• I finished my blanket! Since Christmas i have been working on it and i’m finally done. Looking back on my journey from start to finish, I have learned a lot. I think that the single stitch I was doing is time consuming. It looks nice but takes a long time to complete a bigger project. I learned to research how much yearn you’re going to need because at your store they might sell out.  I liked working on this because it gave me something to do but also made me practice some of the simpler stitches that I don’t really want to learn.  
• I have already decided my next project is going to make a granny square blanket. I’m going to make a granny square blanket from daisy cottage design. I chose this blanket because it’s similar to what I have been learning with dishcloths. 
• This site is neat because there are a lot of free patterns and the pattern for the granny square blanket is even drawn out. There is even a video too. 

  

I’ve been keeping a secret . . . when I picked to learn how to crochet I wasn’t a complete beginner. I picked crocheting because I wanted to learn more about the types of stitches and more items I can make other than blankets. I actually started crocheting around Christmas before this class and crocheting was the perfect choice for me because I already started. Since Christmas i have been working on a blanket. I’m about to finish it and decided to share my journey on making it. Some of the things i have learned when making this blanket:

• Buy all your yarn at once because it might be gone the next time you go buy yarn. I had to use a different colour of green because there wasn’t any of the other green left. 
• Know how many balls of yarn you’re going to use (i’m down to my last ball of yarn and i’m not sure if it going to be enough)
• I learned that I’m using a half single stitch and a single stitch. I thought I wasdoing a single stitch then a double stitch but I learned I was wrong and was in fact doing a single half stitch. 

  

There is a lot more that I learned and I am glad I decided to make this blanket because it gave me experience. Since I’ll be done with this blanket in about a week, I have been recently looking up other ideas for blankets. I have been getting my ideas from Tik Toc. I used Tik Toc regularly but i have never thought to use it to look up crochet patterns. I found many good ideas on what I should try next. I found a project I liked and on their Tik Toc page there was a link to their website. The website is called Yeezhee. There are patterns and many different 3D projects that I have never seen. This website was easy to navigate and it is nice to look at. There are so many different colours and pictures that help me explore Yeezhee. 

• I got bored with dishcloths. I wanted to try something different but something I wouldn’t find too difficult. When scrolling through tik tok i decided to find my next project on this app. I was looking for beginner friendly crocheting projects that would take too long to do. I honestly was having a hard time starting anything this week because I didn’t have any motivation to crochet. I didn’t want to stray too far from dishcloths because that’s the only thing I know how to make. When looking I discovered granny squares. These squares are meant to be put together to make a blanket but I just did one for a different pattern. 
• To find the granny square I wanted I found the site Sarah Maker and showed 25 different granny squares you could make. I wanted to do one that had holes and wasn’t just a single or double stitch. Sarah maker’s site was good because there were lots of pictures and there were links to the patterns for the granny square. I like that there were lots of pictures and that the pictures were clear. The pictures showed what the granny square was supposed to look like and that helped me pick a granny square out. It also let me know how difficult the granny square might be just by looking at the picture. 

  

• The granny square I wanted to learn was called Victorian Lattice Square. When I clicked on the site where the pattern would be, it led me to this site. This site gave a pdf file for the pattern and the pdf file was easy to read for the most part. The site on the other hand was a little confusing. I didn’t like the look of the site, it is dark and doesn’t really look like a website site i would usually use. There were lots of pictures but not a lot of details explaining the granny square. I don’t think I will use this site again. 

  

This week I decided to make another dishcloth because I haven’t mastered reading patterns or even making one that looks normal. I have had a lot of ups and downs during my journey on how to crochet. I kinda got bored of making dishcloths but I didn’t want to do anything that might be too hard to make. When looking at different patterns I stumbled across a dishcloth that was round and thought it would be different from the square clothes I have been crocheting. 

What I discovered that was different about going from square shape to a circle is that you’re not going row to row. You start out different in a circle pattern, you start with something that’s called a magic circle. It was honestly quite difficult starting double stitches into the magic circle but after the twelve double stitches the pattern was easy to follow and I actually found it easier to create a round dishcloth than the square ones I have been doing. 

The site I used was Round Crochet Dishcloth Pattern. I liked this site and I found the pattern easy to read. I do wish there were more pictures though. The site had a lot of ads and almost no pictures of the round dishcloth I was making. There was a link to show how to make a Magic Circle, when I opened up this site there was lots of pictures, a video and step by step instruction. I think this helped because I have never heard or have done a magic circle before. The site was nice to look at and I liked the design of it. If there were more pictures of the cloth i was making, the site would have been perfect. 

When looking at all the sites I have used, I think that it is good to see what I like and don’t like about these sites. I liked all the links she had on her website. It made it easier to navigate her site and look at other patterns. There was also links that led to materials that you could buy. It was good to see the materials they would buy because it gave me ideas of what  needed for this project. 

• This week I started crocheting and it was pretty difficult. I decided to start with a dishcloth because it is something small and I thought it would be achievable within a week. I started by looking up a beginner crochet pattern for a dish cloth and found this site.  I began looking at it and didn’t understand the site. I found the site confusing with a lot of pop up ads. The ads made it hard to determine which was the actual site and just random ads. I made the choice of finding a different site. The site I used was woods and wool. This site was more clear with limited ads. This site was actually set up like a blog and had a menu to find things easier. I liked how the website had a little bit about her and explained how she got into crocheting. My grandma knew how to crochet and I think this connected me with her site. When i was reading the pattern for the dishcloth i thought it was easy enough, then when i finished i realized something didn’t look right. The bottom of the cloth had too many chains making the cloth look ruffled. The pattern was hard to read as a beginner but luckily there was a legend that explained what the abbreviations meant. Overall I think I will be using this site again just because it is easy to navigate and there are a lot of patterns I think I could use.

Getting the materials 

• When looking at what i need to start the dishcloths i used the woods and wool site for what i needed. There was a certain type of yarn I was supposed to use and when looking deeper into the yarn it was supposed to be 100% cotton.  I think I got the right yarn and I knew I needed a smaller hook for this project. I got a pack of smaller hooks to continue with crocheting throughout my journey. 

Reflection on crocheted dishcloth

• Since I have some experience with crocheting I did understand the basic steps but I have only ever done blankets and that uses bigger yarn. This dishcloth yarn was smaller. I had to use a smaller hook which I found challenging and more difficult. I think that for my first dishcloth it turned out ok though I think for next week I will keep on doing dishcloths because I want to make one that looks normal and I also want to make one that uses a different pattern. 

• For my learning project I chose crocheting! There are many reasons why I have decided to learn how to crochet. I’ll start with reason number one, just before Christmas I decided I wanted to try crocheting and started making a single stitch blanket. Now it is the middle of January and I’m still not done! I don’t know much about crocheting besides a single stitch and I would like to know more about the different kinds of stitches. The other reason I would like to start learning more about crocheting is because my grandma was good at crocheting. We have items around the house that my mom tells me was made by my grandma. Crocheting is something that is important to me since my grandma and my mom both do it. I have always wanted to learn and this learning project blog is the perfect opportunity to keep me motivated on my journey. 
• I have been debating on how to set up my crocheting journey because I think it’s a little overwhelming. There is so much I would like to crochet but I would like little projects that are easy to make learning achievable. I want to start off with dish clothes and go from there. I would also like to know more about what supplies will be needed and some terminology. I will be getting all my information about crocheting online and I have found a website that gives me some information as a beginner crocheter.