On Music and Crochet
With thanks to Lion Brand Yarns for the pattern I am quibbling over! If you crochet and have a pet, it's a nice, soft little afghan for your furry buddy. I recommend it as well as the suggested yarn, Lion Brand Homespun, which comes in a collection of gorgeous colors and is sooooo soft!
http://www.lionbrand.com/patterns/chs-petAfghan.html
http://www.lionbrand.com/yarns/homespun.htm
I've been attempting to arouse interest in various friends’ hearts for one or another of the various crafts I enjoy. I recently sent a lovely pattern for a “pet afghan” to a friend to attempt to tempt her into learning the venerable craft of crochet.
As I was looking at the pattern, I realized the way it read may be a bit confusing to a beginner venturing on out on their own in learning crochet.
A.K.A. Confusion in the Wild, Wild World of Crochet. Surprisingly, for as long as the craft has been around, the writing of crochet patterns is not yet standardized within the U.S. This is very strange to me because basic crochet is basically two, maybe three stitches with variations. (See Endnote #1 for more info on this as well as UK pattern conventions and the semi quaver. See Endnote #6 for more info on another use for the word ‘crochet.’)
So, here is the pattern translated into something a bit more user friendly, a.k.a., User Conventions favored by Dace when writing a crochet pattern. The actual “translated” pattern begins further in this commentary
First, here're those abbreviations again, I am capitalizing them for easier visuals.
CH = Chain Stitch, or CHs = Chain Stitches
SC = Single Crochet Stitch, or SCs = Single Crochet Stitches
WTF = What The…Heck??? (Heh, not a standard crochet abbreviation!) I was going to attempt to keep Crafts Harbor an obscenity free zone. But then I smacked my forehead with my palm and said to myself ‘WHAT! am I thinking?!? Cuss-free Crafting? Yeah, whatever!.’ I will attempt to keep the proceedings rated PG-13.
FTLOG = For The Love Of G*d! (Also NOT a standard crochet abbreviation!)
See Endnote #2 for a commentary on noun and verb usage in the world of crocheting persons.
Other, typographical conventions:
12 pt. Times New Roman = stuff to read in order to do pattern correctly
Arial 9 pt = slightly expanded explanation of stuff in 12 pt. Times New Roman
14 pt. Times New Roman Bolded = the header for each of the two basic rows involved in creating this afghan
14 pt. Times New Roman Italicized = the wording of the original pattern.
Arial Black 20 pt = on with the freakin' pattern already!
Original pattern also uses “st” or “sts” which translates as "stitch" and "stitches.” I don't care for that abbreviation in this particular pattern, so I'm rewriting. Please see Endnote # 3 below for more details and a mini-rant that quite possibly expands on the whole noun/verb thing...
On with the freakin' pattern already!!!
First row (or Very First row, or Firstan'SeconRow or....)
Ch 19. Sc in 2nd ch from hook and in each ch across - 18 sts
Please see Endnote #4 regarding "Row 1." I am calling it "Row 2" in my translation of the pattern.
EQUALS THE FOLLOWING
- CH 19.
- SC in 2nd CH from hook and each CH across = 18 SCs.
First row basically consists of:
A. The chain consisting of 19 chain stitches and
B. Working back through the chain single crocheting into it ending with 18 single crochets (ending with a chain stitch loop on your crochet hook, because that's what happens after you complete a full single crochet stitch)
One chains 19 to begin with rather than just 18 CHs because the last two chain stitches are the first "single crochet" of the 18 SCs. Even though it still LOOKs like two CHs rather than a single crochet stitch, it COUNTS as one of the 18 SCs
Second Row (or Row 1 or First Row or Third Row FTLOG!)
Row 1 Ch 1, turn, sc in each sc across. Repeat Row 1 until piece measures 6”. Fasten off.
EQUALS:
You should still have the loop/chain from your last SC. CH 1 through that loop.
Turn what you have so far so that your chain and crochet hook are now at the right hand end of the piece. (The last loop/chain of the first row and the chain stitch you just did equal the first SC of the Second Row.)
SC all the way across again for 18 SCs.
Do the same thing you did before: Chain 1 through that last SC.
Keep doing the Second Row, turning at the end of each subsequent row until you've done 6" of rows of SCs. See Endnote #5 for a commentary on other crochet pattern conventions.
Footnote#1
One or two, maybe three basic stitches: For example: sling the yarn over the needle before you poke your needle through the work to do a single crochet, and you have the beginning of what could be either a double crochet or a half-double crochet, depending on how you pull the yarn through. Sling it over twice, you get triple crochet or half triple crochet, sling it over 3 times, you get into quadruple crochet, or variations on double crochet.............
(Gets even weirder in the UK, almost as weird as the "hemi, demi, semi quaver" musical-notation thing -- they call their chain stitches "single crochet stitches" rather than chain as here in US. Well, whilst knitting, they hold their yarn in the opposite hand from the rest of Europe too, so well, I guess it's only fair! Heh -- for you folk that have not learned how to play an instrument, or at least haven't played an instrument or taken voice for more than a couple of years, a bit of musical terminology and a little pun in Footnote #6. Chuckling to myself: man but I love a pun, no matter how slight!)
Then there's the whole thing about the usage of the word "chain." To me, a chain is a set of chain stitches or loops or links or whatever. So, when you are left with one chain stitch on your crochet hook, you are not left with one "chain" you are left with one loop or one chain stitch. Gets confusing for a beginner, especially one that is frightfully literal.
Footnote #2
Crocheters refer to it as "Single Crochet" as a contraction rather than "Single Crochet Stitch" even though that is what it is, a single crochet stitch. It's one of those oddball "noun turned into verb modifier that's not really an adverb" things that shows up in our language so often. Using this as an example, here are two possible present-tense sentences: "I single crochet 18 across." or "I stitch 18 single crochets across." If, IF! I were actually to write weird sentences like that. Actually, if I were verbally telling someone what to stitch, and they were comfortable with crochet; I would say, "Single Crochet 18"
Footnote #3
I am going to capitalize both letters of CH and SC where I do abbreviate for those stitches so they are easier to see.
(I'm trying weasel my way onto the Standardization Committee of the CGOA -- Crochet Guild of America -- so I can share my knowledge of writing instructions for beginners, a.k.a. trainees, for writing beginner patterns, heh!)
Unfortunately a lot of beginners give up because, well, two reasons: the abbreviated stuff is NOT written consistently, (see my comments in this pattern as well as my footnotes) AND: WTF IS a “sc” if you don't know what an sc is. Darn little abbreviation looks like a blasted typo instead of an abbreviation. There ain't no period after it, what’s up with that?? And if there were a period after it in ALL crochet patterns, it would look like a bunch of one-word sentences. Just unwieldy no matter how you look at it)
Footnote #4
Second Row and all following, why the hell they called it "Row 1" in the pattern, i do not know. However as noted in footnote #1, the writing of even the simplest of crochet patterns is NOT YET STANDARDIZED. To me, personally, the CH 19 would be "Row 1" however, most consider it the "base row" that row 1 is built upon, a foundation as it were. So that's why my "Row 1" equals the chains and first 18 single crochets, whether they be true single crochets or two chain stitches passing as a single crochet....
Footnote #5
Another convention used in some patterns is that of asterisks which function in the same way the return symbol functions in music. Return and repeat, or, in a pattern such as this, return and repeat and repeat and repeat (vamp?) until you hit 6". Thus, the original pattern can also be written as:
CH 19. **CH1. Turn. Two CH = 1 SC. SC in 2nd stitch from hook. SC 16 more for total 18 SCs in each row.**
Repeat from ** to ** until piece is 6" long
OR
CH 19. **CH1 and turn piece, two CH = 1 SC. SC 1 in 2nd stitch from hook. SC 16 more for total 18 SCs in each row
Repeat from ** until piece is 6" long.
All in all, these are very small differences but potentially very confusing. Half the time when I'm reading a more complex pattern than the one above, I hope that there is a good picture included because I may not be able to understand WTF is going on in the written version.
Now look at the original pattern instructions in all their glory.
Ch 19. Sc in 2nd ch from hook and in each ch across - 18 sts. Row 1 Ch 1, turn, sc in each sc across. Repeat Row 1 until piece measures 6”. Fasten off.
See how it can get confusing very, very quickly? Lots of different ways to say the same damn thing!
Footnote #6 On Music and (the) Crochet.
With thanks to Nina Gilbert: http://ww2.lafayette.edu/~gilbertn/British.html
British Terminology in bold, followed by the American equivalent
Crotchet – Quarter note. Yep. You got 'er!
Breaking into softshoe and song: “I say toh-may-toh, you say toh-mah-toh...”
Quaver – Eighth note
Semiquaver – Sixteenth note
Demisemiquaver –Thirty-second note
Hemidemisemiquaver –Sixty-fourth note
Quasihemidemisemiquaver or Semihemidemisemiquaver – Hundred twenty-eighth note. Gad! Takes longer to say than the length of just about ANY hundred twenty-eighth note or ‘hundred twenty-eighth note for that matter!’ I mean, poor little note, how many milliseconds is the the dang thing in length anyway?
And this looks like it could continue ad nauseum with parallels to our American notational insanity: Demisemihemidemisemquaver – Two Hundred fifty-sixth note, Hemidemisemihemidemisemquaver – Five Hundred twelfth note. Okay, yeah, I have most emphatically NOT seen these last two in American OR British music, but it's kinda fun to speculate, neh?
And the craft, crochet? Well you've got smooth sailing, there, folks. Except for the different stitch conventions, American crochet = British crochet!!!
Never knew an enemy to puns who was not an ill-natured man – Charles Lamb
Read on!
