Crucial cases

I’m designing again. Crochet this time. I was inspired by the fact that I have lots of circular needles. I used to be scared of circs, then I used them and I’ve never looked back. You can have way more stitches, the weight of your work is on your lap rather than your wrists, and there are no ends to catch in your sleeves (or is that just me?). What’s not to like?

Well, there’s the problem of identifying the needle size once you’ve taken it out of the packet. You can use a size gauge, but who wants to bother with one of those? And where do you keep your circs without getting them all tangled up or lost?

These were the problems I was considering when I came up with the Hanging Circular Needle Case. Not the snappiest of names, I know, but at least you know what you’re getting. It’s a simple enough concept. A long piece of crocheted fabric in three panels: double crochet, fan lace pattern and double crochet shaped to come to a point. It’ll fold in three, secured with either a button or hook and eye. I’ll line it with fabric that shows through the lace pattern and sew on some ribbon to hang it up with.

The first panel, nearly done.

Rib tickler

A lot of design, at least the way I do it, is trial and error. When I first started the needle case I was positive I wanted a rib effect on the double crochet panels. I achieved this by crocheting through the back loop only. The resulting fabric looked lovely. But then it occurred to me that it would also be very stretchy, and that this would make it rather difficult to sew the lining on. Hmm.

I’d done 10cm by the time I made this realisation. There was no choice but to undo the whole thing. I’ve redone it now, with just a plain ol’ double crochet. It ain’t as pretty, but it works, and it was much quicker than the dc tbl. Yeah, now I’m thinking that I’d be on the lace panel by now if I’d started off with dc.

A close up. A very poor one - you try taking a good close up inside at night. No? Thought not.