It's July...are your State Fair entries finished?

Brenda's
 winding station

 

Lori's bag

July's class on the crocodile stitch was a whole lot of fun! Not only did Barb do an excellent job as our instructor but we had a new member join us.   It was also Gloria's birthday; and she brough homemade cupcakes to share with us. Yummy! Barb's handout is very thorough for those who missed the class, of course you can always bring your questions to Rosedale Center on Saturday, July 27th. 

Gloria's winding station

Even with the cupcakes, the highlight of the day were the door prizes.  Andrew donated TWO of his 3-D printed custom winding stations. Brenda and Gloria were the lucky winners!  

Looking ahead, we've planned out the next several month. Our August meeting will be focusing on making name tags and small projects for State Fair give aways or acts of crochet kindness.   

September we'll be setting up 3 stations and you'll be able to choose between topics - Joy's going to demonstrate a variety of cords, Theresa will show you how to make and use plarn (plastic yarn made from plastic bags), and Carla will be teaching at a third station.  You can try all three or find your favorite. 

October's meeting will be a corner-to-corner class by Barb. We'll also be voting for 2025's officers.  Please get your nominations in by 9/15!   The officer positions are President (open), Vice President (Brenda), Treasurer (Carla), Secretary (open) and Education Chair (open), the Education Chair position may be held by co-chair.  If you want more details about the responsibilities of each role, please an email to ctclist@gmail.com

November is an "official" member's only meeting and our much-loved destash event. December & January classes will be decided upon soon, Gloria is reaching out to Moogly and Margaret Huber for December, and we're reaching out to Edie for January's class).  Classes with contract-instructors are also reserved for members only.  

May your yarn never tangle, your hook stay in sight and your patterns easy-to-read! Theresa

Dragonscale bags with a variety of yarn & hook sizes

MMMbop!

June 22 MOA meetup

Barb wrote an article about hook sizes below.  She'll also be teaching our class this weekend.  Details including the pattern were sent out with the newsletter, or you can check our Crochet Twin Cities: Meeting Calendar, or our social media. Limited printouts of the pattern will be available at the meeting.  

If you are an official member and did not receive the latest newsletter or if you are an unofficial member and would like more information, please reach out to us at ctclist@gmail.com  

The other side of the table.

It can be difficult to realize, but those three blond brothers had their huge one-hit-wonder back in 1997. It has been a long time. It’s around that time that I decided I needed to ditch the alphabet soup of hook sizes and do like the Hanson Brothers. MMMbop!

The brothers sang about a secret that no one knows. It took me decades of crocheting to figure out that the alphabet sizing of crochet hooks, just like women’s clothing sizes, had no uniform standard. A G could be 4 mm or 4.25 mm or any other size the manufacturer chose to stick on the thumb rest. Further complicating matters is that the hook sizes for thread crochet have another completely different sizing system. The UK also has an older, non-sequential numbering system. And Japan has yet a different system. These days I stick to standard millimeter sizes. A 4 mm will always be a 4 mm. 

Here is a rough equivalent chart. I cross referenced 15 different charts, as you can see there is little agreement on anything, but MM. Because hook manufacturers and hook size chart makers have no true sizing standard, other than mm. Join me hooking to the MMMbop!

Millimeter size	USA sizes	UK sizes	Japan sizes	Suggested yarn weight
.40 mm			24
.45 mm			23
.50 mm			14
.55 mm			13
.60 mm	12, 14	6	12
.70 mm			11
.75 mm	12, 14/10	5	10
.85 mm	13
.90 mm	14/8
.95 mm	13
1 mm	10, 12/6	4	6
1.05 mm	11
1.10 mm	11
1.15	10
1.25 mm	9/4	3	4
1.3 mm	10
1.4 mm	9/8			0 Lace
1.5 mm	6, 8/7/2	2.5	2	0 Lace
1.6 mm	6			0 Lace
1.65 mm	7			0 Lace
1.7 mm	5			0 Lace
1.75 mm	4/0	2	0	0 Lace
1.80 mm	6			0 Lace
1.90 mm	5			0 Lace
2 mm	B, 1, 4, 0	14	2/0	0 Lace
2.10 mm	3			0 Lace
2.20 mm	2			0 Lace
2.25 mm	B, 1, 2	13	3/0	1 Super Fine
2.35 mm	1			1 Super Fine
2.5 mm	B, 1/2	12	4/0	1 Super Fine
2.55 mm	0			1 Super Fine
2.7 mm	00			1 Super Fine
2.75 mm	C, 1,  2	12		1 Super Fine
3 mm		11	5/0	1 Super Fine
3.125 mm	D			1 Super Fine
3.25 mm	D, 3, 0	10		1 Super Fine
3.5 mm	E, 4, 00	9	6/0	2 Fine
3.75 mm	F-5	9		2 Fine
4 mm	F, G-6	8	7/0	2 Fine
4.25 mm	G			2 Fine
4.5 mm	G, 7	7	7.5/0	3 Light
5 mm	H, 8, I, 9	6	8/0	3 Light
5.5 mm	I, 9	5	9/0	4 Medium
5.75 mm	J			4 Medium
6 mm	J,10	4	10/0	4 Medium
6.5 mm	K,10.5	3		5 Bulky
7 mm		2	7	5 Bulky
8 mm	L, 11	1/0 or 0	8	5 Bulky
9 mm	M/N, 13	2/0 or 00	9	6 Super Bulky
10 mm	N/P, 15	3/0 or 000	10	6 Super Bulky
11.5 mm	P, 16			6 Super Bulky
12 mm	P		12	6 Super Bulky
15 mm	P/Q		15	6 Super Bulky
15.75 mm	Q
16 mm	Q			7 Jumbo
19 mm	S		20	7 Jumbo
20 mm				7 Jumbo
25 mm	T, U, X			7 Jumbo
30 mm	T, X, 30			7 Jumbo