Join As You Go Crochet and Ditch Seaming Forever

What is your least favorite step of crochet, the swatch or seaming? One of the great advantages of crochet afghans is that you can ditch the swatch. You don’t have to worry about your blanket being a size 6 or 16, so unless your gauge is completely off, you will have a beautiful blanket even without a swatch. But seaming, especially for geometric or motif afghans, is hard to avoid–but not impossible with join-as-you-go crochet afghans.

I met Lily Chin years ago in the Interweave offices–she is delightful!–and one thing I can tell you about her is that she does everything fast. She talks fast, walks fast and crochets blindingly fast. So it is no surprise that she is a master at join-as-you-go crochet afghans and sweaters–no seaming to slow you down. In fact, I met her when she was at the Interweave video studio to film Join As You Go Crochet.

One of the easiest ways, and one of my favorite ways, to join-as-you-go is to work into the bottom or other side of a foundation row. You can also work into the bottom of a chain row which is especially helpful if you are working a lace design or a design where you need to mirror your crochet work or a free-form crochet afghan–the perfect idea for stash busting.

To work into the bottom of a foundation row is incredibly easy. Simply turn your work over so that the bottom of the foundation row is now facing up and ready to be worked into. Foundation rows are incredibly easy to work into. You’ll notice that the bottom of a foundation row, now the top since you have turned your work upside down, looks just like your normal crochet row would work. That is one of the benefits of the foundation row, the bottom side looks just like the top with two strands to work into for a secure first row across the bottom of the foundation.

Working into the bottom side of a chain stitch first row is a little bit more complicated. Try turning your work upside down so that you are ready to work into the bottom of a chain stitch row. Notice that you don’t have two loops to work into. There is only one stitch. You can work under this single stitch but pay special attention to whether your new row is pulling that single stitch or creating “holes.” This may be just fine if you are working on a lace crochet afghan.

But what if you want to join strips for a fun afghan but can’t stand the idea of seaming or if you want to work into the side of a row but want the transition to appear seamless? Then you definitely want to go back to Lily Chin and her fast crochet solutions. In her workshop Join As You Go Crochet, Lily will teach you how to:

• add new crochet to any side of a completed piece, invisibly!
• connect single, half-double, or double crochet, pattern stitches, even Tunisian crochet.
• create graphic, easy colorwork without bobbins or intarsia.
• build garments piece by piece, seamlessly!
• crochet strip afghans without sewing together.

So if you love crocheting but hate seaming or if you just want to learn fast new crochet techniques, you really need to watch Join As You Go Crochet! Lily is a great teacher and the techniques you’ll learn in this workshop are truly project altering. So download your copy of Join As You Go Crochet today. Then leave a comment and let us know what you think about seaming crochet.

Happy crocheting,

Toni