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Prefered crochet hooks

#1 
    the use of metal tools as opposed to wood, plastic, casein, and
the like, will increase the rate of work hardening.

I have a question for all the wire crocheters on Orchid: have you
personally used wood, plastic, or casein crochet hooks with wire?
What do you prefer to use? Is there a particular brand that you’re
happy with?

I’ve been using Boye metal (steel or aluminum) hooks, because that’s
what I already owned. I don’t really like how the metal-on-metal
feels in my hands while I’m working and I would like to decrease the
work-hardening, but I’m concerned that the wood, plastic, or casein
hooks would not hold up – that the hooks would tend to break off.

– Constance

#2 
I've been using Boye metal (steel or aluminum) hooks, because
that's what I already owned

hi i try to use boye hooks, much nicer and heavier than susan bates.
i have used the aluminum when making the loopier lacy look necklaces
and bracelets, they are fun to make. the wooden brittany hooks i
reserve for yarn, and i don’t usually use plastic. don’t know why,
i never tried them.

pat

#3

The important thing for me is that the wire slide easily on the stem
of the crochet needle. I like the metal ones best for that reason.
I haven’t had too much difficulty with fine silver, or copper wire
hardening, but definitely can’t use one long piece for a whole
necklace.

Adding pieces of wire is more of a problem for me. No matter how
carefully I try to work the end into the body of the piece, they
seem to escape and threaten to scratch whoever wears it. Any ideas?

Sandra
Elegantbee@aol.com
www.elegantinsects.com

#4

Has anyone tried fusing the next piece of wire onto the first?

Teresa

#5 
    Adding pieces of wire is more of a problem for me.  No matter
how carefully I try to work the end into the body of the piece,
they seem to escape and threaten to scratch whoever wears it.  Any
ideas?

Sandra, I don’t use a crochet hook to make a trichinopoly chain, so I
can only describe how the chain looks, not how to manipulate the
wire into position. And the description is not nearly as easy to
understand as a drawing!

The new and old wires overlap, just as when knitting with yarn, but
the overlap distance is very short, less than one stitch. The old
wire will end at “3 o’clock” on a loop. The new wire will start at
"9 o’clock" of the same loop, overlap the old wire as it goes around
the top of the loop, and cross the old wire at “6 o’clock”. Put a
tiny hook into each end to secure the wires, and use the tip of the
pliers to point the cut ends into the work.

I’d better send you a drawing!

Janet

#6 
    I'd better send you a drawing!

Janet - please send a drawing to me as well - I have this same
problem with or without using a crochet hook. I just don’t seem to
get the ends properly attached and the stick in the wrong direction
every time.

Kay
@bericho1

#7 
    Has anyone tried fusing the next piece of wire onto the first?
Teresa

Teresa - yes, I had an instructor who taught us to do that with fine
silver wire when we were weaving a tube chain. I’d forgotten but I
had learned that at one time in the far gone past. I don’t often
make loop tubular chains, but next time I do one I’ll try the fusing
again. I seem to remember that it worked very well - but you have to
fuse while you have still a fairly decent length of silver. If you
wait too late, you’ll fuse the loops as well.

Kay

#8 
	Has anyone tried fusing the next piece of wire onto the first?

Although her spectacular wire work is not crochet, I understand that
Mary Lee Hu carefully fuses or solders the next section as needed.
Should work for crochet as well.

Pam Chott
Song of the Phoenix

#9

Teresa: Interesting idea–but with such thin wire, the risk of
melting several inches of work seems very high. Sandra

#10

Janet-Your description is very clear and very close to what I have
been doing. However, I find that with the movement of the arm or
neck, the tiny ends tend to detach themselves. What I really would
like to be able to do, is to ball up the end and then turn it into
the rest of the fabric. For some reason or other, I haven’t tried
that yet. It would mean leaving a longer end to tuck back in.

By the way, I’d love to see samples of your trichinopoly chains –
please post a website. Thanks Sandra

#11 
    Has anyone tried fusing the next piece of wire onto the first?

Teresa, It would probably work, but I haven’t found it necessary with
round chains. Pulling the chain through a drawplate seems to anchor
it pretty well–or perhaps my friends are too polite to tell me that
their chains are poking them in the neck?

I hope that’s not the case. My chains had lots of cut ends because
weaving limits you to lengths of wire that are 2- to 3-feet long.

Janet

#12

There’s a website that shows trichinopoly chains the way I learned,
i.e., weaving the wire. At first I wasn’t going to mention this
website because so much had been copied from Petersen’s book.
Happily, much of site has been reworked and credit given to Petersen
(although it would be better if her name were spelled correctly!).
The process for joining a new wire is at

http://yourpage.blazenet.net/stevens/trichinopoly4.htm

Note that weaving progresses from left to right (and top to bottom,
too), which is the opposite of crocheting and knitting. That’s why
it shows the old wire ending at 9 o’clock and the new wire starting
at 3 o’clock.

As for samples of my work: I gave them away as gifts! The only one
left is the very first chain I made, in which the stitches were
neither fine nor even enough for show. I didn’t even bother to
finish the ends.

I tried several times to use a crochet hook but couldn’t get the
stitches to behave–probably because the chains were only about 1/4"
thick and had six stitches per row. For a larger project I would
definitely try the hook again.

Do you pre-shape your wire before crocheting/knitting with it?

Janet

#13

Sandra, About fusing fine silver wire, ultra thin gauge. How about
fusing on the new piece when there is at least 6 inches left on the
existing one? Use a forceps or tweezer as a heat sink at about 3
inches. Teresa

#14

I make both the chains mentioned in this thread. The chain in the
Peterson book also gives me small lumps where I connect the wires
because they are hooked to the outside and it seems you have an
extra piece which does show and does leave a piece, however small,
with an outside end. Because of this, even tho I prefer the look of
the viking chain, I now make the crocheted chain that I learned from
a workshop with Alan Revere and which is in his book. That is the
chain in which the wires are connected on the inside and so it is
smooth when completed and drawn. I don’t use a crochet hook for
either and so this thread is quite a mystery to me.

Will someone tell me how the crochet hook is actually used?