I’m so glad reader and crocheter Janet S. asked for a little help with the Mamas and Papas of Cute Crochet World. She is using them to decorate crocheted bags.
Complete written instructions for the Mamas and Papas are on pages 137-141. The hair, clothing, arms, and legs are joined as you work. I like to weave in ends as I go.
Begin with the head. It is worked in the round, but it is oval because the stitches on the sides are shorter than the stitches at the top of the head and the chin. The tallest stitch is htr; find directions for htr here.
After you join the first round for the head, the neck is simply the first few stitches of a second round.
Mamas and Papas have lots of hairstyles to choose from, with instructions for each on page 140. I’m giving this Mama a Cleopatra hairdo, which starts in the second stitch from the neck. You can see how I skipped the first stitch, and I’ve joined the hair color with a tr.
To join with a tr (instead of a sl st and ch 4), place a slip knot on the hook. Holding the knot in place with the fingers on your hook-holding hand, yo twice, insert the hook, and pull up a loop. Now you have 4 loops on the hook While holding them in place, finish the stitch just like any tr.
Once you get the hang of beginning a row or round with a stitch (instead of sl st and chain), I think you’ll like it a lot. It looks neater than the sl st and chain at the beginning.
Mama has the Cleopatra hair and Papa has a crew cut.
Turn Mama to the wrong side to start the dress. Work the first row into the three stitches of the neck. In the photo above, I have joined the dress color with 4 dc in the first stitch. The next two stitches are marked with arrows.
Mama’s rounded sleeves are made with two clusters of 4 tr. The instructions tell you exactly how to do this. In this photo, I am at the top of page 139. I have 5 loops on the hook and I’m ready to yo and pull through all loops to complete the first 4tr-cluster.
The first row of Papa’s shirt is similar to the first row of Mama’s dress—begin on the wrong side. The green arrow in this photo shows the beginning of the second row, where we make the sleeves. Ch 4 at the beginning of the row, then make a joined-tr. A joined-tr is attached to the chain, and keeps it from gapping.
To make the joined-tr for Papa’s shirt, Yo, draw up a loop in the 3rd ch from hook, draw up a loop in the first st. Now you have 4 loops on the hook, and you can finish this tr just like any other tr.
End off after the first two rows of the dress or shirt. Weave in ends to get them out of the way. To finish the garments, turn to the wrong side and place the first sts into the sts shown by the green arrows.
To keep the turning chains in Mama’s dress and Papa’s shirt from creating gaps, use a joined-dc. Instructions for that are on page 17.
When the dress and shirt are finished, they’ll look like this. We’ll crochet legs and shoes in the next post.