This past week I spent a bit of time getting a handle on the magic circle and I feel fairly confident with it now. I made a few small little projects, including 4 different patterns of hearts that I found on Instagram and TikTok.
At this point I felt like it was time to start my first amigurumi. If you read my first post, you may remember that the kit I have contained 3 animals. A frog, a penguin and an owl.
I decided to start with the frog. Well, truth be told, I had already started the frog over the Christmas holidays. I didn’t want to frog my frog. (Click here for a reminder of what frogging is in crochet). I headed out to Michaels and purchased some more green yarn that I thought was the same weight.
Two (or three) Surprises off the ‘hop’
Surprise number one, I discovered that the frog doesn’t start with a magic circle. It starts a different way and continues in something called “crocheting in the round”.
This was surprise number two. Crocheting in the round is not straight forward and watching many YouTube videos actually doesn’t help cause they all say the same thing in the same way that I still do not understand.
As I crocheted around and around, my frog was getting fatter and fatter. 32 stitches around became 54 stitches around. I frogged this frog. I frogged this frog a lot. Here is an example of instructions:
For single crochet (sc), after sl-st join and ch-1, you want to sc into the same space that was just joined with the slip-stitch.
Oh boy. I turned to the Ravelry community which has become the part of my PLN that I lean on the most. Within 30 minutes I had many replies and one lady created this amazing drawing! And (perhaps surprise number three) I actually understand it!
Reading a Crochet Pattern and Surprise Number Four
In my last post I provided some of the symbols for crochet patterns, and it turns out there is a lot more to it than just a string of symbols.
Here is a screenshot of the pattern that came with my frog. I won’t go into detail about what it means, but I am happy to report I am gaining crochet literacy.
Surprise number four is that the yarn I bought for the frog is NOT the same weight, and despite using the same hook size, this new frog will be massive.
Still cute though.
My plan is to continue on with my little amigurumi buddies and hopefully start to see some straighter rows, more even tension and less frogging.
This is great! I like to crochet blankets while I’m sitting on the couch, but I never did understand any of the crochet lexicon when I’d look for patterns. I always opt for YouTube videos and then slow them down as much as humanly possible to figure out what to do next.
How have you been finding following the written directions vs. video? Maybe it’s time I finally learn the lingo…
Can’t wait to see your frog!
Hi Jenni, Thanks for your comment. I find the videos very helpful to learn a type of stitch. But with a project that changes stitches throughout the row, I need to rely on the pattern..I’ve had to ask a few questions for interpretation, but there has always been someone to reply quickly with a great answer. I look forward to doing a blanket one day. What is. your favourite stitch?
Wow, so these patterns all look like nonsense to me, so considering that I feel like you are doing phenomenal! I can’t wait to see your massive frog. I can resonate with you asking your crochet community for help, sometimes I will do that for my sourdough and the responses are so incredibly helpful! Sometimes a human response to an immediate problem you are facing is your best bet! Thanks for being vulnerable and sharing your journey! Keep it up.
These are looking really good! I actually had a student make me a heart that was similar to the one you made and I have it hanging on my keychain. This also reminds me of the one video we watched last week where they were placing kindness hearts around the world for people to find. I thought this was really cool. Now that I am looking at your project I think incorporating this into PAA and turning it into a kindness activity as well might be a project I use in the future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrnoElVEUTA
Keep up the good work.
Karissa 🙂