Craft Smarter in the New Year
Welcome to the next post in our Craft Smarter in the New Year series on Color Blending!
How Color Blending is Different in Crochet
Crochet is perfect for color blending because of its natural ability to change the height of rows. This lets you alter where the stitch starts in the row. See how the colors zigzag in the above swatch?
Yarn and Hook
I’m using Valley Yarns Northampton (a worsted weight yarn) and a G hook. The image below shows knitting, but the colors are the same!
From light to dark (bottom to top), I’m using:
CC1: Raspberry Heather (26)
CC2: Dahlia (21)
CC3: Merlot Heather (27)
CC4: Amethyst (19)
How to Work the Shell Stitch
Step 1: Chain a multiple of 6 plus 1 (so, 7, 13 or 19 all work). In our swatch, we’ve chained 25.
Step 2: Ch1, *skip 2 ch, dc5 in next ch, sk 2 ch, sc, rep from * until 1 ch rem, sc. (I changed colors here)
Step 3: Ch3, sc2 into sc, sk 2 dc, sc into the middle of the dc of the shell, * sk2, dc5 in the sc, sk2 dc, sc into the middle of the dc of the shell, rep from * until you’ve worked in the final shell, sk2, dc3 into the final sc. (I changed colors here)
Repeat Steps 2 and 3 until you have 1 more row to do. Work Step 2 once more.
Chart
We’re using new charting software and the feedback has been great so far! So, here’s the chart for the Shell Stitch.
How Many Rows?
We did the swatch working 1 row in each color. You can work any number of rows per color, so this is up to you, the yarn and the hook size.
As always, when in doubt, swatch.
The Back Side
The other side of Shell Stitch looks just as good as the front-side. Given that, take care when you weave in ends so they don’t poke out.
Craft Smarter in the New Year
This post is part of our Craft Smarter in the New Year Series. We’re covering both knitting and crochet, and here are the posts we have in mind:
- Purl Stitch (knitting)
- Linen Stitch (crochet)
- Slipped Stitches (knitting)
- Spike Stitch (crochet)
- Garter Stitch (knitting)
- Shell Stitch (crochet)
- Color Introduction (knitting)
- Lemon Peel Stitch (crochet)
- Holding 2 Colors Together (both knitting and crochet)
We also kicked off this series with a post on color choices and included a bunch of different resources for you to get the juices flowing!
Our Sponsor
And of course, a special thanks to our yarn sponsor, Webs, for donating the yarn for this series. We couldn’t have done it without you – plus their Valley Yarns Line is FABULOUS. I highly recommend them.
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