I’ve been silent because of a combination of “working on presents for people who read the blog” and “working on getting a pattern published”.

I’ve been over-thinking about this for about a month now, and I’ve finally made a decision! I’m off work because of the G20 Summit being hosted in Toronto this weekend, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to post the pattern for the Oddly Linked Blanket.

If you’re on Ravelry, you’ll find the pattern here: Oddly Linked Blanket.

If you’re not on Ravelry, you should still be able to buy it by clicking on the button below to be taken directly to the PayPal page:

You would be paying $2.00 USD for the pattern for the blanket. I’d say it’s an easy-intermediate level blanket, with one tricky part that is clearly (I hope!) explained using both text and lots of pictures.

Once you get the hang of the special stitch, the blanket works up quickly! Use any smooth, solid coloured yarn with an appropriate hook for best results. I think a variegated yarn would work well, but one with long runs of colours would work best.

One last note: I know that this pattern looks like it might have a lot of ends to weave in, but it has exactly as many as you’d expect with that many colour changes; so 2 ends per stripe of colour.

First, with a hook appropriate to the yarn you’re using, make a chain about as long as your bullion stitch will be tall (I did 5)

Then grab a smaller hook (I used a 3.25mm) and put it along side your working hook, butt-to-hook.

Make sure the smaller hook goes through the loop on your working hook – this will make a later step MUCH easier!

Yarn over a whole bunch of times (I did 10 yo)

Insert your working hook into whatever stitch you’re working into (I inserted in the furthest ch from my hook). You may need to play with the yarn overs a bit to do this. Just be careful!

Yarn over

Pull through one loop

Yarn over

Pull through all loops on hook. I found it useful to very carefully pull through the first loop, then, making sure the smaller hook is butted right up against the tip of the working hook, hold onto the herd of yarn overs with your thumb and finger of your left hand, and pull the hooks through.

Take the smaller hook out

Yarn over (this will make a sort of vertical bar that ends up getting hidden behind the bullion stitch)

Pull through. Bullion stitch made!

Now do it again! And again! I did 7 more and then joined with a slip stitch to the top of the starting chain.

And here is the back; see the vertical bars?

Work around those vertical bars if you want to add more rounds that tuck behind the bullions, or work right into the tops of the bullion stitches.

Good luck!

To make this, I used 2 balls of Bernat Handicrafter Cotton (MC=main colour, CC=contrasting colour), a 5mm (regular) hook, and a 6mm double-end hook.

With the 5mm hook and MC
ch3 (or ch1, then no-turn-chain-dc)
Rnd 1: work 11 dc into the first ch you made. Join. (12dc)
Rnd 2: ch3/no-turning-chain-dc, dc in same stitch. 2dc in each dc of previous round. Join (24dc)
Rnd 3: ch1, sc in same stitch. sc in next stitch. 2sc in next stitch. *sc in next two stitches, 2sc in next stitch* repeat until you reach the first sc you made. Join. (32 sc)

Remove 5mm hook, insert 6mm hook in loop (you might want to take the opportunity to weave in the starting ends shortly after you’ve made them)

Tunisian section:
lift up a loop in as many sc stitches as you can/want, starting with the stitch next to the one your loop is coming out of. Turn. Pull a loop of CC through the first loop of MC on the hook. Pull through 2 loops repeatedly until you have 2 or 3 MC loops and 1 CC loop on the hook. Turn. Lift more loops on MC up. Turn, and work them off with CC.

Continue in this fashion, working in a spiral, until you have the length you want. Work a round of sc for the last round, and join (try to hide the step created by working in a spiral previously!)

Weave in all ends.

Enjoy!

I’ve always liked the look of entrelac, but because I really only knew how to knit and purl in knitting, it seemed beyond my reach. Naturally, I turned to crochet.

In my searches, I came across a lot of mentions and tutorials on crocheting entrelac using Tunisian crochet. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the examples had only half of the equation: the fabric was made up of little squares, but the stitches all ran in the same direction. Even though the fabric was created by making one square at a time, the finished look was pretty much the same as if the crocheter had just changed colours mid-row a lot.

There were some examples where the stitches ran in opposite directions, though, and even though they still don’t have that “woven” look to them, I still wanted to know how to do it. I couldn’t find a tutorial anywhere!

For months I worked on this problem (though, not steadily… that would just be wacky!), and came to the conclusion that the only way to do it would be to learn how to crochet left-handed.

Seriously. I’d get my base-row of tiangles and be stuck. There didn’t seem to be a way to make the first row of squares and have the stitches go the other way.

They say you should never give up, but I did. It seemed that the only way I was going to be able to make myself an entrelac scarf (or blanket, or hat…) was to learn how to knit entrelac.

I found this entrelac tutorial and started by going to YouTube and looking up everything it mentioned that I didn’t already know how to do.

I made up this little swatch:

And that taught me the increases and decreases I needed to know.

Then I dove in!

And then again with some variegated yarn:

I’m not 100% happy with how it looks, I think I’m making a mistake when picking up stitches, but I’ve got the general feel for it now. (If you knit and haven’t tried entrelac yet because you think it’s too hard or complicated, it’s really, really not. You should try it!)

Of course, the way the universe works is, when you give up on the new way to do something and settle yourself in on just doing it the old way, suddenly the answer comes to you!

Now, I haven’t tried this technique in a Tunisian entrelac swatch yet, but I think it’s the answer to my question: how to do Tunisian crochet backwards!

(I’m putting the tutorial under the cut, because this post is long enough as it is)

I started with 10 stitches, and did 3 rows in the usual way:

Then slip-stitched across, just like when you’re binding off. This was just to get the hook to the left side of the piece:

Turn (this puts the yarn on the wrong side… I need to play with this a bit)

Now flip the piece up so that you can see the front and insert your hook into the second vertical bar (you may want to count bars the first time you try this, just to be sure. I counted 9 from the end)

Then yarn over and pull a loop through.

I found it easiest if the working yarn was above the stitch (but since you’re working upside down, it’ll be below your hook) like this:

then lay the yarn over the hook and pull the yarn through

Do that for every stitch:

then work the loops off in exactly the same way you’d normally do it

It’ll look like this from the back:

And this is it from the front:

Here is the 3 rows worked normally and 3 rows worked backwards, looking at the front:

I then slip-stitched (working into the right side of the piece, which was tricky, but worth it, I think) across to get the hook back to the right-hand side of the piece and worked 3 more rows in the normal way:

This is the back (there is a ridge of slip stitches between each change of direction, you can sort of see them)

Now, I don’t know if you noticed, but you can tell which row was worked backwards because of the way the vertical bars stack. It sticks out in this swatch, but I don’t think it will be as obvious in most applications, and I don’t think it really matters when applied to Tunisian entrelac, as the sections worked backwards will be worked at a right angle to the sections worked the normal way.

You can make a really neat looking fabric using this technique combined with short rows. More to come on that!

Start with a motif:

Make a second motif, and prepare to join on the last round:

On the corners, do a cluster of 3dc, and ch1. Remove the hook, insert it in the hole in the corner of the first motif, and then back through the working loop:

Ch1:

Finish the corner with a cluster of 3dc:

Remove the hook, insert it in the next hole in the first motif, then back in the working loop:

Pull the loop through the hole (but don’t pull the loop too much out of shape!) :

And continue as normal, doing this join in each hole along the common side.

Here’s what it looks like finished:

It’s not perfectly flat, but not as huge of a ridge as the last joining method I used.

Here’s what it looks like when you use the same colour:

Here’s the (lazy) pattern:

R1: *dc, ch1* 6 times
R2: *3dc in ch1 sp, ch1* 6 times
R3: *3dc, ch1, 3dc all in ch1 sp* 6 times
R4: 1dc in each previous dc, *dc, ch1, dc* in ch1 sp (8 dc per side)
R5: same as R4 (10 dc per side)

I’ve made a few of them:

What could I possibly be up to? ^_-

I made this for a motif swap I was in. It was a scavenger-hunt-style swap, and one of the motifs we were to “look for” was one we designed ourselves, and this was mine!

Here it is again in white:

(Um… it snows in the Yukon Territory! Snow is white! Yes, it’s all coming together now…)

Now, I’ve written this pattern in my usual, lazy style. There is no mention of how to start it, so start it however you like to start a motif made in the round. Use a Magic Ring, or just work into the first chain you made, or whatever floats your boat. I also haven’t described any turning chains. Every round is made up of dc stitches, so use something appropriate. I used no-turning-chain-dc stitches, but you could also use a ch2 or ch3. Whatever you use, treat it like a regular dc stitch for the sake of the pattern.

Oh, and don’t forget to join each round. No spirals here!

Octagon Motif:
rnd1: *dc, ch1* 8 times
rnd2: *2dc in ch1 space, ch1* 8 times
rnd3: *2dc, ch1, 2dc in ch1 space* 8 times
rnd4: *3dc, ch1, 3dc in ch1 space, dc in other space* 8 times

And here is the pattern:

Work in rows, leave a long starting tail
ch6
R1: sc in second chain from hook, hdc, dc, htc, tc. ch4 (counts as a tc) turn
R2: htc, dc, hdc, sc, ch1, turn
Repeat these two rows until you have 15 rows.
Use the starting tail to sew the bottom of the first row to the top of the last row. Weave in end.

Working in the round, make 4 sc around the tc stitches around the edge. Join to first sc. Weave in end.

(As always, please let me know if you try this pattern, and if you come across any errors!)

Mississauga is usually out there somewhere…

… and there’s supposed to be a lake this way:

And I hate snow (boy, do I ever live in the wrong place!), but it’s ok, because my pop will be cozy:

See?

I’ve posted bottle cozies before, but there’s a difference this time: there’s a real pattern!

Yarn: Bernat Handicrafter Cotton
Hook: 5mm
Size: fits a 710ml Diet Coke bottle

ch3 (counts as a dc)
R1: 11dc into first ch, join (12 dc)
R2: ch3 (counts as dc), dc into same stitch, 2dc in each following stitch, join (24 dc)
R3: ch1, sc in same stitch, sc in next 2 stitches, 2sc in next stitch. *sc in next 3 stitches, 2sc in next stitch* 5 times, join (30 sc)
R4: ch3 (counts as a dc), sc in next stitch, *dc in next stitch, sc in next stitch* repeat all the way around, join (30 stitches)
R5: ch1, sc in same stitch, dc in next stitch, *sc in next stitch, dc in next stitch* repeat all the way around, join (30 stitches)

Repeat R4-R5 as many times as needed to reach desired length. (I did 23 rounds on the tan cozy, and 21 on the pink. The difference is for no other reason than they looked the same size on the subway… Yeah, I dunno… but they both fit the bottle nicely.)

As always, if you try this pattern and find an error, please let me know!

I’ve made a follow-up tutorial, and was going to make it a post, but there are so very many pictures that I decided it needed it’s own page. So, click here, or scroll right to the top of this page and click on “hat”. Again, there are a LOT of pictures, so it might take some time to load.

Here’s a sample pic:

Please, please, please give me any feedback you can if you try out this tutorial. It was somewhat complicated to put together and my eyes are too blurry now to see if I missed something or messed up. I haven’t figured out how to do comments on the special pages, so feel free to comment here if you see any problems, or comment on any post here, or send me an e-mail if you have the address. Thank you so much!