10 Things I've Learned About Thread

I'm working on a thread teddy bear. The pattern was a gift from Diane from the CAL Pals forum, who was kind enough to grant my wish. The bear I'm making is called Berty and he's down at the bottom of this page. The designer is Edith Molina - she's so talented! There are so many adorable little bears on her site.

I finally went out yesterday and bought the thread and hooks to start on it. The pattern calls for size #30 thread, but after one look at the thread, and another look at the size 11 hook, I said "NO." lol I'm brave but not that brave. That hook is TINY. If I'd had previous thread experience, I would have gone for it, but since this is my first, I thought I'd go with a tidge bigger thread and hook combo. Plus, my gauge is small enough where my bear might still come out the right size. :oÞ

Anyway, I went with DMC Cebelia #10 thread and a size 8 Boye steel hook. I bought a set of 6 Boye hooks, sizes 0, 1, 7, 8, 9, and 10. I also bought sizes 9 and 10 in the Bates steel hooks -- did you know that Bates steel hooks run quite a bit smaller than the Boyes for the same number? For instance, the Boye 10 hook is 1.30mm. The Bates 10 hook is 1.15mm. There's a noticeable difference in comparing the two. I was going to return the two Bates hooks after buying the set from Boye (my preferred brand), but after seeing they're not duplicate sizes, I decided to keep them.

Anyway, as you can see in the picture, everything is teeeeeeeny tiny. Top left hand corner is the body of the bear and it's head, respectively. I think he's going to be so cute when he's done!!

So I started on him yesterday, and right away I noticed several "new" things about crocheting with thread:

1. Damn those hooks are tiny.

2. Thread is called thread for a reason. It's basically no thicker than about 3 or 4 thick human hairs wound together.

3. Wearing a band-aid on the tip of my middle finger on my left hand is a GOOOOOOD idea. That hook HURTS when it pokes you going through the stitches.

4. I need a smaller safety pin. I use that to mark the 1st stitch in the rnd and the one I'm using is tiny, but not small enough and it's getting in the way.

5. I've used words while working on this that I never thought I'd use while crocheting.

6. DAMN those hooks are tiny.

7. Stuffing is MUCH harder with something this small. When I did the head, I stuffed after the last rnd (which was a rnd of 6 dec's). It left an opening so tiny I had to use the blunt end of a D hook to shove the polyfil in.

8. It's probably not a good idea to work on this project while simultaneously trying to do another animal that uses a J hook. I feel clumsy switching back and forth between the two.

9. There are no soft threads. :( At least not that I could find.

10. DAMN those hooks are TINY!!!!

On the bright side, it does get easier as it goes along. The first few rnds always go slow simply because you've got nothing to hang on to, but after that, it gets pretty fast. And since the stitches are easy to see, you can always back track if you lose count.

I can't wait till he's done - I think he'll be SO adorable. :)