#FROG What I learned from doubling up on yarn!

If you happened upon my blog via my Ravelry page, then you know: I do NOT consider myself an authority on crochet. At all. Like--seriously, don’t consider me an authority. Even though I’ve been crocheting for 3.5 years, I’m STILL learning to correct basic rookie mistakes that I probably should’ve learned ages ago. 2 of these mistakes made themselves extra apparent last week, while I was working on this project (Thanks HiSheepOK!). I wouldn’t have learned them without the pattern, nor without doubling up on my yarn. 

Doubling up on yarn? What’s this now?

Doubling up on your yarn is when you are crocheting with 2 threads of yarn on your hook instead of one. Doubling up on yarn can be a great way to increase the size of your amigurumi project without altering the shape or modifying a pattern. It’s also a great way to create a sturdier finished product (handy if you’re creating bins, boxes or other storage solutions). 

Doubling up on yarn naturally increases the size of your stitches. This can make imperfections, seams, or mistakes way more obvious in a finished product. This project was the first time I’d ever doubled up on my yarn. 

Keep reading to learn more. I’ve already made these mistakes so you don’t have to!

1. The invisible decrease, done right.

It turns out that I’ve been using the single crochet decrease instead of the invisible decrease on amigurumi projects… All this time, I thought I HAD been using invisible decreases in my work. However, while hacking away at Mooncake, my most recent work in progress, it became glaringly obvious that I wasn’t! 

Wait, what? How did you NOT notice for 3.5 years?! Yeah, I know, it’s crazy, right?! Well, here’s the thing: I’ve noticed the seams before on my previous projects, but I never felt like they were noticeable enough to suggest that I was doing the stitch incorrectly. This time around, since I had doubled up on my yarn, kinks, imperfections and seams became visible. Really visible. Take a look at these before and after photos. (Remember in my previous post how I said NOT to fasten off until you’re happy with a shape? Well, I ignored my own advice to bring you THIS gem. For science!)

Gross, right? Yeah… After I had fastened off on the first Mooncake body, I decided to second-guess my stitch technique. This is how you do an invisible decrease, right????! Wrong. I was definitely wrong. I was doing a single crochet decrease instead. There are times when a single crochet decrease is a useful stitch. Amigurumi is not one of those times. If you’re curious on how to do an invisible decrease the right way, All About Ami has a fabulous post with step-by-step instructions here.

2. Size matters.

Ok, confession time: this is one of those things that I knew in theory was a bad idea, but I wasn’t sure until I made this mistake for myself! When working on a project, it’s generally recommended (unless explicitly stated) that the yarn weight (or thickness of your yarn) is consistent. In other words, if I need multiple colours of yarn to complete my project, all of those different yarns should have the same thickness. You should probably also stick to using one hook size from start to finish. Consistency in yarn weight & hook size helps to ensure (or at least encourage) consistency in size and scaling of your finished project.

Typically when I’m working on amigurumi projects, I tend to use light worsted wool (weight #4). However, this time around, a friend of mine bought the yarn for me. Me being me, I failed to mention anything about yarn thickness (whoops, lol). The yarn they picked out was a great colour choice, but it was much thinner than what I use for most of my other projects, hence my decision to double up on the yarn. Long story short I used a white yarn (a yarn I already owned) to make the eyes. I was able to make eyes of a size and shape I liked, but the number of stitches needed to achieve the correct size/shape was different. When it came time to sew my eyes onto the finished product, it proved difficult to sew the eyes on neatly, because it was difficult to line up the stitches of each eye with stitches on Mooncake’s body.

While the finished product didn’t turn out half bad, there ARE some problems that I wish I could do over (e.g., the eyes not being sewn in a 100% circular fashion). All in all though, I’m still satisfied, knowing that I gained some knowledge that’ll help me create even better projects in the future.

Cindy.