Issue 6 Fall 2013: Red Scarves and Zigzags
Issue 6 of Crochet 1-2-3, the fall 2013 installment of the magazine's twelve-issue run, packed its table of contents with charity stitching, a technique lesson on foundation stitches, and a family of zigzag afghans. This article walks through what that issue actually listed, based on the archived table of contents page, and separates what the archive records from what a crocheter can still practice today. The patterns themselves were printed in the magazine; the names below are catalogue entries, not full instructions, and Stitch Ledger does not reproduce steps the archive never published.
What Was Inside Issue 6?
The archived issue page opens with the usual magazine furniture: a free newsletter invitation, a subscribe option, and a note that the title was available in Walmart and in most major craft chains at the time. That availability statement is a historical fact about 2013 distribution, not a claim about where anything sells today. The publisher of record on the page footer was Valu-Publishing, and the copyright line reads 2012, a reminder that these archive pages sometimes mix their own dates. Readers who want the full run can browse the issue guides on this site, from issue 1 through issue 8 and on to issue 11.
Why Did the Red Scarf Project Lead the Charity Section?
The "For the Cause" shelf of Issue 6 listed the Red Scarf Project first, followed by a project called simply Red Scarf. The table of contents gives no further detail about the program, its organizer, or its deadline on that page, so this article will not supply any. What the entry does show is how the magazine built each issue around a giving theme, a tradition crocheters continue today through efforts like Warm Up America, the charity drive started by Evie Rosen in 1992 around seven by nine inch sections. If you want the current framing of that tradition, the charity shelf on this site collects it in one place. The Red Scarf Project entry stands in the archive as a name, a placement, and nothing more.
A Good Foundation: The Technique Centerpiece
The Technique 1-2-3 section of Issue 6 carried the title "A Good Foundation," paired with a Fingerless Mitts project. The heading points to foundation stitches, the method that replaces a starting chain plus a first row with a single pass. The archive page does not publish the lesson text itself, only the section title, so any explanation of how to work a foundation single crochet would go beyond the record. What a beginner can do instead is start from the stitch definitions this site keeps in its basics hub, where the standard stitches are spelled out before you layer techniques on top of them.
What Can the Ziggety-Zag Afghans Teach a Beginner?
The home goods section, "Autumn at Home," listed three afghans: Ziggety-Zag Afghan, Ziggety-Zag Afghan Meets Fibonacci, and Hexagonal Stars Afghan, plus a piece called All Pouffed Up. The second title name-checks the Fibonacci number sequence, the pattern where each number is the sum of the two before it, here applied to color or stripe planning in a chevron blanket. The table of contents does not explain how the Fibonacci idea was carried out, and inventing stripe counts would be exactly the kind of filler this magazine avoids. Chevron work itself remains a beginner-friendly skill: it rests on increases and decreases placed on a repeat, and checking your gauge swatch before a blanket-sized project keeps the zigzag even from edge to edge.
Garments, Toys, and the Wee Ones
The rest of the issue spread across four more sections. "Fall into Fashion" carried wearables: Centerpiece Stole, Fall Flowers Shawl, Which Way Shrug, and Flutterby Shrug and Headband. "Just Kidding" held the toy and play projects, including Billy and Betty Button Play Mat, Monsta-Man Hat Bag o' Beads, Dust Bunnies, Bunny Buddy, and Triple Pom Hat. "For the Wee Ones" listed the baby and toddler items: Snuggle-In Toddler Robe, Who's Whoo Play Mat, Color Weave Baby Blanket, and Forty Winks Baby Blanket. Two more entries, Gram's Hands, Joining the Generations with Crochet and Ami-Me Doll, rounded out the lineup. The page closes its listing with The Basics, a reference section of abbreviations, information, and techniques, the same reference role this site plays with its own basics shelf.
How Do You Read These Names Today?
Every project above is a catalogue entry from a defunct magazine. The archive page offers no yarn requirements, no skill levels, no page counts, and no errata for Issue 6 beyond the link to the general errata index the site maintains. A returning crocheter who wants modern, tested free patterns for blankets, hats, and toys can work from the free patterns shelf instead, where instructions are published in full rather than summarized in a contents line.
One Standard Behind Every Listing
Magazine tables of contents like Issue 6's lean on shared conventions: standard abbreviations, yarn weight categories, and skill level labels. Those conventions come from the Craft Yarn Council, whose members, publishers, fiber, needle and hook manufacturers, and yarn companies, built a set of guidelines and symbols to make labeling uniform across books, magazines, leaflets, and yarn labels. The council's standards page lists its full system, from the Standard Yarn Weight System to crochet abbreviations, project levels, sizing charts for babies through adults, hook and needle charts, and care symbols. The council developed this work with input from The National NeedleArts Association, the Crochet Guild of America, and The Knitting Guild Association, and it reached out to trade bodies in the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, France, Australia, and New Zealand toward global use. When a modern pattern tells you a yarn is a worsted weight and a project is easy, that vocabulary traces back to this effort.
Where the Record Stops
The Issue 6 archive answers one question cleanly, what the magazine printed in its contents, and leaves others open. How the Fibonacci afghan arranged its stripes, what the Red Scarf Project asked of stitchers that year, and whether the Fingerless Mitts used foundation single or double crochet are all beyond the page. The Back Issues listing on this site's archive shelf holds the same record for the rest of the run, and the Craft Yarn Council standards remain the place to check any abbreviation or weight symbol a revived project asks you to read.
The Stitch Ledger editorial team
contact@crochet1-2-3.com