Tunisian Stitch

Yesterday I had many many errands to do. My baby went off to my parents house for the night so all the menfolk could work on painting our diningroom that has been in a general state of madness for about 6 weeks. Not for us not trying I assure you. I personally work full time 2nd shift and my husband works about 30 hours a week 1st shift. So were either working or taking care of our fan-freaking-tastic 7 month old. That pretty much eats our whole day, everyday.

So last night we intended on grilling food for the guys in trade for painting :-)

Before all that I had to run errands with my daughter. So we did. One errand took me to walmart. That place will be the death of my wallet. I had been looking online at Tunisian Stitch work. I'm not a huge fan of the finished stitch, as crochets backside looks far nicer than the back of the Tunisian stitch to me. But from what I had seen, it seemed like the tunisian stitch works pieces up a little quicker than traditional crochet. And some days I want max speed.

Walmart did not have the afghan needles/hooks but they had yard. God they had yarn. 5 skeins of yarn there. Then went to Joann fabrics. More yarn. This time dark sugar n creme for a purse a friend of mine wants made up. No hooks there. So I went to hobby lobby. FINALLY! They only had 3 sizes. 5, 5.5, and 6mm. So i bought a 5, and a 6. The cotton yarn says to use a 5, but after working on a dishcloth last night, it was pretty snug, so I switched to a 6. Much easier for me to work with that way.

The best way to describe what a afghan hook is, is if a crochet hook and a set of knitting needles had a booze filled friday night, and woke up in bed together saturday and said "I'll call you a cab, lets never speak of this again." and a few months later, afghan needles were born. The ones I purchased are about 12 inches long with a metal stopper on the back like knitting needles have.

The video I used to walk me through the basic stitch, was this one here---

Youtube User: naztazia 

And the video I used to show me how to do the equivalent of a double crochet in tunisian stitch is here:

Youtube User:Bethintx1

Between the two of these excellent videos, I have figured out how to make a basic swatch/square. I used my dc34 idea with the afghan hook and it seemed like a long base. So i cut it down to 21. Which looked long enough until i started working into it, then it got really short. So I think the good middle ground is 30. 

Hopefully I can have a piece finished tonight to get some photos up. I really do slack on the pictures some days. Sorry!