An Idea, unexpected inspiration

Yesterday I was at Walgreens for just a sec and I saw a young woman wearing a scarf wrapped once around her neck with the long side extending down one leg about to her knee. I live in central Florida; it was still fifty some degrees outside at the time. It was the second day of dramatically colder overnight temperatures, though. I don't usually see such elaborate scarves being worn here in any weather, really. Hers appeared to have a pattern with small squares with little stripes that mimicked a basket weave.

Driving home I had a thought that the Diagonal Box stitch pattern by SmoothFox could make a really interesting scarf. (Technically the pattern is written to make just one quarter of the square to the left, as if starting from any of the corners. I was just determined to make a 12" square in one piece and arrange the diagonal stripes just so.)

I think if making something long like a scarf I'd start off like a small square, maybe just 6", and instead of reducing the number of squares in a row to make a square overall it seems like you could just keep going back and forth along the diagonal with the same maximum number of blocks just as long as you like. I suppose it would actually be reducing by a square on one side and adding one on the other, but still keeping the same number of blocks each time until you get to where the end should be.

The downside to a scarf would/could be that it makes a slightly, but noticeably stiff sort of fabric.  But I have a feeling in softer yarn it would be a little different than in kitchen cotton. Perhaps the number of color changes and loose ends would be an issue. I really did enjoy making this. Will have to do it again sometime!

I'd decided against this, then changed my mind: Part 2

Now it's two posts ago that I typed the following and then changed my mind:

I'm thinking there's probably no reason to devote time to words and photos explaining how I cheated the yarns into place. They only needed to be moved from a connected corner either right to the next corner or up to the next corner. Moving right was super easy and I got in the habit of pulling the last yo back out of the last dc made and completing that yo with the new color. It drapes a short strand of yarn across the chain 3 space that you'll be crocheting into. So the 3 dc that go into that chain 3 space will cover it up nicely.

This will be the short post, ha ha! Or not, I thought this was the more intuitive of the two cheats anyway. The big picture: I'm making something like the blue diagonals square, which is four 6"x6" squares sewn together, but crocheting the 12"x12" in one piece. I'm using SmoothFox's Diagonal Box Stitch Square 6x6. It's not designed to be used this way, but I was determined to tweak it into what I wanted. When the diagonal stripes need to go in a different direction the color strands needed are not quite where they need to be, but close.

I need the yellow and white yarn to move to the right corner of the green square so that it's at the corner to the left of my hook. We'll just drape that yarn across the top of the green square between my just finished green square and the place where the yellow/white yarn is coming from.

To start with, I like to pull the final yo of the last dc out and put the two loops it was pulled through back onto the hook. (That's just a method for changing color so the first stitch in the new color isn't wearing the old color for a hat; the last loop the yarn is pulled through will be the one on top so it might as well be the new color.) You can see the final stitch is shorter because now it's missing that last yo and draw through.

It took me a few tries to figure this out, but I also like to have the old color strand (green here) in front of the work before catching the yellow/white yarn (new color)











and pulling it through the two green loops to (again) finish the last dc of the green square on the right.

The yellow strand in front is across the top of the green block from the last row and the strand further back goes to the skein of yellow/white yarn.

And I've draped the green across the yellow strands.  (That's to catch it in the slip stitch coming up; otherwise it will hang from the middle of the green block and on the wrong side when you next need it.  This will put it in the corner at least, where it would have been.)

Guide the hook under the chain 3 at the top of the left green square, which is taking the hook over/in front of the green strand and under the yellow strand that sits along to top of the green square.  Grab the yellow strand in back that leads to the skein

and pull a loop through the chain 3 space

then pull the new loop through the other yellow loop, making a slip stitch that connects the corners of the two green squares.

Begin square as in pattern. Here I've already made the first 3 chains, and am making the dc next to those.  The dcs are made through the chain 3 space of the green square and the yellow strand we pulled across the top of that will be trapped in the bottom of the dcs.

1 dc is made and you can see where both the green chain 3 and the yellow strand pulled across it are being covered.

That yellow strand pulled across (many steps back) just needed to be long enough to reach across the green square. No extra slack was needed.



Again, this may be completely obvious to anyone who does any amount of crocheting.  It took me some tinkering to figure out because the pattern I was using was designed to make diagonal stripes in one direction.  When I got to places where I needed to change direction of the colors to make a diamond I had to improvise and play a bit. If nothing else, when I make this again I'll have step by step notes about exactly how I did it! Hurray for that!

I'd decided against this, then changed my mind: Part 1

In the last post I initially typed the following:

I'm thinking there's probably no reason to devote time to words and photos explaining how I cheated the yarns into place. They only needed to be moved from a connected corner either right to the next corner or up to the next corner. Moving right was super easy and I got in the habit of pulling the last yo back out of the last dc made and completing that yo with the new color. It drapes a short strand of yarn across the chain 3 space that you'll be crocheting into. So the 3 dc that go into that chain 3 space will cover it up nicely.

Moving the yarn up: first I tried catching the strand in the last dc on the left of the square before (moving diagonally; the rows march diagonally, up and left each block to make a row). Just put the strand over or under the working yarn before pulling a yo through to make the dc. (This does leave little contrasting dashes, but they're next to the color they belong with.) Then I finally got the bright idea to borrow from the original pattern. I started using slip stitches. When the color needed to move up to the next corner it would have been going from the lower right corner of a square in the previous row to the upper right corner of the same square. The loose strand was just waiting there in the lower corner. So I started making a loop through the top of the lowest stitch in the square and then making slip stitches up the top of the stitches next to it.

And then by the time I got to here I realized that many words about crochet without pictures to back it up is a disaster. Fortunately I took pictures while cheating the colors into place. Uncertain as to the quality, but here goes! Well, backing up a minute. Overall I'm making something like the blue diagonals square, which is four 6"x6" squares sewn together, but crocheting the 12"x12" in one piece. I'm using SmoothFox's Diagonal Box Stitch Square 6x6. It's not designed to be use this way, but I was determined to tweak it into what I wanted. When the diagonal stripes need to go in a different direction the color strands needed are not quite where they need to be, but close.

I need to work a square above the blue/yellow one to the left of my hook.  But the strand is at the bottom corner of that square and I need it at the top corner, next to the hook.

I take the hook and put it through the top of the bottom most stitch in the blue/yellow square, drawing the strand that's there through the top of the stitch to make a loop. 

Leave that loop on the hook for now. Draw a loop through the top of the next stitch and pull it through the first loop.  That's making slip stitches to bring the yarn up to where it needs to be.

Two slip stitches made, one in each of lowest two stitches in blue/yellow block. (The stitches in the previous row of blocks face sideways because the pattern gets flipped over and worked back once you get to the edge.)

Next the blue loop is going to need to be where the yellow white one is. It's replacing the last yo and draw through in the last dc in the yellow white block. That follows the theory that when you want to change colors you change in the last yo of the stitch before (or else the next stitch you make is wearing a hat that doesn't match).

So carefully pull the yellow/white loop out, put the two loops it held on the hook, put the hook through the blue loop

and pull the blue loop through the yellow/white ones, again completing the 3rd dc in the yellow/white block.

Start the blue/yellow block just the way the pattern says, beginning with a slip stitch into the 3 chain space. My thinking is by finishing the last stitch of the previous block with the new color the old color doesn't reach into the new color. 

Earlier on I was disguising the color by winding it through the strands in the last dc of the color block before it's needed.  That would have been taking the blue and draping it over or under the yellow/white yarn before each yo and draw through in the yellow/white dc. But that does leave little strands of blue visible.

I'm not the best explainer, but these notes will help me to recreate it the next time I work this pattern this way.  It's written to just have the colors going in one diagonal direction.  Doing that doesn't require the threads to be moved to the next open corner.  I just wanted the effect of having sewn 4 small squares together without having to do it.  The construction of the diagonal box pattern doesn't really leave good edge stitches or any selvedge for nicely sewing through. Then there's the reality that I don't know crocheting nearly as well as knitting. Could be this is very very basic crochet technique that I just never learned.

The last square, for now

I had to put it in a slideshow.  I can't seem to make up my mind about which edge goes up.  I'm pretty sure this first set shows which side is front.



And this side is the back, but it seems to look nearly as nice.



I'm a big fan of the wrong side, too. This is a jumbo square (12" x 12") that I made using SmoothFox's Diagonal Box Stitch Square 6x6 pattern. I'm guessing that may be clear from other posts, but I'm going back to dot (i)s and cross (t)s.