Flake #2 in ecru cordonnet, size 60 (pattern), 2" across, colors rebalanced slightly in IrfanView:
While I was trawling for new sources of patterns, curiosity nudged me into revisiting a few charts that correlate thread and hook size. Despite my sense that my chain stitches look a bit loose, the hooks I use are already .05-.15mm smaller than the suggested correspondences. I tend to match size 20 thread with a Susan Bates 9 or 10 (1.25mm, 1.15mm) and the standard size 10 with a Bates 7 (1.5mm); for the flake above, my JMRA 0.60mm feels better than the recommended 0.75mm. Hmf.
It's interesting to see the charts change over time. One Dover compilation published in 1995 says a size 7 hook is a whopping 1.65mm, while size 9 = 1.4mm. Patricia Kristofferson's 99 Little Doilies agrees. Oddly, to do Kristofferson's designs I need a 1.75mm, whereas 1.5mm does better by the quasi-vintage stuff that Dover's reprinted. Noël Nevins has some comparative images of recent and old hooks. I guess we've become lazy, or manufacturers are allowing us more and more leeway to lower the general (perceived) difficulty.... Thérèse de Dillmont didn't even bother specifying hook size to accompany the DMC threads she itemized in her Encyclopedia of Needlework, published during the 1880s.
Here's an exhibit about the rise of knit and crochet activity in the U.S., 1840-76.
Clearly, the next step is to crochet something of reasonable magnitude (more rows than a flake) in thread smaller than size 30. :D It might be awhile, since the piece I need to finish next, a gift, is on row 18 of 27.
Last night I indulged a rare impulse to purchase something right now that I've been pondering (and reading reviews about, generally) for years. Years. More than ten. Couldn't convince myself that I needed one.
I am now in possession of a camera, one Canon PowerShot A530 featuring 5.0 megapixels / 4x zoom / USB interface / other stuff. The link goes to CNet's review; they're far pickier about performance than I.
Certain gadgets hold my fascination, but cameras have never entered into that. I used to borrow my mother's camera occasionally. Sometime in high school my father dug out his ancient camera (separate light-meter!) and I took two rolls of landscape--mostly the horizon, my dog, and some gloriously blooming azaleas in the back yard. Since then I've bought a disposable camera twice, maybe thrice, for trips, and scanned some of the resulting photos on an old scanner (150dpi). For the most part I use my head. :P Photos evoke memory, but so does my mind, sometimes unnecessarily.
Now I've the money to ease the aforesaid convincing, and the upcoming trip is one of those things that might be special in retrospect. (Hard to explain.)
After taking a couple test pictures of Dan and learning that the digital image-capture runs more slowly than a normal an old-fashioned shutter, I put the snowflake atop my silvery laptop and pushed the button. I don't have Photoshop at home (and I just don't care, really), so the sharpness and color haven't been retouched.
Unlike in the previous shot, one can see quite clearly now that I've not stretched it properly. :) The reduction from 1200something to 240 has clumped the stitches on the final row.
The current/next flake is in cordonnet thread, not floss, so a pic ought not to make my crocheting technique look quite so sloppy.... Why flakes, late in summer? Well, they're quick to complete (though not if one does a few stitches every three to five days), they're usually technically intricate, and one still has that precious radial symmetry.
Difficult days induce a wish for difficult ways of unwinding. After wandering the local Ace Hardware unsuccessfully after work for interesting twine, I decided to experiment in the other direction, something smaller than standard crochet thread. I fiddled with sewing thread for a few minutes, but the decent thread I have (Gütermann) is polyester and too slippery. Also, black after sundown in a poorly lit room? No. Especially when the backdrop is a dark-colored desk.
A bit of rummaging turned up the embroidery floss left over from when I was able to cross-stitch. With this new pattern (link may change), one strand of DMC 25 floss (standard six-strand cotton) in shade 355, and a 0.60mm hook, away I went.
Thus, we have this fuzzy yield, 1.5" across, which ought to be "dark terra-cotta" or a sort of deep vermilion. (Dan's Treo is not a real camera.) Actually, it coordinates nicely with the Phoenix Rising colors. :)
Thoughts on using floss: the one strand really wasn't convinced it was one strand. Slip stitches and picots posed particular problems, since the floss fled a lot or tried to emulate an amoeba.
Size 20 crochet thread has become my default, and 10 now seems ropelike. My prior foray into threads below that was something of moderate complication in size 30, about six years ago, but size 30 cordonnet is not terribly moody, unlike floss.... As a random experiment it went surprisingly smoothly, aside from eyestrain, but the next time I go small, I'm finding some cotton sewing thread.
Aside from all that--I'm self-taught from a book (as of 1996ish), I went straight to thread and didn't begin playing with yarn till two-three years ago (yarn is hard!), and crochet for me is all about the potential for radial symmetry. Never mind everyone's clothes and bags and scarves. :) My mother taught me to knit simple rectangles when I was small, but I prefer having one implement to maneuver.
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