Crocheted flags galore

A few weeks ago I blogged about my Union Jack iPhone cover and pattern, Fly the Flag. This got me to thinking. What about a whole line of flag iPhone covers?

Could Fly the Flag be the start of a whole range of
flag-inspired items?

France, Germany and Italy would be easy, as they’re just stripes - easier than the Union Jack, even. I think I could do the United States, if a white square would be an acceptable substitute for a star. A look at World Flag Database (the internet truly does have everything) revealed that there are loads of flags that would be as easy or easier than the UK’s. Sweden and Finland are crosses. Armenia, Austria and Romania are stripes. South Africa and Seychelles are more complicated, but again with some graph paper and patience I’m pretty sure I could work them both out.

France, the Faroes and Finland - all easy.

And why limit this to iPhone covers? I use 4ply cotton to make these small pieces, and it would be rather time consuming to use it to make anything bigger, like Kindle or iPad covers. But using a thicker cotton would seriously speed things up and make bigger items more feasible. I could even recreate Sherlock’s famous Union Jack cushion covers!

Social media and self-promotion

I’m absolutely fascinated by social media. I have my own Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest accounts, as well as running the Birdwatch ones for work. In all I must spend several hours a day on such sites.

I think they’re a fantastic resource - for news, contacts, promotion, sharing, information, pretty much everything, in fact. The power of Twitter was demonstrated to me in a quite personal way recently. When I got into work a few weeks ago (23 May) I checked the Birdwatch Twitter feed as I always do. I discovered a link to a blog post about Defra planning on awarding a shooting estate (or estates) nearly £400,000 in taxpayers’ money to use in ‘controlling’ Common Buzzard nests. This ‘control’ could include nest destruction and almost certainly would have led to birds being killed - Common Buzzard has only recently recovered in this country, previously being almost lost (mostly due to persecution from shooting estates).

The Idoru Knits Twitter page. Come follow me!

After a bit of research, we published the story on the Birdwatch website. We were the first ‘official’ news source to do so, beating both the BBC and RSPB. This was a moment of some pride for me. But what was even better was the groundswell of support on Twitter and beyond. The public was outraged and they weren’t afraid to show it. Major newspapers and the BBC picked up the story. Birdwatch had its busiest day ever on its website, with traffic coming from Twitter, Facebook and searches for ‘Common Buzzard’ or ‘buzzard’. As well as the news story, we also produced a downloadable letter that users could then adapt and send to their MPs. The outcome was that only days later Defra changed its mind.

It’s probably vanity to think Birdwatch - and by extension I - really influenced any this, but it does feel good to have had some part in it. What isn’t in doubt, though, is Twitter’s part in it. This kind of grassroots support has always been there, but without Twitter it was unorganised, fragmented. Another, less admirable example might be the use of BBM by rioters in London last year. Twitter and the like provides free, instant communication with a huge audience, a potential audience of millions, in fact - according to Wikipedia, Twitter had more than 500 million active users by April 2012, Facebook had more than 900 million.

The government and its associated departments and organisations (and not just in the UK) still underestimate the power of social media. They don’t understand it and they certainly don’t know how to control it, and this scares them. Defra’s u-turn won’t, I suspect, be the last of its kind. And I love that. I love the fact that the internet, and for the same reason social media, is so very unlegislateable.

Idoru Knits on Facebook.

It’s this grassroots power that makes social media so very important to someone like me. With my various social media activities I can reach many millions of people, and all for free. I enjoy knitting and crochet and I want to make some money out of selling both what I make and the patterns. I haven’t got the money to open a shop or run marketing campaigns in craft magazines. Instead I have to rely on self-promotion.

Think about it: as of today (18 July 2012) I have 130 followers on Twitter. If I tweet a link to my latest blog post and five of my followers retweet it and then five followers of each of them retweet and then five of each of them and so on, just 10 steps would mean that 61,035,155 people had retweeted me. And if each of those people had at least 100 followers, many, many times more will have seen the tweet. This does assume I’ve done the maths right (I’m pretty sure I have) and that there are no overlaps among all the retweeters (I’m pretty sure there would be). But, still, it’s a gobsmacking amount.

If I’m honest, I don’t really know how harness the power of social media - how is that some Twitter accounts get thousands of followers while others only get tens? Fame helps, obviously, and one way of getting my name known among knitters is to get my designs into the various knitting magazines. So one of my next projects is to contact all the relevant UK titles.

Pinterest is the latest addtion to my social media collection.
So far I'm loving it.

But fame isn’t a prerequisite - there are plenty of non-famous people out there with hundreds and even thousands of followers. A reason to be tweeting must help - in my case this is knitting and crochet design. Being witty or interesting - or ideally both - is also important, and I do try.

I do know that people get very tired very quickly of endless self-promotion. Constant links to ones own blog or Folksy page are just boring - you need to engage and interact. Say something funny, something interesting, something controversial, something important, just say something. Retweet and reply. I’m currently following anyone crafty, and hoping they’ll follow me back.

Other than that, I suspect it’s a combination of just keeping at it: being active, trying to keep it interesting (and mostly on topic) and plain old hanging in there. So I’ll be carrying on with my Tweeting, blogging, Facebooking and Pinning. I hope you’ll all join me for the ride.

Flying the flag

Recently I figured out how to use two or more colours in a row of crochet. I call this technique tapestry or Fair Isle crochet. I googled the terms and found that this isn’t a new way of doing crochet, in fact it’s been around for a long time. There are various ways of doing it, including my version of carrying the yarns along the back of the work. This means that with a flat piece of crochet the back is a mess of strands of yarn. Other methods fix this, so I’m going to give them a try.

Stranding the different colours along the back of the work
does produce something of a mess.

Anyway, I decided to use my new (to me) technique to create an iPhone cover in time for the London Olympics. The obvious motif was the Union Jack. So I sat down with some 4ply cotton and dutifully made my gauge square. This is important with tapestry crochet, as you need to know exactly how many stitches and rows you have to play with when designing your image.

Just in time for the Olympics!

Next it was a case of finding a picture of the Union Jack and drawing it onto grid paper. This is the simplest part - one grid square equals one stitch, so you just draw a rectangle with the right number of squares to stitches. Then draw a few straight and diagonal lines to make the flag. Next I copied the grid onto an Excel spreadsheet so it could be saved as a colour PDF.

Plain blue back.

I followed the grid to crochet a Union Jack, and Hey Presto! I had the front of an iPhone cover. In order to save time, the back of the iPhone cover is plain double crochet, which can be done in red, white or blue, for obvious reasons. The edging is single rows of double crochet in, again, red, white and blue.

Available from my Craftsy store.

The finished article in use.

Free pattern and a how to

Everyone likes free stuff, right? Well you’ll love this post then, because I’m giving away a pattern for an iPhone cover. Well Covered is a simple crochet cover done in double crochet throughout in cotton, with a choice of edgings.

The cotton I’ve used is Rico Essentials DK, which is available from SoSusie Yarns for just £2.50 a ball. She’s at Archway market every other Saturday, so if you’re around pay her a visit. There’s a cupcake stall at the market too, if you need any further encouragement to go.

For your free pattern, go to the end of this post, click on the image of the pattern and the right-click (or Control-click if you're an Apple Mac user) and then save the image. If this doesn't work work, email me and I'll send you a press-ready PDF.

The Well Covered iPhone cover, with edging I
(back cover in red) and edging II (front, in blue).

The cotton is actually a really lovely yarn. It’s mercerised yet still really soft. It’s hard wearing, so will protect your beloved iPhone and it’s machine washable. It comes in some gorgeous colours. Double crochet is the easiest of stitches and there’s no shaping, so even if you’re a complete beginner this is a very simple pattern to follow. In fact the most difficult bit is the picot edging, and you don’t even have to do that. If you want to give it a go, however, here’s a how to.

How to picot

I’ve got a pattern for a lovely lacy crochet top. It incorporates a picot stitch, which I had never done before, so I looked up how to do it. I couldn’t work it out, so I left the stitch out. Recently I decided I wanted to do a picot edging on an iPhone cover, so I looked it up again: chain 3, then chain into the first chain. It still didn’t make sense. I can’t see how chaining into that first chain works. You’re going back on yourself, which is surely going to be very difficult and look very untidy.

So I had a look on YouTube and found plenty of video tutorials on the picot stitch. I watched the videos and it didn’t look that complicated, so I gave it a go. And I was right - going back and chaining into that first chain was incredibly fiddly and didn’t look good. I watched the videos again, tried the stitch again. Same thing. It was time to start looking at the construction of the stitch.

Normally with a crochet stitch you work into the upperside, inserting your hook under the two strands that make a ‘V’. This is what I was trying to do with the picot. But it’s also possible to work into the underside. Try making a few chains and then turn them upside down. Each stitch has a single loop making up the underside. So instead of trying to go backwards and into the top of the first chain, move your hook as if you’re going to work the next stitch in the row and insert your hook into the single loop of the first chain in your picot. As you’re now working forwards, the stitch is easier to complete and looks much neater.

Nead and tidy picots!

Maybe everyone already does their picot stitches like this, but nowhere did I see it described as such and it certainly didn’t look like that on the videos I watched. With my new technique perfected, I could do a picot edging for my Well Covered iPhone cover, and I’m pretty pleased with the way it turned out.

Free pattern: Well Covered iPhone cover. Please
click on the image, then right-click
(Control-click) and save the image to download.

My next big design project

I love charity shop finds. Over the years I’ve bought Sisley and Coast dresses, an Armani top, Fly London shoes and all for less than a £10 each. One of my favourite finds, though, is a Comme Ca crossover T-shirt. I wear it a lot, and this means it’s fast wearing out. The seams have started to fray, and while at the moment it’s fixable, it’s a timely reminder that my beloved top isn’t going to last forever. So I’m thinking of making a replacement.

The top in question. It looks pretty simple to reconstruct.
(Famous last words ..!)

 I’ve never made a crossover top before, but I’m assuming it’s much like a cardigan. That said, I’ve never made one of those either. It can’t be that hard, though. I’m planning to just copy the dimensions and construction of the top I’ve got - really just take some measurements, knit a gauge square, do the maths and start knitting. This is generally my take on design - I don't go in for all that sketching things out on graph paper. It's worked for me so far.

I want to do it in Rico Essentials merino DK, in a nice chocolate brown with a cream trim. Time to go shopping, methinks.

Patriot games

The stripes are shaping up well.

With Liz II hitting 60 years on the throne, England doing well in Euro2012 and the London Olympics fast approaching, it’s surely time to get patriotic. So I’ve designed a red-white-and-blue iPhone cover.

This striped cover is crocheted in double knit cotton. It’s double crochet throughout, but going only through the back loop. This creates a stretchy fabric that’s crochet’s equivalent of ribbing.


Stripey fabrics, whether knitted or crocheted, are a bit of a pain in the backside (that’s a technical term). Not only is there all that swapping of yarns, there’s a whole lot of ends to weave in when you’ve finished, and let’s be honest, none of us like weaving in ends. The yarn swapping can’t be helped. Unless you get a self-striping yarn, which, quite frankly, is cheating. The plethora of ends, however, can be.

The strands running along the edge
of the fabric can be disguised with a border.
Take care not to tangle the yarns - untangling
can get annoying.

When you do Fair Isle knitting, you don’t cut the yarn every time you change colour - that would be silly. Just think of all that weaving in. On second thoughts, don’t. So, I asked myself, why cut it every time I change colour with stripes? I can just keep all the yarns attached and when I need to bring a new colour into play, run the yarn along the edge of the material. And it works. When you take up a new yarn, just give it a bit of a tug to keep the crochet nice and tight, making sure not to pull too hard so the fabric doesn’t pucker, then yarn over and pull through the loops on the hook. Simple.

It leaves strands of the yarns along the edge, but these can be disguised at the sewing up stage or if you create a border. With the iPhone cover I did a border of one row of double crochet in each colour, and hid the strands behind this.

The Go Team GB iPhone cover is available on my Folksy store for £10 (plus p&p), while the pattern can be bought from Ravelry, Folksy or by emailing me, for £2.50. A colour PDF will be sent via email.

The finished item in use.

Well covered

When people think of knitting they tend to think of winter woolies, gloves and hats and cozy blankets. Which makes selling knitwear during summer something of a challenge. So recently I’ve been thinking of things I can make that don’t conjure up thoughts of open fires and hot chocolate.

What I came up with was iPhone covers, and then I decided that I wouldn’t knit them after all - it was time to get out the old crochet hook and cotton. I’ve come up with three different iPhone designs so far: a plain double crochet one; a ‘RING, RING’ one; and a lacy one that I’m going to line. The first two are cotton, the final one was made from a bit of leftover wool.

Plain iPhone cover. This is a simple double crochet design in cotton.

Double crochet (or single crochet in American) is ideal for iPhone covers. It creates a nice thick, tight fabric that will protect the phone, while cotton is hard wearing and machine washable. The plain cover is simple: make a chain that’s about the same length as your phone and then do double crochet rows until the fabric is long enough to wrap around your phone; join along the edges and bottom. I also did a double crochet border in a different colour along the top to provide contrast.

The back of RING, RING. The trick, as with knitting colourwork, is to make sure
you don't pull the threads too tight.

RING, RING was much more fun. I wanted to write ‘RING’ into both sides of the cover, using crochet rather than embroidery or Swiss darning. So I would be using two colours in the same row, kind of like crochet Fair Isle. I’ve used crochet to make stripes before, but I’ve never actually done colour work using crochet before. This was going to be interesting.

I remembered from doing stripes that the trick is to use the alternative colour to do the final step of the stitch, so with a double crochet, you insert the hook through the stitch below, wrap around in your main colour and pull through, then use the second colour to complete the stitch. You now have a finished stitch in your main colour and a loop on your hook in the second colour.

It worked! One RING as ordered.

The next step was to work out how to do the actual writing. This involved working out how many rows and stitches are needed to make one side of the cover and then drawing this onto graph paper, with each square representing one stitch. Then I drew out the letters, and it was time to start crocheting. That was when it got complicated.

To change colours in a row, you run the different threads across the back of the work, making an unholy mess of the back of the work; however, when you get to the end of a row, you turn your work, making the back now the front. This meant I had come up with a new way of crocheting so that the mess remained on the back. Crocheting on the right side was simple - just go ahead as usual - but with the wrong side showing I had make sure the non-working thread was at the front of the work. The working colour I could use as normal, but once I’d finished with that thread I had to pull it over the work and hold it tight to the front of the fabric, then bring the new working colour into play by pulling that over and to the back of the fabric, and then crochet as normal.

The finished article. This was the test piece, done in what I happened to have handy,
so the contrast isn't great, but you can see what I'm aiming for.

Have I created a new way to crochet? Probably not - I’m certain that I’m not the first person to think of this, but does open up a lot of possibilities with crochet colourwork. I’ll be crocheting Fair Isle-style jumpers before you know it.