Thursday, September 15, 2011

Afghan Hooks (A Gripe)

I'm making a blanket.  It needs a size F Afghan Hook.  Now this is not to be confused with a normal crochet hook (I have multiple size F crochet hooks)...No what I need is an afghan hook.  What, you're asking yourselves, is an afghan hook?

Well if a knitting needle met a crochet hook on a blind date, got married, and had a baby - that baby would be an afghan hook.  It's got a hook like a normal crochet hook, but it's long and has a stopper at one end like a knitting needle.  and I need one.  I have a size J afghan hook from a project I made a few years ago, but this is for a different project and if I use the J hook (which I could) it would throw the gauge of the whole project off and instead of a normal size baby blanket I would have a GINORMOUS (that's right, I said it) baby blanket....not that there's anything wrong with that, but then I would need to buy a lot more yarn than I have to.  In other words it would be a mess.

So I went looking for one, Joann's only had the size J, Michaels had never even heard of an afghan hook, so I called a specialty yarn store, surely they would have them.  Nope.  I was told by the proprietor of Mystic Yarns that "There really hasn't been much call for afghan hooks since the seventies, but maybe you should check with Joann's."

*SCREAMS*

So I went onto Joann's website and found what I looking for, FINALLY! but then there was the cost of shipping which was twice as much as the hook itself.  *thud*  So today I've decided to order the hook and to offset the cost of the shipping I'll just order more yarn for this blanket.

Which - those of you out there who know about fiber work know, there's a problem with dye lots.  HA!  Not this time.  I have all the yarn already for the background of this blanket and each individual square of this blanket has it's own colors.  So that being said I can buy whatever yarn (provided it is the same weight) that I want. :-P Take that.

So, that's my gripe, what's the point of bringing back "vintage" crochet if NOWHERE is going to sell the right tools??????

*sigh* off to order my hook....

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