation of a piece ready to try on can make short cycles of experiment – the basis of good design.  My engineer husband calls it iteration.

I hope to show how these cycles can be short, cheap, cheerful, and lead to wonderfully fitting sweaters.  Either designed in the whole by yourself, or tweaked from someone else’s pattern.

My plan is to Frog the border and kit bust the Squares

It should arrive at the end of this week.  I rather hope the original worker crocheted the pieces together so that I can take them apart easily, and that he or she is forgiving of my use of his or her work!  I picked an afghan with pretty colors.

If you want to join me, you will need enough square motifs to make a front, back and short sleeves.  There will need to be about two skeins of yarn that coordinates with the squares for the yoke.  We will need a large swatch of double crochet, about 8 inches square.  This is going to be used as a ruler in a lot of places.

I want to quickly demonstrate some techniques any crocheter could add to a dropped shoulder to customize the fit of the sweater.  Once you understand how the body and sweater interact, the mystery of fit will float away.

The other Experiments