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Beach House Stripes Afghan | Free Pattern | Part II – Finishing Touches
I thought this day would never come. The last stripe done. The border in order. It took longer than I expected to get the look I wanted. But it’s finally finished. And, in my not-so-humble opinion, it’s a success! Find Part I here. I got the idea for doing a bean stitch border while working a stripe of bean stitch in another afghan. After the first 2 rows, I looked at it and thought, “Oh,… read more
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Honeycomb Crochet Pillow Covers
Once upon a time, I bought some lovely bedding only to discover I do not like comforters. Fast forward to new crochet adventures, I made pillow covers that were so pretty I ended up buying new pillows to match. read more
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A Fresh Take on Diamond Stitch | A Crochet Tutorial
When working on the pattern for my Sampler Squares afghan, I wanted a square with separated rows of diamond stitch. As always, it took a few tries to make it look right. But I couldn’t be more pleased with the results. I’d like to share what I did that’s different from the classic diamond stitch. And we’ll take a step by step journey through creating the diamond shapes. Understanding the stitch can be a bit… read more
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Beach House Stripes Afghan Part IA
In the post, I write up the details how I solved the problem with drape that I ran into using bamboo/cotton yarn with a 4.5mm hook. Included are an overview, and step-by-step guide with photos. read more
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A Scarf Named Genevieve | Free Crochet Pattern
Last Christmas I wanted to make my daughter a decorative scarf. It worked out well, so I’d like to share with you. After looking around for ideas, I decided on the style of this pin. I’ve seen charts for similar designs, and this is my favorite. It’s beginner friendly in every way, with a yarn that will work up quickly. If that’s what you want, I encourage you to head on over to the web… read more
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Beach House Stripes Afghan Part I: Free Pattern (No-Sew)
Skill Level: Easy | Step by Step Guide – Photos – Crochet Charts. Friends, I’ve decided to take a break from designing, and just enjoy my crochet time. Not really so much a break from designing as from writing patterns for other people. The writing everything down, the picture taking, double-checking counts, testing, etc, read more
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Reinforced Fantail for Cotton Bamboo Yarn | Easy Crochet
The Fantail stitch is a quick and beautiful crochet stitch. Sounds great, right? Yup, it is great. I don’t even know how many times I’ve used it. Unfortunately, fantail doesn’t work terribly well with non-elastic yarns. Cotton and rayon fibers (for example) have little-to-no elasticity. How do I know? Yup, I tried it. As an aside, there are other factors that play into elasticity, but fiber content has the largest effect. So What’s the difference?… read more
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Loaded Fantails – Lots of Double Crochet!
If you already know you want to use these, you can jump to the instructions. I love the fantail stitch, and use it all the time. In a couple of recent projects, I decided to use this stitch with a couple of variations. Why make changes to something good? Well for one thing, I wanted to use it on a bed of stitches that wasn’t a chain. I found a ton of videos and tutorials… read more
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Crochet Howto: Spiked Puff Stitch Tutorial
A while back, while working out the stitches for my Sampler Squares Afghan I played around with some variations on a spiked puff stitch. My goal was to make something relatively simple, that you didn’t need to do a lot of stitch marking for. I came up with a very simple one that didn’t require pulling through crazy numbers of loops, which I wrote in the pattern. The key to finding the hook insertion points… read more
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Free Crochet Pattern-ette | Little Flowers Stripe
After releasing my pattern booklet for the Christmas ornaments, I’m back to working on my daughter’s striped sampler blanket. Let’s hope I can get it done in time to give it to her for Christmas! Here’s what it looks like right now. I pretty much love the most recent pattern row. I’ve seen things like it that have lots of open space. Since this blanket is meant to be cozy, I was wanting a row… read more
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