Crochet Project

Last year, I purchased a Wacom Bamboo graphics tablet for my art. A few months ago I decided that I needed to protect the tablet somehow, because I travel quite a lot with it. I place it in a pocket in my bag, but I still wanted something a little more substantial to protect it. So I took up one of my trusty little steel crochet hooks from my Grandma Hillaby, a couple of fine Mercerized cotton yarns (yes, bamboo yarn would have been much more appropriate, but I had this in stock and didn't want to spend any money), and my favourite crochet pattern (I've created two baby blankets out of this pattern to date) to create a little Bamboo Pocket!


Here's the pattern, for anyone who might be interested. I believe I started with 87 chains (there are 8 full repetitions of the wheel across the body of the pocket, plus the 3 stitches to start, and 4 stitches to end the first row. I just crocheted a "scarf" (i.e. a rectangle), folded it in half, and single crocheted the pocket together at the two edges. I attached a button at the top inside to just keep it closed. I had thought of doing an envelop flap, and I might do so still at some point, but the holes in the pattern fit a little button nicely, so I think this'll do fine for my purposes.


Catherine Wheel

The circular motifs are achieved by working one row of clusters and one row of shells. Try a piece starting with 27 chains.

Row 1: (wrong side) 1sc in 2nd ch from hook, 1sc in next ch. *skip 3ch, 7dc in next ch, skip 3 ch, 3sc, rep from * to last 4ch, skip 3 ch, 4 dc in last ch, turn
Row 2: ch1, 1sc in same place. 1 sc, *ch3, 1dcl worked over 7 sts, ch3, 3sc, rep from * to last 4sts, ch3, 1cl over 4dc, turn
Row 3: ch3, 3dc in same place, *skip 3ch, 3sc, skip 3ch, 7dc in loop of cl, rep from * to last 5sts, skip 3ch, 2sc, turn
Row 4: ch3, 1cl over 3 sts, *ch3, 3sc, ch3, 1cl over 7 sts, rep from * to last 5sts, ch3, 2sc, turn
Row 5: ch1, 2sc, *skip 3ch, 7dc in loop of cl, skip 3ch, 3sc, rep from * to last st, 4dc in last st
Rep rows 2-5 to desired length.


For two colour Catherine Wheel, work as above, changing to the second colour on row 2. Change colour on every alternate row. Here's a video; it's about 20 minutes, but she goes through the whole pattern - very helpful if you don't figure out patterns easily without help from someone showing you what to do. It's a little different pattern than the one above - the demonstrator only does 1sc rather than 3sc in between each 3ch/cluster/3ch combination (and obviously she must only do 1sc wherever it says to do 3 sc above), but you get the idea of how to do the cluster stitch really well by watching.