Trying something a little different - Tunisian crochet
Recently I've been playing around with one of the Tunisian crochet hooks that belonged to one of my grandmothers. There seem to be a few different people offering videos or photo tutorials on how to do Tunisian crochet. I found the instructions and videos from Moogly blog to be really easy to follow.
I decided to try out a plaid pattern in three shades of blue. My first attempt looked nice but it curled a little too much for my liking. After having a conversation with Sandy Walker (from Walker Hollow Designs - https://www.purrfectamewsments.com/) via Facebook, my next attempt went a bit better. Her suggestions to stop the curling were to begin and end with a few rows of Tunisian purl stitch and to use a bigger Tunisian hook than you would normally use. Since I didn't have a bigger Tunisian hook (both of those that I inherited from my grandmother are 4 mm hooks) I went for the other option and added 3 rows of purl stitches at the start and the end plus some rows on the sides. I really liked how the edges of the Tunisian crochet have 2 loops that are perfect for crocheting in. I added a final round with my crochet hook of crab stitch. This little square still needs to be blocked (which I am hoping will get rid of the rest of the curling) and then it will be a nice little doll blanket for my children's dolls. You can see my simple design in the photo below:
.I also spotted a link on the Moogly blot to a tutorial on doing the Tunisian strawberry stitch and decided to give that a go too. You can see the results from my attempt in the photo below. I really loved doing this stitch pattern and it came out looking really great too without any curling of stitches. I'm not sure what I will do with my little swatch of strawberries but I'm sure they will be used somewhere else in the future (even if my kids just get an extra doll blanket). It's definitely making me excited about what I can do with Tunisian crochet. I suspect that I might be looking at purchasing some more Tunisian hooks in the future (and have already asked Sandy about what are good ones to get).
