All Kinds of Baby Equipment

Crochet Size

How to Crochet Slinky Coils for Accessories or Dolls

Coils are easy to crochet and can be used to make many different accessories and toys. Remember those cute toy dolls with arms and legs like springs.

Different yarns produce different sizes of coils. Use cotton thread, metallic thread or baby yarn to make very thin, delicate coils. Use several thin coils of the same or many different colours to use as Accessories; purse handles, belts, necklace chains, gift wrap ties.

1. Crochet a chain about 5 times as long as you wish your finished coil.

2. Make three stitches in each single crochet; your choice of stitch will determine your width; double or half double crochet stitch.

3. As you work, coil the curls.

4. Bind off.

Wide coils can be assembled to create a Toy Doll using a larger hook (No. 4 or 5) and 4-ply or chunky yarn.

1. Crochet a chain about 5 times as long as you wish your finished coil. (doll body requires about 100 ch (20 rings).

2. Make three stitches in each single crochet; your choice of stitch will determine your width; double for body or half double crochet stitch for arms and legs.

3. As you work, coil the curls.

4. Bind off and run 2 or 3 strand of wool down the middle of the coils to secure; not too tight or they will not be “springy”.

5. To crochet a head, chain 3 and join to form a circle. Two single crochet in each stitch around until you have a circle twice the size of the head size you wish. Bind off. Make another half head and join together.

6. Embroider or paint a face. Add yarn hair if you wish.

Tips:

Use any type of cotton thread or yarn.

Experiment with large and small hooks.

Your doll can be very large or very small by using more or less rings.

If you find you want more rings, simply bind off the last ring; make another chain and tie to the end of the finished ring.

Warning:

Be careful not to add or drop a stitch.

Always leave enough yarn at the end to sew your pieces together.

About the Author

Karens Variety is a craft patterns retail site, http://www.karensvariety.com with a large selection of new and used crochet, knitting, needlework, cross stitch, plastic canvas, tatting, embroidery, macrame, dolls and sewing patterns, craft books and PDF reproductions of vintage patterns and pattern books. Learn more by visiting the site Newsletter. Enter the monthly Contest

Some Crochet Lessons to Stitch

Learning to start making your own garments in a pleasurable way is one of the best things that you can do in your entire life. And the best thing about that is you can feel proud every time you see your friends or relatives wear your masterpiece.

In the same way, crocheting is more than just stitches and yarns. It is, basically, a wonderful activity that almost everybody would love to engage in. Who would not? With all those “calming effect” and sense of fulfillment, learning crochet lessons is the ultimate way to hone your skill.

Contrary to most popular beliefs, learning crochet lessons is not that hard. In fact, in order to get you going, all you need is a good crochet hook, yarns, measuring tape, yarn needle, and some even pins.

The Yarn

Once the equipments are complete, the next thing you have to do is to learn how to hold the yarn.

For people who are absolutely newbie when it comes to sewing in general, holding a yarn could be tricky. Even if it only takes some time of getting used to, it is still important to know the proper way to hold it.

Here is how:

1. Hold the yarn in such a way that you will let it pass through your fingers. The sequence would be: little finger—beneath the ring finger—above the forefingers and the middle fingers.

2. You can also hold the yarn by looping the yarn in the region of the little finger, and allow it to cross the forefinger.

3. In holding the hook, it would be better to hold it the way you hold a spoon or a pencil. In this way, it would be easier for you to heave the yarn from your fingers down to your “loop in the hook.”

These are just the basics. Hence, one should always keep in mind that holding the yarn is actually a matter of partiality. So it would be better to always try your preferred position until you feel comfortable doing it.

Identifying the Size of Hook and Yarns

One of the most important crochet lessons that you must learn is on how to identify the right yarn and hook sizes.

Keep in mind that the sizes, whether it is for the hook or the yarn, pertains to the breadth and depth of the item. For instance, the dimension of the hook is specified using different letters. It can also be some numbers, while there are cases wherein hook’s size may use both the numbers and the letters.

In order for you to be able to identify which hook size is appropriate to use, always keep in mind that in crocheting, the higher the letter or number, it simply means that the hook size is getting thicker.

On the other hand, identifying the heaviness of the yarn is also the same as the thickness of the yarn. But unlike the hook size, the yarn size is indicated by a name.

Decreasing and Increasing

In learning crochet lessons, it is also important to learn how to decrease and increase the breadth and depth of the project or pattern.

If you want to decrease the width a project, deduct some stitches. This can be done by skipping a stitch in a row, and then stitch into the next. On the other hand, in order to increase the thickness, all you have to do is to insert more stitches in a row. This can be done by joining two stitches of the same row together in order to come up with a solo stitch on the next row prior to it.

Pattern Reading

It is extremely important for a crochet maker to learn how to read the abbreviations in the pattern. This involves a little time because you have to memorize all of the terms and abbreviations in the pattern.

Knowing them would simply facilitate your process and would make your work faster. It can be very time consuming if you keep on looking back at your guidelines just to know the meaning of a certain abbreviation.

The bottom line is that crochet lessons are significant things that every crochet maker should do. Incorporating them into your work would absolutely make your life making different crochets a lot better.

About the Author

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