New Hooks and Tricks

As I am going to be doing a lot of knitting and crochet, I thought it best to become reacquainted with both hooks and needles as well as expend my knowledge. From my previous textural project I learnt basic knitting, circular crochet and single chain crochet. However for this project as we are bringing in a 3D element, I shall have to learn other stitches such as double, treble and amiguri (3D crochet). I shall also have to learn how to follow and adapt a pattern from scratch.

To begin with I needed to get accustomed to working with various size hooks as i already have experience with needles. Each one gives a different sized knit from tight (1.00mm) to very loose (10.0mm +).  I have found that my preferred hook for double knit wool is a 6.5mm has it can hold the chains in place, as well as being loose enough that your not constantly fighting the wool. I do recommend a bottle of hand cream to be put on the side ready for when you have finished as I found my fingers were very red and raw.Below is my practicing chains starting with a 1.00mm hook and finishing with a 10.00mm hook.

Left to Right. 1.00mm-10.00mm

Continuing on from this I used the 6.5mm hook to practice my double and treble stitches. I feel one of these would be suitable to go along the edge of the waistcoat as the fringing. If i could create a stitch big enough I could also add buttons to the outfit and they could be placed through the holes. 

The double stitch has taken me some getting used to due to the complicated sequence that is used to create it. However after several attempts at this I finally produced a significant length of stitches which are at a decent level. However I do believe the treble will be my preferred stitch when coming to the amiguri patterns. The double stitch doesn't hold as well or make the same size holes as the treble. Though it can be used to start of the rows which will help create a flat starting point.

Below is my Treble stitch using the 6.5mm hook. I must admit I do prefer this to the double stitch as it is more adaptable and I do believe that it shall work a lot more on the waistcoat due to the size of the hole compared to the hole size of the double. The buttons that are in mind are quite chunky so that they stand out so will need a larger hole to fit, it may be a case of having 2 trebles in one stitch to make up for the button.

Treble stitch in loop

Close up of treble stitch