ch st, ss, sc, hdc, dc, fpdc

You probably think I had my hands on the wrong keys when I typed the title to this blog.  But, if you crochet, you didn’t have any problem reading this “foreign” language.

I’ve been crocheting since I was 8 years old and it’s still my favorite hobby.  I bought a beginner’s book, a crochet hook, and an afghan “kit” that had enough yarn and a pattern to make one afghan. 

Luckily, the book I bought had a lot of pictures.  I was able to teach myself to crochet and have spent thousands of hours playing with yarn. 

Almost everything I crochet now are afghans that I donate to Project Linus.  With a lot of time on my hands while we’re at our home in the Texas Hill Country, and a very large yarn stash, I’ve crocheted 16 afghans so far this year.

My favorite stitch (at the moment) is called the Squared Waffle Stitch.  It has a lot of texture, it's heavy and very warm. The multi-colored squared waffle stitch afghan is my favorite.

This Daisy afghan turned out really cute.  Crocheting 36 daisy squares and then having to crochet the squares together took a while but I’ve made this afghan before so I knew it would not be a fast one.

There are hundreds of crochet stitches to choose from.  I have enough patterns I want to make to keep me busy for about 125 years.  Last year my favorite stitch was the Corner to Corner.  I’ve crocheted 23 afghans with this stitch including a couple this year.

Giant Granny’s work up quick.  They are great for a summer weight security blanket.  They can also be crocheted solid (no visible holes) for a warmer winter afghan.

While this year my favorite stitch is the squared waffle, my absolute favorite type of crocheted afghan to make is called a Graphghan.  Graphghans are pictures (personally I like cartoon characters the best) that are drawn on graph paper.  Each square on the graph paper is a crochet stitch. 

I just finished this Tweety Bird afghan. 

Graphghan patterns can be found free on the internet.  There are also a lot of paid patterns and there are a couple of computer programs that can turn any photo or picture into a graph.

I get Mark to enlarge the graph and print it out. It takes many sheets of paper to print the whole graph.  I tape the pages together so I can see the graph without having to stop crocheting to flip through the pages.

I count every square and write that number on each line for every color change.  This takes an enormous amount of time but saves me much more time once I start crocheting.

Then it’s time to start crocheting.  Graphghans take a while to finish but they are a lot of fun to watch the picture emerge with every crocheted row.

I’ve crocheted 46 graphghans and all but one has been donated.  This is the first graphghan I made and the only one I’ve ever kept for myself.  It’s called Tiger Butterfly.

Did you figure out the title of the blog?

Chain stitch

Slip stitch

Single crochet

Half double crochet

Double crochet

Front post double crochet

Crochet has its very on language and I’m glad I took the time to learn it 55 years ago.