Time to Crochet! Week 9

Apparently when a Red Heart pattern says “Intermediate” it means “cry into your pillow difficult.”


Normally you’d assume that this kind of pattern would be knitted, but this one is actually crocheted. I was pretty excited and got started on it right away, but almost immediately ran into stitches I wasn’t familiar with. Thankfully the pattern had all the instructions for a “one over one left cross” and all the other new and interesting techniques I needed to know. Even with the instructions, there were still things I was confused about. In the next row after a “three over three right cross,” which stitches was I supposed to “back post double crochet” first? How could I know for sure that I was using the correct stitch for my “front post double crochet?”

I ended up having to redo the first, second, and third rows over and over again. I’d finish, get ready to start the fourth, and not have the correct number of stitches or something would look terribly wrong. So I’d have to pull everything out and start again.


I got frustrated and ignored it for a couple of days. Then on Wednesday morning, I realized, “It’s the 19th!” Like, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25. That 19th. If I was going to finish this stocking before Christmas, I had to get moving!


Eventually I learned the tricks. The next stitch to do a double crochet in was two after the one over one left cross, because technically those stitches had already been used. The nine back post double crochets had to be done in a precise order, but it was going to depend on where in the twist the cable was.


I’m still not close to done with it. It works up in pieces: the cuff, either side of the leg, and either side of the stocking. I think it will be faster now that I (kind of) know what I’m doing. Hopefully I’ll be able to have it done by the time we need to put something in it!


I’d hate to see a pattern that this company decided was “hard.” My head would probably explode.