Tip For Crocheting with 2 Strands of Yarn

Tip for Crocheting with 2 Strands of Yarn

I just finished a rug that I made holding 2 strands of yarn and using a large hook.

This gives the rug more stiffens and allows for better wear.

This is probably only a handful of projects that I have ever done using 2 strands. My first couple of projects I carefully rolled my yarn into 2 balls and began to crochet. Problem with that is I always ran out of yarn on one ball and didn't have a free end on the left over ball to finish the rug. UGH! Highly irritating.

Now however I look for yarn that has what I fondly call a belly-button. Really it is yarn that has a center end free so that you can unravel it from the inside-out.

Then I take that yarn and the outside yarn and crochet with them!

I never run out on one ball with just a few more rows until completion!


Last photo shows me crocheting with the 2 ends of the same skein.

Hope this works for you!

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Crochet Clothing and Seams

Here is a tip I've discovered while making crochet clothing.



I know there is debate on how to sew your seams and it the seams go to the inside of the garment like when you machine sew or to the outside.

I'm not here to take up the debate, personally whatever works for you is the right way to do it.

I personally like to hand sew with maching yarn in what my mother always called a whip stitch.

You simply place to two edges together and sew through them, taking small stitches.
As in the above photo




The problem I come across when I do this, it that the seams have a tendency to stand out, or be raised up off the garments surface.

When working with a heavier yarn it doesn't seem to show as much as it does with a light yarn like this Lacette.


My solution is to wet press the seams. I place my iron on the cotton setting, let it warm up. I then lay a damp cloth over the seam and place the hot iron on it. A count to thirty and the iron is lifted. This makes the seam lay flat, more like it is part of the crochet garment and not an obvious indicator where it was sewn together.

I don't know if you can see the results on the above photo clearly, but the center seam and bottom seam of the insert have been pressed in this manner while the top seam of the insert hasn't.



Here the skirt has been completely pressed.



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Putting a Zipper on a Crochet Jacket

How to Put a Zipper on a Crochet Jacket
Crochet Jacket with Hood is my latest pattern at Donna's Crochet Designs and thought a tutorial on how to sew a zipper into a crochet jacket would be of interest. Begin by laying the jacket out on a flat surface with the front edge opening together. Place the zipper between both front edges. Adjust the edges so that they are not right on the zipper's teeth, but lay just to either side.

Pin the zipper to the jacket's front edges.

Open the zipper so it is now in two pieces.

Most sewing machines have a special zipper foot. Put the zipper foot onto your machine and with a neutral thread (I used a thread close to the color of the Ecru yarn in the jacket), put the foot down and sew along the edge of the zipper's teeth making sure the jacket's edge does not come in contact with (the zipper's teeth) but is still begin sewn to the cloth part of the zipper.

In this photo I am close to the end of the zipper. As you can see the zip is very large and wider than the seam I am making. At this point I stop sewing, making certain the needle is down or through both layers I am sewing, put up the presser foot and slide the zip past the presser foot and behind to where I have already sewn. I then put the foot back down and continue sewing to the end. By doing this, it helps to keep the seam constant in size.

Here is the side view with the zip pushed back out of the way.

This is a photo of the other side of the zipper being sewn into place. It is so much easier to sew a jacket zipper than a dress zipper because the jacket zipper is designed to break into two halves, while the dress zipper isn't.


Here is the zipper sewn into place.

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Technique for Frogging Stubborn Yarns

Technique for Frogging (unraveling) Stubborn Yarns.

We have all done it. Bought an expensive yarn for a special project only to find it almost impossible to unravel when you find your stitch count wrong or that you did row 3 twice...etc.

What to do?
You can salvage what you can and throw the rest away, kicking yourself the entire time for buying that yarn in the first place...
Or you can try this method.
As you can see, I have a skein of Patons Lacette yarn pictured. It is a lovely soft yarn that works up easily, but almost impossible to frog!
I've worked with other yarns like this, with a softness that is more like a cloud of fuzz, fuzz that gets caught over and under your stitches, knotting into an impossible mess when you pull to unravel it.
Here is what I do:
I began by lightly pulling at the yarn to release the stitches-mistake. As soon as I fill resistance I stop pulling. I open my scissors so I have one point and gently insert it between the problem (in this case the fuzz) and last stitch or chain. This frees the yarn so that you can go back to gently unraveling your work.


Above are several photos illustrating the process.
In this way I was able to frog the entire piece, saving almost a full skein of yarn.
This also works well with eyelash or fun fur types of yarns.

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