Posts Tagged ‘Tunisian’

Tunisian Crochet

March 9th, 2012 mio

This tutorial focuses on the Tunisian Simple stitch, but it also serves as an introduction to Tunisian crochet. If you’ve never done Tunisian crochet before, this is a good place to start.

For the best results when doing Tunisian crochet, you need a special hook called an “afghan hook”. You can also use a double ended hook (and ignore one of the ends), or a cabled hook. The important thing is that the hook be the same size and shape after the head – so, no thumb rest, and no fancy handles. It’s also important, if you’re making something large, to have some kind of stopper on the end to keep the loops from sliding off. Afghan hooks and most cabled hooks come with a stopper. When I use a double ended hook for this I usually wrap an elastic band around the unused head.

Also, you need to use a bigger hook than you normally would for the yarn you’re using. I suggest going up two sizes. For this yarn, I normally use a 5mm hook. When using it for Tunisian crochet, I use a 6mm hook. You’ll want to experiment – using an even larger hook can take care of curling problems, but can also result in a lacier fabric.

Let’s get started!

As with a lot of crochet techniques, start with a base chain:
IMG206.jpg (more…)

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Tunisian Short Rows

March 9th, 2012 mio

Many of you are already familiar with one way of doing Tunisian short rows, thanks to my mio’s hat pattern. In this tutorial we’re going to cover both how to do short rows on the left side of the fabric (as seen in the hat pattern), but also how to do them on the right side of the fabric. It’s important to note that in this tutorials “right side” is always as opposed to “left side”, since in Tunisian crochet, you don’t turn the fabric.

You do left side short row shaping on the “picking up loops” part of a row. Simply pick up loops, but stop short of reaching the end, like so:
IMG186.jpg

Work the loops off as usual.

When you’re ready to do a regular row again, you simply lift up a loop in every stitch of the previous row AND in every previously missed stitch:
IMG187.jpg

Then work the loops off as usual.

Right side short row shaping happens on the “working loops off of the hook” part of the row.

Start by lifting a loop up in every stitch:
IMG187.jpg

When working the loops off of the hook, stop before you reach the end. Here, I’ve got two more stitches to go (the loop closest to the head of the hook is the working loop and doesn’t count as a stitch)
IMG189.jpg

You start the next row by lifting a loop up in the second vertical bar from the hook and in each subsequent stitch.
IMG190.jpg

When you’re done doing your short row shaping, you work all of the loops off as normal:
IMG191.jpg

Here is a swatch that I hope makes it easier to see what is going on.

I started with 15 stitches. Each short row misses 3 stitches, and this pattern continues until there are only 3 stitches left. Shaping on the left side:
IMG192.jpg

Now shaping on the right side:
IMG193.jpg

The whole swatch:
IMG194.jpg

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Tunisian Knit Stitch

March 9th, 2012 mio

The Tunisian Knit stitch is so called because it looks a bit like the knit stitch in knitting. It doesn’t really behave like one, though!

This stitch makes a thick fabric which I have found excellent for mittens.

Start out the same way you would with any Tunisian crochet – make a base chain, lift up loops in each stitch, and then work them off, or use the Crochet Cast-On (in re-writing this tutorial is occurs to me that I haven’t made one for the basics of Tunisian crochet. I’ll make one once I’ve re-written the missing posts!)
IMG173.jpg

Time to insert the hook! With Tunisian Simple stitch you work with the vertical bars, but those vertical bars are just the loops that were lifted onto the hook on the last row. For the Tunisian Knit stitch, you still insert the hook from right to left into that loop…
IMG175.jpg

But you also push the hook through the fabric – it should come out the back to the left (as seen from above) of the vertical bar at the back:
IMG177.jpg

Yarn over:
IMG178.jpg

And pull a loop up onto the hook:
IMG179.jpg

You’ll notice as you work that your project is curling severely:
IMG181.jpg

This is normal for the Tunisian Knit stitch. It is bigger on the back than it is on the front, and so it curls. You can minimise the curl a little bit by going up to an even bigger hook size than you normally would go up to with Tunisian crochet. Blocking might help if you’re using a natural fibre; or you could try adding a border.

In this picture, I’m hoping you can see why this is called a “knit” stitch:
IMG185.jpg

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