Why do we crochet?

Some people love being creative and find fun ways to express themselves through stitches. Others find it saves money around the house. Many appreciate the workmanship, time, and love that goes into something homemade. Everyone has a story of how they got started, whether it was from a person, a book, or youtube videos.

For my part, it started out as something to keep myself distracted during a long road trip. Reading makes me carsick, but working with yarn does not! My aunt taught me, and it started with basic granny squares and shell stitches. I made a few blankets, made either from one very large granny square or a few largish granny squares put together. For a while, I thought that's all there was to crochet (I wasn't using the internet for more than talking to friends, at the time). I didn't even learn about single crochet stitches until a few years later.

Over the years, I've had pauses and spurts of crochet in my daily life. School and general busy-ness often pushed me out of it, as all of my creative juices and energy were being put into more academic pursuits. I started up again this past year in order to make Christmas gifts. In fact, I made gifts for 20 people this year. I even created a couple patterns (and this blog with which to share them). We saved a good bit of money and everyone got something personalized and full of love. My partner's mom even called on Christmas to gush at how pleased and impressed she was with the gifts. I was happy to make them, but it's really special when somebody demonstrates that they recognize and feel the love in the work.

Since the holidays have ended, I've at least started working on a couple things for myself, the house, the dog, and my partner. I joined a couple Crochet Along (CAL) groups on Ravelry, and I'm meeting with a group of ladies once a week where we crochet & knit items for charity.

Crochet is craft, art, and gift.

What inspired you to pick up the hook and yarn?
Do you remember when and how you learned to crochet?
Is it part of your daily life or does it happen in spurts?
Do you remember a time when someone showed you how much your gift of crochet meant to them?

Binary 'I Love You' Scarf

My boyfriend, Erik, programs mainframe computers. These are the ones that handle banking and credit card transactions, and they are huge. Programmers don't actually program in binary anymore; they have many many programming languages which the computer translates into binary. Still, I knew that binary would be relatively easy to convert into a pattern. I used this binary translator, but any binary translator you find on the internet should work, too.

There is lots of color changing going on in this scarf. Here is a video on How to Crochet Color Change Without Knots. I found it very helpful and useful. Alternatively, you can slipstitch up the side of the fabric. This means there are not tons of ends to weave in, but you do have some odd looking stitching going up the side. Adding an edging up both sides or all around will cover it up.


Here is "I Love You" in binary:
01101001-
00100000-
01101100-
01101111-
01110110-
01100101-
00100000-
01111001-
01101111-
01110101
Each 8 digits represents 1 letter/character. In this pattern, the space is coded for, partially because I liked the fact that it made for 10 lines of code. You'll have 160 rows when your done, and it's about 6 feet long if your double crochets are about 1/2" tall.

Abbreviations:
dc = double crochet
ch = chain

Color A = 0 (black in example)
Color B = 1 (red in example)
1 row = 3 ch + 40  dc
Turn work after each row.

In A, ch 40
*in A, dc 1 row
in B, dc 2 rows
in A, dc 1 row
in B, dc 1 row

in A, dc 2 rows
in B, dc 1 row
in A, dc 2 rows
in B, dc 1 row

in A, dc 6 rows
in B, dc 2 rows
in A, dc 1 row
in B, dc 2 rows

in A, dc 3 rows
in B, dc 2 rows
in A, dc 1 row
in B, dc 4 rows

in A, dc 1 row
in B, dc 3 rows
in A, dc 1 row
in B, dc 2 rows

in A, dc 2 rows
in B, dc 2 row
in A, dc 1 row
in B, dc 1 row

in A, dc 1 row
in B, dc 2 rows
in A, dc 1 row
in B, dc 6 rows

in A, dc 4 rows
in B, dc 2 rows
in A, dc 1 row
in B, dc 1 row

in A, dc 2 rows
in B, dc 1 row
in A, dc 4 rows
in B, dc 1 row

in A, dc 3 rows
in B, dc 1 row
in A, dc 1 row
in B, dc 1 row
in A, dc 1 row

Repeat from *star to make it long enough.
Fasten off final tail.

It will say "I Love You" twice.

16 lines: 10% Finished
"I L"

32 lines: 20% Finished
"I Lov"

80 lines: 50% Finished
"I Love You"

Finished. Showing half. Came out to 7 feet by 1 foot.

Finished, folded upto see better contrast.

If you have any questions, leave me a comment.


Binary 'I Love You' Scarf by Jessica A Prescott is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.