Day 45 - well blow me down with a feather

"Blow me down" is an English idiom that is often used when someone is surprised or stunned by a particular occurrence. The meaning of the idiom derives from the fact that the astonishment of the event is so great that the person has figuratively been knocked to the ground by it. This particular phrase gets its origins from old sailing jargon and other similar expressions that emanate from the word "blow." It is closely related to the phrase, "knock me down with a feather," which suggests that a person is so surprised that he or she can be knocked over by the lightest object imaginable. (taken from www wisegeek.org)

Yes, I was stunned, yesterday, so much so that this quaint English phrase came to mind immediately. 

I was both perplexed and also shocked at how many UK based crocheter's contacted me either via email, text or twitter to tell me that my latest video tutorial 

was wrongly titled!

http://www.youtube.com/my_videos_edit?show_mt=1&ns=1&video_id=rxCLHuFmroU

It's title is:

Double Crochet Tutorial in UK Terminology - How to Double Crochet & How to work in STRAIGHT edges 

 

but they were telling me that I should have called it Single Crochet !?!

Some even told me that they wondered "why the patterns they were following were not coming out right."  Actually the numbers did shock me.

So here's a reminder that if you are following a US Crochet Pattern, you  have to TRANSLATE it to UK Crochet terminology.

So here's a US to UK conversion chart that you can copy if you need to 

I found it onwww.yarnfwd.com

US	UK
chain(ch)	chain(ch)
single crochet (sc)	double crochet (dc)
double crochet (dc)	treble (tr)
half double crochet (hdc)	half treble (htr)
triple crochet (trc)	double treble (dtr)
slip stitch (sl st)	slip stitch (sl st)

SO if your US pattern says"make a dc" then you will have to make a TREBLE

if your US pattern says"single crochet" then you DOUBLE CROCHET

There's nothing wrong with following US Crochet Patterns - I love them as there are so many to choose from, but you have to be prepared to translate them as you go and remember to keep on translating them as you go!!

I have also been told that due to the lack of UK Crochet Video Tutorials, beginners in crochet have learnt via the US video's and just stick to US patterns which is a shame as we have lots of FAB UK designers here and 2 great magazines with UK patterns coming to us monthly, one of those being Inside Crochet Magazine.

I was also getting asked for a lot of help on Twitter with basics like "how do I get a straight edge" being one of the most popular asks.  If you know me, I am only too happy to help with Crochet, especially if you can't learn from a book or have someone near  you to teach you, so I was referring people & twitters alike to my Free Tutorial Tab on this blog which features detailed step by step photo's of various stitches & techniques.  I am very pleased to say that many of you kindly tweeted me or emailed me to say  how much these photo tutorials had helped them.

From getting such good feedback and "hearing" the need for Crochet help, I have started to produce You Tube video tutorials, which are "selling like hot cakes" (another British Expression) 

So far there is:

Video 1 - How to hold your wool correctly & make a foundation chain

Video 2 - How to Double Crochet & work in rows with straight edges

I am going to make Video 3 next which will be "Working in Trebles & working in neat rows"

and there are so many more that I would like to make that I will have to start writing a list.

If you want to watch these tutorials, then click on the VIDEO tab at the top of this page

Wool - now that's another thing we do differently to the US - we say "Wool" whether it's actually 100% wool or not, whereas in the US it's called "yarn".  When I said on twitter the other day that I was going to the "wool shop" an American follower told me that she loved that expression as it sounded so "English & Quaint"

I do try to call yarn yarn, when it is, but I'm afraid that it's an old fashioned habit of mine to call it wool as that's what I've always called it, so sorry Yarn if you are a Yarn, in my Crochet World, you've been upgraded to "Wool"

And here is Day 45

It's Valentines Day!!

This is the card that my puppy Scrumpy made for his girlfriend Megan who is a Collie 

 Inside it said "Valentine" and was signed with a paw mark!!

Day 45 is this very Regal Purple

 It should have been RED I suppose, due to the day but it's not!

And this arrived in the post today so all my scissors can be sharpened on demand - no more blunt blades in MY classroom!!!

And finally - the card I made for My Valentine 

My Husband, whose favourite colour is blue!

Day #16 Granny A Day - Two Crochet Disasters

These are the Valentines Hearts that I crocheted last night

I made the in Fuchsia as I didn't have any Red, but I will get some Red tomorrow.

I made Medium & Large

And trimmed them with White or Lilac

They could be sewed together and filled with toy stuffing to make a little cushion!

Disaster No. 1

I was making Granny A Day #16

When I came to the end of the row (row 4)

But with only 2 granny shells left to crochet, would I have enough wool?

The answer was NO

I ran out

However after a bit of searching I found a new ball of the same colour

and I had to accept it's kind offer to come to the rescue!!

So Granny A Day #16 was complete

And here (as much as possible) are all 16 squares so far

Oh yes, the 2nd disaster today was that I realised that all my Right Hand Basic Tutorials had the Left Hand photo's on them - sorry folks!

It's all sorted now.

I also discovered how to change the HTML codes for the other pages, so now only the main page has the side bar gadgets going up and down the sides.  I hope that this makes the other pages, especially the tutorial pages, easier to read.