Hello my lovelies,
Welcome to The Crochet Circle Podcast and the show notes from Episode Sixteen - Common Thread.
 
In this episode, I cover: Old dog, new tricks; Tunisian CAL; Review of The Shawl Project Book Three; FOs; WIPs; Feeding the Habit; Big Up and What's Good?
 
This podcast is sponsored by my online crafting company, Provenance Craft Co. 


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1 - Old dog, new tricks
This month I was given a great tip by Claudia from the Crochet Luna Podcast.  She asked whether I had ever come across a standing dc (US terminology) and I hadn't.  So, I did what I always do and took to Google to see what it was all about and came across these YouTube videos by Tamara Kelly from Moggly.com:
Standing dc (tr in UK terminology)
Standing hdc (htr in UK terminology)
Standing sc (dc in UK terminology)
 
I haven't had lots of time to test this technique out fully but I love the results that I got on the coaster that I crocheted.  I did one using the standard chain method for starting the new round in the new colour and one using a standing tr (Uk terminology).  I think that the use of a standing stitch makes the join look much neater and helps to avoid the gap that often appears.  The stitch looks more like a tr and is also bulkier, which means that my eye isn't automatically drawn to an area that looks 'different'.  
 

 
Tamara's videos are very good and I suspect that once you have tried this technique, you won't go back to using a chain to start a new round off in a new colour.
 
What I want to investigate next is whether this technique can also be used when you are starting a new round in the same colour.  More on that next month... 
 
 
2 - Tunisian CAL update
This CAL started on the 3rd March and ran until the 16th of April.  Check out the CAL FOs thread on Ravelry (under The Crochet Circle Podcast Group) or on Instagram to see posts under #tccTunisianCAL.
The projects have been great and lots of people can now do Tunisian crochet. Well done everyone!  I have pulled together the video for YouTube to announce the winners and show off all of the FOs. 
 
Thanks to everyone that took part, it was great fun.
 
Our next A Long is going to be a CrAL called the Festival of Finishing. The idea is that through the months of June, July and August you work with some of your crafting WIPs.  I have three (crochet, cross stitch and knitting) that I want to work on and then I won't have any projects that are in hibernation anymore - oh the release!  I am trying to get to a place where I can scoot through projects and don't have my crafting resources tied up elsewhere being unloved.  
 
The graphic for the CrAL looks like this, and you will see it on Ravelry and Instagram.  
 

 
 
So why not look your WIPs out now and assess what you want to do with them?  In the next episode, I will cover some of the things that you can do with your WIPs, how to frog your projects, give you some stash buster patterns for those frogged WIPs and pass some advice on donating projects to charity shops.
 
3 - Review of The Shawl Project Book Three
 
Jo (jojotwinkletoes on Ravelry and Instagram) kindly agreed to review The Shawl Project Book Three for us. She has already made two of the five shawls and plans to make the other three too!  Rather than post all of the information here, I have created a new thread on Ravelry within The Crochet Circle Podcast group.
The Shawl Project Book Three can be bought directly from The Crochet Project website, or through Ravelry.  
 
This is Jo and her Fog Break shawl:
 

 
Here are the photos (thanks to Kat and Joanne for providing them) of each of the shawls from the book:
 
 
 
4 - Finished Objects (FOs)
Once again, I didn't th