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Beatrice Ryan Designs Crochet-A-Long Afghan… Week 3

I know I am having a great time seeing all the great CAL projects coming to life… Our Facebook “Show and Tell” has been a blast…Thank you all for posting your projects!  Week 1 & Week 2 are now complete,,, We have 8 Granny Squares joined together and the first 2 rows completed around!!! Now to some fun stitching…

This week we will continue to work around our afghan with some fun textural stitching… Don’t worry… The next few rows are easy and I have some pictures for you to guide you!!!!  And, I will be asking you to count your stitches at the end of your rows… This will be very important to keep your afghan in a nice even rectangular shape!!!

Week 3 CAL Instructions:

Stitches:

Sl St – Slip Stitch     Ch – Chain     Hdc – Half Double Crochet     Trc – Triple Crochet

Twisted Stitch – This is a combination of 2 Trc crossed over each other.  See Picture 2 for tutorial

*Tip:   It will be very important to count your stitches and write down how many you have top, bottom and both sides.  You should have the same “even” number of stitches on the top and bottom… and the same “even” number of stitches on the Right and Left sides.

*Tip:  When working on Row 3 using the Twisted Stitches, make sure you are using all the stitches by double checking your stitch  count.  So if you have 94 Hdc stitches on the top from row 2,,, You will have 47 Twisted Stitch Sets or 94 Trc that cross over each other in pairs.  See picture below.

Using one of your non neutral yarn colors, Join with Sl St to any “even” stitch from row 2 (See Picture 1)

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Row 3:     Ch 4(Counts as Trc now and throughout), Trc in Previous stitch to create a Twisted Stitch Pair.( See Picture 2).* Skip next stitch, Trc in next stitch, Trc in Previous stitch(skipped stitch) to form Twisted Stitch Pair.  Repeat Twisted Stitch Pairs across to corner. 5 Trc in corner space*. Repeat * * around to past last corner. Continue with  Twisted Stitch Pairs until you reach the beginning Twisted Stitch Pair. Join to top of Ch 4. Finish off.

Twisted Stitch

Twisted Stitch Pair Photo Tutorial

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Photo of  Row 3 Corner

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Photo of Afghan with Row 3 Complete

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Row 4:   With Neutral Color join with Sl St in any stitch.  Ch 2 (Counts as Hdc), Hdc in each stitch around, Making 3 Hdc’s in the center stitch of each corner, (this will be in the 3rd Trc stitch in the previous round). Join with Sl St to Ch 2 and finish off.  * Make sure your stitch count has the same number of stitches on the top/bottom and also the same number of stitches on the right/left. This will be important to keep the afghan in an even rectangle.

Row 5:   Change yarn colors to any Non-Neutral Color and join with Sl St to an “even” numbered stitch (Same as row 3).  Ch 4(Counts as Trc now and throughout), Trc in Previous stitch to create a Twisted Stitch Pair.( See Picture 2).* Skip next stitch, Trc in next stitch, Trc in Previous stitch(skipped stitch) to form Twisted Stitch Pair.  Repeat Twisted Stitch Pairs across to corner. 3 Trc in corner space(this will be in the 2nd Hdc corner stitch from row 4)*. Repeat * * around to past last corner. Continue with  Twisted Stitch Pairs until you reach the beginning Twisted Stitch Pair. Join to top of Ch 4. Finish off.  *This round you should have 3 more Twisted Stitch Pairs on each side of your afghan from your previous count in row 3.   (For example: I had 47 Twisted Stitch Pairs on the top and bottom when I completed row 3, Now, for row 5-I have 50 Twisted Stitch Pairs and on the right/left sides I had 22 Twisted Stitch Pairs when row 3 was complete and now have 25 Pairs for row 5.)

Row 6: With Neutral Color, Join with Sl St to any stitch.  Ch 2 (Counts as Hdc),* Hdc across to corner stitch (This will be the 2nd Trc in corner from Row 5), 3 Hdc in corner St*.  Repeat* * around to beginning Ch2. Join with Sl St to Ch 2. finish off.

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Week 3

Week 3 progress Picture

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Wk 3 corner

Week 3 Progress-Corner

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You now have completed Week 3… Congratulations!!!!  I hope you love your afghan to this point… Next week we will be using some new stitches and having some more fun!!

Happy Crocheting…

Elena

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Throw Back Thursday Crochet… The love of doilies!!

Last week I showed you a beautiful afghan my Grandmother Beatrice Ryan Ramshaw had made for her sister-in-law…  I loved pulling it out and wrapping up in it… Great memories of my Great Aunt and my Grandmother!!

This week I pulled out a small part of my Doily Collection…  She was known for her thread work and I remember many times watching her work on a doily or tablecloth!  When I was growing up, I would get to spend the night with my cousin at our Grandmothers house… She watched Big Time Wrestling and Crocheted…  Our treat was 7 up and Mothers Chocolate Chip Cookies…  We played dress up with her fur coats and beautiful dresses and we even were allowed to try on her gorgeous costume jewelry!  Great memories!!  So here are just a few of those doilies I inherited…

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I use these doilies all around the house… I may have up to 50 of her doilies in my collection!!!  I do love working with thread… Just a month ago I found a beautiful ball of Peacock colored thread and whipped up my own doily…  I thought of her so much while I was working on it!!!

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Love this color!!! I would love to make a table runner out of this thread… Wouldn’t that be beautiful??

 

What about you??  Have you worked with thread…and if you have what have you made… Any tablecloths,,, table runners or doilies?

 

Happy Crocheting….

Elena

Wednesday Facebook Fan Favorite…Week 24

Have you ever thought of your crochet season??  That’s when you tend to crochet more… mine is September-April… That’s not saying I don’t crochet the rest of the year… But, those colder months I have some sort of desire to work on things that keep me warm!!  I can see that in our Facebook Fan Favorite Series...  Each week over the last few months, there has been way more of you talking about and sharing these Daily Free Pattern finds…   This weeks winner had almost 2000 comments, likes and views all on its own… And many of the other weekly finds had close to the same!!  So here is the weekly Facebook Fan Favorite…

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Patchwork Purse by Patons

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Patchwork seems to be a hot trend this winter and if you are a bag/purse collector this stylish  design may be just right for you!

If you are new to our Facebook segment,,,  Each day I present a Daily Free Pattern Find that I have found while browsing the internet…  The winner is selected by your views, comments, likes and shares!  Also, Past segments (and there are tons of Free Patterns) are stored in my Facebook Photo Library…  There are now 2 Photo Albums for this series,,, One album for 2013 Free Pattern Finds and a new 2014 Album…

CAL News:

We are having so much fun working on our Crochet-A-Long!!!!  Last Friday on our Facebook “Show and Tell”, There were so many beautiful pictures posted…  I have had a sneak peek already of a few week two projects… love them!!!  It isn’t to late to join in the fun,,, Week 1 and 2 pattern sections are posted in the Crochet-a-Long tab at the top of the page and are easily completed…

Also you can follow along with the other 118 members over on Ravelry… And we have our own Pinterest Page just for our CAL progress pictures… Hop over and check all the great pictures out!!!  If you would like to post your CAL pictures on the pinterest page,,, Just shoot me an email to [email protected] and I will have an invite sent by Pinterest for you to join in…

How is your CAL afghan coming along??  Mine is lovely so far… and I think you are going to LOVE week 3 pattern section!!!

Happy Crocheting…

Elena

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