Trying out new pattern stitches is stressing me out!

[Plo0t]

I'm quite a fan of brainless crocheting. Just picking a simple stitch and going at it. But that's become boring, so I rounded up my stitch booklets to try and learn some of them. But this idea of having to actually count all my stitches and do various stitches to make a pattern is just hard on my fragile little brain!

[MsSuzKelly]

LOL - but think of all the new doors you are opening!!! I just love learning a new thing and mastering it.

 

YOu ever check out www.nexstitch.com

 

She has some awesome tutorial videos!!

[Plo0t]

Some of those stitches look awesome AND aren't in my booklets! Thanks!

[losingmymind2]

I know what you mean. I'm under terrible stress right now to begin with, and was trying to make a mitten last night while watching tv. My counts kept getting all wrong, and I only had to count to 4 or 20, which normally I am quite capable of. Pass the mindless crochet and let's relax.

[Addey]

You know what's sad... some days it's the having to count every single stitch that is the relaxing part. I have to totally focus on what I'm doing so I can't worry about anything else.

Other days, it drive me up a wall.

[RoseRed]

What I did when I was trying to learn some new stitches was to make wrist bags. I'd find a stitch that I liked that was repetitive so that it'd become a no brainer. My fav turned out to be a variation on the shell.

 

ch however wide you want it.

dc in 4th ch from hook, skip 2 sts, *2dc, ch2, 2dc in next st, skip 2 st*, dc in last st.

 

ch4, turn - counts as 1st dc, *2dc, ch2, 2dc in each ch2 space across* dc in last st.

[gardnr]

I have a couple of mindless WIPs that I work on when I am tired or stressed from work. Then, usually on weekends I have a doily, which are my favorite pieces to make, that I work on. I love the challenge of doilies, but when I work on them during the week I usually make too many mistakes.

Gardnr

[Plo0t]

I'm so excited! I have mastered 5 new pattern stitches!!

[SaxDragon]

You know what's sad... some days it's the having to count every single stitch that is the relaxing part. I have to totally focus on what I'm doing so I can't worry about anything else.

Other days, it drive me up a wall.

 

I find that the compulsive counting thing works better with crochet than with knitting :-) Counting stitches, when not done compulsively, is very similar to methods they teach people to relax (usually they have you count backwards from 100 - which bugs me and I don't get the relax part out of it LOL)

 

Some days, my counting habit only works with numbers that are multiples of twos, other days only multiple of threes. Throw out a seven or something and I have to keep frogging the stupid thing LOL

 

Brainless crochet stuff works well with ADHD kids, not so many to count as to loose their attention, fast enough results to keep them interested. No luck with teaching them to knit ...

[lucie]

I've checked out the Crochet Stitch Bible (I think that's the title) from the library and tried to make quite a few of the unusual stitches but I'm also frustrated at trying to read the patterns. Also, my practice swatches frequently don't look anything like the photos in the book because I'm not using the same size hooks or yarn as they did. But it's still good practice and I'm going to order the book from Amazon.com so I'll always have it. (Any so some other crocheter in Mobile will have a shot at the book!)

[SaxDragon]

One of the reasons I bought the Encyclopedia of Crochet was because the stitch patterns included symbol charts, which makes it so much easier for me to learn new patterns. If more pattern books included charts, I'd go broke :-)