Upcycled Linens Crochet Rag Rug Tutorial

I'm not sure if it is like this everywhere but I have found that I am able to find sheets at thrift stores for cheap. Like $1 for a set of twin sized sheets or $1 for a queen or king size single sheet. There is no way that I could ever purchase that much fabric from a craft store for $1, ever. 

I'll often snap up sheets that have a pretty print with plans to sew from them. But sometimes when you get them home you find little holes and stains that come with normal use and wear and you don't exactly want to be making throw pillows out of them afterall. 

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Crochet Up Some Neon Pot Scrubbers

I don't like sponges being used in clean up situations... I've just heard way too much about germs that live up in them. But I do like scrubbies. We had a whole pile of the thing that were given as a gift. It was easy to see that they were little crocheted circles of maroon and hunter green, but I couldnt' figure out what the material was for the life of me.

So one day I'm in the craft store when I see one older lady speaking to another older lady who is putting spool after spool of tulle into her cart. "Are you making tutus?" "No, I'm making little pot scrubbers that my grandaughter sells on the internet for me." Whoa - pot scrubbers? 

Me being me, I have to go over and talk to this chick and get the skinny and I'm informed that you use the tulle like you would yarn and crochet rounds to make pot scrubbers. I grabbed a neon pink, green and blue right there on the spot.

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Crochet Eyeglasses Case Tutorial

I have a lot of pairs of glasses for two reasons. One I lose them, all of the time and everywhere. I leave them at the doctor's office, my Mimmie steals them and my house eats them. The sucky thing is that they are prescription, too. Within the past year I've learned about online places to buy glasses on the cheap. I'm talking $6-10 a pair. The good news is, if I lose them, that's okay. The bad news is, even much cheaper, these things add up.

One day I was digging around in my purse for my glasses when I realized that my hard plastic case had busted open and it wasn't something that was going to be fixed unless I strapped a rubber band around it. Now that is just a little too hillbilly a fix even for me...

So, one evening I worked out a plan using the basket weave stitch and using some fabric I've had lovingly stashed away with no project in mind.  The good news, is with how quickly the stitch works, with a few episodes of the terribly depressing (yet horribly addictive) Locked Up Abroad playing, I knocked this baby out in an evening from start to finish, wham, bam thank you ma'am. 

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Basket Weave Crochet Stitch

Updated on Friday, March 1, 2013 by Allison Murray

The first exposure I had to this crochet stitch was in a goodwill in west Texas last summer. There was an afghan that had seen better days but the pattern was absolutely mesmerizing. I looked at it from a distance because my Mimmie informed me that if I didn't want to take bed bugs home I wouldn't be jacking with anything made of fabric. I asked her what kind of a stitch it was and she told me a "a nasty one".

Since I was playing chauffer to Momma and Mimmie I didn't have an opportunity to really think about it too much, but on the many, many hours of drive back to Oklahoma I Googled on my phone with a fierce determination to find out how to replicate what I had seen. Although I now know it is a basket weave I had no idea what to call it. Isn't it so much fun to search for something you have no clue the name of? Love it! (not really)

So I found a pic in image search and I spent 7+ hours trying to duplicate what I saw on my phone's screen. It was rather frustrating but in the end, I made it work. When I got a good deal going Momma said, it looks like a basket weave! I was then able to find a proper tutorial and learned that I wasn't doing it that way, but since it worked out for me, I'm sharing it here!

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Granny Crochet Stitch in a Straight Line

Granny squares are traditional and awesome but as a kid I thought they looked old fashioned. What I did like were the puffy shell shaped stitches and my Mimmie tried to teach me but I had a hard time. Instead, she wound up showing me how to do the granny stitch in a straight line instead of a square. I got my shell shape but I wasn't stuck with squares.

As an adult, I find that I like the stitch when I want to do stripes. Either bold and chunky or by alternating every row, this stitch can be versatile in spite of the fact that it is very simple.

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How to Half Double Crochet

Not going to lie. When I first saw the need for a half double crochet stitch on a pattern I decided to just use a double crochet. It didn't exactly work out.

Good news, this is an easy stitch and if you alraady know how to double crochet, it's in the bag. For those of you who don't need the pictorial, I'm not going to have you sifting through this post trying to find a quick answer... The only thing that is different between the double crochet and the half double is the fact that you take off all three loops on the first pass. That is seriously it.

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