Having finally cracked at least the basics of crochet (knowing how to hold the yarn and where to put the hook as my friend Brioni succinctly put it), I've been keen to try crocheting in the round.
Not feeling quite up to magic circle yet, I experimented with chaining two and then making six double crochets (single crochets for you American folks) into the second chain, which seemed to work quite well, although I could see you might need a stitch to close the circle fully afterwards.
I used this technique to make this delightful crochet owl from Ana Clerc's Owls Two Way pattern that was free on ravelry. I made the owl with 5.5mm hook and King Cole Merino Blend Chunky Superwash Wool as I'm still not quite ready for spindly hooks. The owl is crocheted in the round spiral style.
To finish, I made a cotton bag of plastic pellets to give the bottom of the owl some ballast and then filled the rest of the owl with toy stuffing. I sewed the owl closed with yarn and then pulled up the corners to form the ears. I sewed two small red buttons on top of two larger purple buttons and (lazily) glued them to the owl along with a felt beak.
Cute, non? I'm also looking forward to trying the second owl from Ana's pattern, which is knitted in the round.
For my other crochet-in-the-round starter project, I chose these felted bowls from a pattern I bought on Etsy from knot.sew.cute. The pattern was for four nested bowls and I made the smallest two using my ubiquitous 5.5mm hook and some Icelandic Lopi, which was larger scale than the pattern called for but seemed to work fine, The bowls were made spiral style again and I more less managed to maintain the correct number of stitches.
I felted the bowls in the washing machine with two short 60 degree cycles. I stuffed them with carrier bags to retain their shape whilst they dried and now I have somewhere to keep my new crocheting notions.
With luck, next stop, amigurumi toys ...
Melx
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