[Learn Ginantsilyo By Project]

What the project is about: crocheting a square fabric then transforming the square into a shrug

One of the skills I learned as a crocheter is creating simple lace patterns. More often than not, when doing this, you want to see the effect of the lace so you crochet bigger, if you are like me who often experiment on creating laces and doesn’t know what project to make the swatch for, then let me share how i transformed a square into a shrug.

Square2Shrug:

 Skills to learn:

1. Creating a lace swatch
2. Making the square into wearable crochet – a shrug

About the yarn:

I bought the yarn from http://craftandme.com, my favorite overseas yarn supplier. I used the violet soft cotton from the picture below. What I like about the yarns bought from this store is that they are really very soft and the cotton is untreated hence, you do not get the stiff feeling of the familiar mercerized cotton yarn brands we usually have here in the Philippines. I only used one big ball of yarn since that’s only what I have from my stash.

Yarn and hook: soft cotton of bulk weight using 4.0mm crochet hook (US Size).

The pattern consists of the usual combination stitches:

• 4dc open shell with 1 ch
• 3dc closed shell
• crossed Fpdc (Front Post Double crochet) with 1 ch
• 3 dc cluster.

These stitches will be described more in the section: Special Stitches.

Materials:

4.0mm hook
Soft Cotton Thread Bulk Weight approximately 100g

Gauge:
5 chain is approximately 1 in.

Special Stitches:

4dc open shell with 1 ch (4DC Open Shell) – Make 2dc on next st, ch 1 2dc on same st.

3dc closed shell – Make 3dc on next st.

Front Post Dc – YO, then put the hook from front to back, between the stitches, around behind
the DC and out before the next stitch then complete the DC as normal.

3dc cluster: (Yo, insert hook in next st, yo draw yarn through st, yo, draw yarn through two
loops on hook) 3 times. yo, draw yarns through 4 loops on hook.

Crossed FPDC (2 crossed FPDC with 1 ch in between): This stitch is worked over an area of three stitches. To begin, skip two stitches, Make FPDc on third stitch. Ch 1, Make FPDc on
the first st that was skipped.

Instructions:

Foundation Chain: Ch 122.
Row 1, 25: ch 3 (counts as 1 dc) , ch 2 skip 2 ch, dc on next ch. Repeat until last ch. Turn
Row 2-4, 22-24: ch 3 (counts as 1 dc), ch 1, 2 dc on same st. skip 1dc. *Make a 4dc open
shell on next dc*. Repeat across except for the last st. Make 2dc on last st. ch 1, dc on same
st. turn.
Row 5, 9, 13, 17, 21: ch 3(counts as 1 dc), * ch 5, dc on next ch sp*, repeat * across. Turn.
Row 6, 10, 14, 18: ch 3 (counts as 1 dc) * ch 3, make 3dc closed shell on next dc of previous
row, ch 3, dc on next dc of previous row*,. Repeat * across. Turn
Row 7, 11, 15, 19: ch 3 (counts as 1 dc), *ch 3, make crossed FPDc on next 3dc cluster of
previous row, ch 3, dc on next dc of previous row* Repeat * across. Turn.
Row 8, 12, 16, 20: ch 3 (counts as 1 dc), * ch 4, make 3dc cluster on crossed FPDc of
previous row, ch 3, dc on next dc of previous row* Repeat * across. Turn
Finishing: Slip stitch ends  (13 stitches from ends [each four corners]) together to form the sleeves.