Mini granny squares

[havanaholly]

Then there's our own Mary in Washington who crocheted me the exquisite 1:24 tablecloth and buffet runner:

[L Swearengin]

I finished my first ever grannie square.   Put it under stuff on pinterest.

[havanaholly]

You got it!

[Thimble Hall]

Spinning, another craft I have always wanted to do. I have an Ashford and planned to take lessons, the poor thing has crossed the Atlantic three times with me now and still it sits there. I think it is a lost cause but I am fond of it. I was once at a County fair in the UK and they had a group of spinners demonstrating . I had a go and the lady said it would come easy to me, I think maybe because I had used a treadle sewing machine for years, but they were too far away to learn from and there was no one else. Makes me sad.

[havanaholly]

Do you have any old order Amish families in your area?  Perhaps one of them would be willing to show you how.

[Thimble Hall]

No, just Mennonite, including me but I think I am too old for that now, I doubt if I could do it so it is just nice to look at.

Holly when you do your crocheted granny squares what size hook do you use and what size wool. I think I am going to try it. I have made a full size granny square blanket, as I said a bit hit and miss but the black edging was very forgiving, maybe if I took some care I may be able to do it.

[Goldenrodfarm]

4 hours ago, Jeannine said:

Spinning, another craft I have always wanted to do. I have an Ashford and planned to take lessons, the poor thing has crossed the Atlantic three times with me now and still it sits there. I think it is a lost cause but I am fond of it. I was once at a County fair in the UK and they had a group of spinners demonstrating . I had a go and the lady said it would come easy to me, I think maybe because I had used a treadle sewing machine for years, but they were too far away to learn from and there was no one else. Makes me sad.

Too bad you don’t live closer, I belong to a spinning guild up here, I have spun since college.  It is very relaxing, and besides what would I do with all this wool from my sheep, llama and alpaca!   Look around maybe there is a guild in your area, there are about 22 in Maine.  Probably you could find out about guilds if there is a shop that sells wheels or spinning materials.  We meet on the second Tuesday of the month, and actively encourage people that want to learn to spin.

[Thimble Hall]

There is a group about an hour's drive from me but it out of my comfort area and I go through periods where I don't leave the house for weeks so I am reluctant to join something where I may need a lot of help and then don't seem to make the commitment. It is something I am working on but right now I am not winning.

[havanaholly]

Barb, a lot of doll artisans use the alpaca wool for wigging.  Jeannine, I find that single strand embroidery floss works well as scale knitting worsted, tapestry wool  was not to scale; I use a #12 hook with it.  I have used #30 crochet thread and tatting thread for bedspreads with as large as a #10 hook, but for doilies and 1:24 afghans I use cotton sewing thread & #14 hook.

[L Swearengin]

Holly.....you just confused me.  Haha.

[Goldenrodfarm]

I hadn’t thought about using embroidery thread for small knitting or crocheting, there sure is a ton of colors if you need to match.  I have quite a stock of tatting thread and the smaller gauges of crochet cotton, but colors are limited to one green or one red, the DMC has tons of different colors and I have a chest full of it!

[havanaholly]

7 hours ago, L Swearengin said:

Holly.....you just confused me.  Haha.

Sorry, Lawanda!  Steel needles, like knitting needles and crochet thread, are gauged like wire; the higher the number, the smaller the diameter/ hook.  I'm not sure what size Mary in Washington used for my 1:24 diningroom linens:

[Debsrand56]

3 hours ago, Goldenrodfarm said:

I hadn’t thought about using embroidery thread for small knitting or crocheting, there sure is a ton of colors if you need to match.  

It really does work well.  The only annoying thing (as I think someone else posted) is separating out the strands.  The fun part is that floss, on close up, will often look like wool, with a slight fuzziness.

.

The "fabric" that crocheting with DMC floss creates usually feels quite nice, as well.

[Thimble Hall]

Holly I have hooks from16 English which is almost invisible running through all the sizes to N American   The smallest American one I have is a 10 . I am going to have a play tomorrow using my very fine I ply Shetland wool. It is very very thin so It may do, I will keep trying the hooks till I get one that seems to fit the wool weight best and give it a go.

[Goldenrodfarm]

Jeannine maybe you can help me figure out the yarn size in a 1:12 scale.  The pattern I have is written in UK, it looks very fine, like maybe a 20 or 30 crochet cotton, but the pattern calls for 2 ply yarn, here that means pretty big, it is knit with size 0 needles.  

[havanaholly]

Barb, I use the single strand of embroidery floss for 1:12 4-ply worsted.

[Thimble Hall]

Barb 2 ply yarn on a UK pattern is very fine. it is usually found on fine baby knitting especially shawls but is not used much these days  , I do use it and also 1 ply which is even finer...Re needles , an old English 0 would be the same as an American 11 which is a very thick needle so you have a  needle at the far end of the thickness scale and a yarn which is at the other end which is odd. It is very rare to find someone knitting in UK 2 ply..however just to confuse you there are some Scottish pure wools which call themselves a 2 ply jumper weight which is much thicker.To confuse you even more a US 0 needle is the same as UK 13 which is very fine, both are the same as a metric 2. Usually a pattern calling for 2 ply yarn from the UK will usually say 2 ply baby or 2ply jumper weight. If you send me the number  and make of your pattern I can help you easily. If I am using  ..say a regular baby pattern to bring it to fit a 6inch baby doll I would use a UK double knit which would equal  a #3 gauge in US yarn bu tI would  knit it on a 1ply wool, this would tale a the size down to very small.

The US system of measuring yarns ie by numbers  doesn't go far enough down the tiny scale to work on the very fine wools, the finest on the US scale  is a #1 but it then it is called a sock, fingering or baby, to me that is a 3ply wool in the  UK. Very fine yarns are usually described as lace weights

Does this make any sense. The needle size 0 you have could be very thick if stated on a UK pattern as a 0  but very fine if a US needle size  0.

A UK 2ply wool knitted on a UK 0 needle would probably be only two or three rows to an inch

Give me a bit more info

[Goldenrodfarm]

The pattern is a bedspread in an embossed leaf stitch, I think I am ok on the needles, the pattern states  UK 2mm or 14 for 1:12 which I concluded was a US 0, and 1 mm size 19 for 1:24, which must be really small. I have every needle known to women due to inherenting not only my mothers needles, she hasn’t done knitting for years because of dementia, but my Aunts needles, I already had more needles then any needed before that.  

The yarn just says 20g of two ply, I concluded it must be pretty small, either lace or baby, but wanted to do it in a nice crochet cotton like the DMD Petra Cotton Thread Which has a nice sheen and comes in sizes 3, 5, 8 of the DMC Cebelia Which is smaller starting at 10, 20, 30.  Most of the doilies I did were fine work in sizes 30 or smaller. I have a huge drawer of cotton upstairs in my craft room.  It is possible I have lace yarn kicking around from a lot of shawl making.  

There is a seller on Etsy that makes very fine tablecloths and doilies from what looks like cotton thread which would be size 70, this link shows a Tablecloth . The funny thing is that I have made that same exact pattern in larger thread, there used to be a magazine called crochet magic, that was graphic rather then written instructions, which was good because the English was a poor translation, instead of instructions there were “methods of execution”. I have about 5 or more years of these, and had been thinking about making a tiny table cloth.  She sells the table cloths for $95, which I can see because there must be 40 or more rows of very tiny work.

Holly, so you use the single strand of DMC for a worsted wool weight, I will have to check that next to some of the crochet Cotten sizes I have in store to estimate what the smaller sizes might be.

 

 

 

 

[Debsrand56]

I'm sorry I can't speak to UK yarn/needle sizes, but I just wanted to comment that that is a beautiful pattern!  Did you get it from Butttercup, by any chance?  Does the pattern give you a gauge?  If so, you might experiment with needles and a couple of promising yarn/thread types to see how they knit up.

[Thimble Hall]

Yes it is the fine 2 ply they are talking about.If you want something to compare it to crochet thread I can send you a bit of 2ply and a bit of 1 ply so you can see the size, pop me your addy in a PM and I will send you a sample. By the way you are very fortunate if your Aunt had size 18 needles. They are not usually found among regular knitting supplies as they are for lace, 14 is as small  as knitting needles usually get.

 

Which reminds me, I have a ton of knitting patterns for 6 inch dolls many of them from the 30's,I have collected them for many years it is a while since I looked at them as I mostly design my own  now but I do believe there are some throws among them too. I will fish them out and see what is there, someone may be able to use them.

Some full size patterns are easily brought down if the original garment is in thick wool too si I may start going through my binders of patterns and see what could be utilized. In the back of my mind I seem to have a picture of a whole set of little linens for dolls ??

[havanaholly]

I had that leaf motif in one of my knitting books, I've made several 1;1 afghans using it, and last time when I couldn't find the book I found the motif instructions online.

[Goldenrodfarm]

I liked the airy fairy look about the bedspread, besides it is something to pick up and work on.  There is no gauge, the stitches are pretty basic, but the part I don’t like is that it is made in so many pieces, I hate to sew knitting or crocheting together.  I was hoping it would be possible to make the side pieces and the ruffles together, but I don’t think that will work.  The finished size is 7x7.5.  This pattern was sold on Ravelry by Helen Cox, I think it is still there, my copy says 2004.

i enjoy knitting lace, but haven’t done it much in the last year and a half, but I think I will go check out my stash and make this bedspread. 

[havanaholly]

I had a Romanian friend who taught me how to crochet new motives onto the made ones instead of sewing them together.  Much nicer feeling of accomplishment.  I don't mind with the knitting so much, as I just match the stitches on the edges.

[Debsrand56]

50 minutes ago, Goldenrodfarm said:

This pattern was sold on Ravelry by Helen Cox,

Thank you!  It is very tempting.  I see that it can be made in 1:24.  I'm trying to decide if I'm brave enough to try. 

[Thimble Hall]

It is lovely Barb gee I wish I was a crocheter