grandmas christmas present/crochet hangers PLEASE help

[kwattz]

hello all! i am new to the crochet world. very new. started last night, in fact. i need help with my grandmas christmas present. my great grandmother used to make these amazing crochet hangers that everyone in her family would receive on their birthday and at christmas time. she passed away about ten years ago, and unfortunately i did not learn how to make these beautiful hangers from her before she left. that being said, i want to honor her and my grandmother by continuing the tradition. i have been following this http://www.instructables.com/id/Yarn-Covered-Hangers/ which has been great! however, it doesn't produce the same effect. obviously my great grandmother was much more practiced than i am, but i don't think i am using a similar method, and i'd like to get it as close as possible. i've included a close up of my work (in multicolored yarn), and an example of hers in purple. can anyone tell what procedure she was using? does anyone have a better method or maybe just one you prefer? anything similar? thanks so much in advance, i'm hoping to make this christmas great with some happy tears!

[redrosesdz]

Welcome to Crochetville! 

Your great grandmother did a beautiful job covering wire hangers with yarn. She didn't do crochet to cover them. Maybe macrame?

[Granny Square]

For one thing, you are using much thicker yarn than your grandmother, hers looks like maybe sock weight so that would affect the appearance quite a bit.  I'm also thinking that it's not crochet, did she knit?  What's throwing me is the ^^^^ design; if it were solid color or plain variegated, I'd have guessed she cast on to the hangar and then cast off.  This would get you the chain look on either side like this, with what looks like just thread wraps over the wire.  Or maybe some sort of double sided cast on, but again not sure how the stitches/loops got gathered  into the ^^^ shape.  Come to think of it, you can cast on and cast off with a crochet hook (more or less making slip stitches around a needle), so if she didn't knit it would be easy to do as a crocheter.

edit -- Hmmm, I just played with a little sock weight over a knitting needle and the cast on part works but not the cast off part to get the second 'seam' opposite the first. And I thought of a second way, but that didn't work either (some crochet ideas work great in my head and then not so much in real life!)

...and now I see that Reni found the right technique, yay!!  But if it matters...the reason I thought of the cast on hanger cover, is that I HAVE an ancient one that's made that way (in worsted weight).  

[ReniC]

What a sweet gesture to re-create your G-Grandmother's hangers.

redrosesdz is correct! It is macrame'. And here's a link for a tutorial.

PS- I like yours in crochet too.

[kwattz]

@ReniC @Granny Square @redrosesdz thank you all so much! this is such a wonderful community. 

[magiccrochetfan]

Oh my that's very pretty!  and looks like it requires a lot of patience to do the knotting!  What a nice keepsake to have :-)