Valentine Tie from 1991 Crochet World Spring Special

I know this isn't technically vintage but it fits the neck theme. I started this project in September 2022 as my 2023 county fair entry for "Holiday-Not Christmas". It seemed appropriate for a pre-Valentine's day post.

​I present to you the Valentine Tie!

The pattern uses #10 cotton thread in silver and red and a steel crochet hook size 3 (equivalent to a 2.1mm hook). I used cream and dark red because that's what I had and I didn't love the way the silver looked in the photo. I happened to have a size 3 steel hook in my collection of randomly gathered steel hooks.

This a pretty easy pattern to follow since it's all single crochet. You get a graph for the colors and a gauge. They even tell you how to change color and tell you to carry the color not being used and work over it. Even though this was easy, it was a little tedious because there are 437 rows! At least the graph was a mirror image so I didn't have to worry about the direction of the row I was on as I went. 

Once the crocheting was done I thought it looked pretty good. The cream allowed the red thread that was being carried along to show a little bit but that wasn't a deal breaker for me.

Since this is cotton thread, it really needed to be wet blocked. I've had problems with thread colors bleeding even when soaking in cold water so this time I put some vinegar in and that worked. Yay! I pinned it on the blocking mat and pulled the pins the next day and discovered I'd made a mistake. The pins must have had some rust on them and now I had rust spots in the cream thread. I tried using some OxyClean spot remover on the spots and then let it soak in the spot remover...and that was the next mistake. When I pulled it out of it's stain bath there were red spots all over it where the red thread bled (say that three times fast).  And, the rust spots were still there too. Ugh! 

After a brief mental reset, I decided I would dye the finished project with the hope that the dye would cover up the spots. As long as I was going to dye it why not try something fancier? Could I make it a gradient?

I bought a box of Rit Dye in Fuschia and some Rit ColorStay and made my attempt. Once I had the dye all mixed up I dipped the bottom of the tie in the dye and held in there for a few minutes and then dipped a little lower and held it. I kept doing this through most of the length of the tie and then just dropped the part of the tie that was just cream in and out quickly. I did a quick rinse, applied the color stay and let that soak and then rinsed again.

It's not perfect but the dye did a pretty good job of covering up the rust and red dye spots without losing the pattern.

I thought it was interesting that this 1991 magazine had very obvious brands in their photo; Kisses and Snoopy. I used Dove chocolate because it's better than Hershey Kisses and I found a cute cat Valentine picture to use instead of the dog Valentine.

And now for it's rating:

• Is the pattern easy to understand? Yes (1.0)
• If there is a gauge, could I match it? Yes (1.0)
• Does it look like the photo? Yes aside from my color choices (1.0)
• Would someone wear this? Probably? (.75)
• Did I enjoy making it? I enjoyed the problem solving and the dying but not so much on the actual tie part. (.25)

Total is 4 out of 5!