Craft Yarn Council Teacher Certification Level 2 Passed!

It took a while but I finally received my pin and certificate for level 1. I had already sent in my level two swathes and was waiting to hear about my exit call for level 2 to go over my work. This time around, I didn’t pass right away. Overall, my master teacher had good things to say. She commented on how good my weaving in of the tails was. I was glad because I was a bit obsessive about it. She said it was obvious I loved tunisian crochet because that swatch was great and my lesson plans were based around a tunisian crochet phone case of my own design that she liked.

She asked if I published my designs and I replied that I don’t. She said I should publish my tunisian designs. Was that my heart skipping a beat? I think it was. I was floating.

Then came the crash to earth. She said most of my swatches were excellent but she did have a few comments about some of them.

The Flame stitch: She said it was very pretty but she wondered why my green row didn’t drop down the stitches as far as my yellow row. They were supposed to be the same length. Umm…queue the crickets.

Mine is pretty but then drops are definitely NOT the same length.

She said the correction in the newsletter went out because so many students were having trouble with it. I never got that newsletter. Not sure why.

This was one of the most difficult and confusing swatches in the handbook. There was just one diagram with no repeats showing. Let me amend that. There was one repeat but it was done in a different color so I thought there were two separate things going on. In the end, I thought I had figured it out. She said it would seem like a ‘gotcha’ on this one since it was clear I could follow a diagram so she didn’t have me redo it. If I had received the newsletter, I’m sure I would have gotten this one right.

Intarsia: She didn’t make me redo this one either but she said it looked like I might be starting the color change in the wrong place. Since she could still see the tree, she said I wouldn’t have to make it again. Whew! This is one I struggled with too. I thought I did everything right and it still didn’t look right.

Intarsia

I had to submit it at some point so I sent it in even though I wasn’t sure about it. I’ll have to practice with it some more. I don’t like that I still don’t know how to get it right.

Broomstick lace: She said my broomstick lace was very pretty but she did notice that there was a pulled string on the stitches and she wasn’t sure why but that I did it consistently throughout the piece so she gave it a pass. So essentially, she didn’t know what I did different but it looked good and it was consistent.

Broomstick lace

 

Confession time: I know what I did. When I was done with the swatch, it didn’t look right so I pulled on the strands through the single crochet stitches to make them look centered. I probably shouldn’t have done that but it didn’t look right! I did it with every single  one so there you go, consistent! LOL

Seaming: If I didn’t mention the other swatches, that’s because she said they looked great, but there was one I did have to redo in order to pass. It was the one with the three types of seaming. I needed to make four 2×5 inch swatches in single crochet and them seam the long ends using the mattress, back, and slip stitch. I got the the back stitch and slip stitch just fine but the mattress stitch wasn’t invisible like it was supposed to be. She also said I should have done the back stitch on the wrong side.

This brought up my final project which was the baby sweater. She said it was very pretty and my color choices were nice but the seaming was done the same way I did my swatch. However, she said I didn’t need to redo it because it still looked good and as long as I redid my swatch, it was fine. She also noticed the buttons were off center but I followed the pattern and that’s how it was written. Since I chose to do different colors, the buttons looked off but it wasn’t because I made a mistake so I wasn’t penalized for it.

I look better in person.

The mattress stitch: I looked up the mattress stitch on YouTube before I submitted it because I had never done it before. I was confused because I found three different ways to do it. I decided to go with the one done by one of the teachers of the program so I figured that that had to be what they were looking for. I have to admit it wasn’t working for me. I didn’t feel like it was invisible but I figured it had to be what they were looking for. I was wrong. I am not saying in any which way or form that the teacher did it wrong. I’m simply saying that I probably followed the instructions incorrectly.

The invisible mattress stitch is in the middle. It’s not very invisible. 

Nope, not invisible on this side either.

My teacher sent me pics of hers and the first thing I noticed was that she did her 2×5’s horizontally and I did mine vertically. This made a difference because the edges I was seaming were along the rough edges where hers was along the side with v’s from the stitches. When I redid mine, I made it horizontal as well. I then went back to YouTube and picked a video to follow from Moogly and that did the trick. It was invisible! I’m glad she had me redo it because it’s a great way to seam. It truly is flat and invisible.

So much better!

Yep, still invisible on the other side. 

I sent her pics of it and then I passed. {Wiping the nervous sweat off my brow.}

So yay, I passed!

Advertisement