Thursday, August 17, 2017

Scrap Happy Tunisian Crochet

After finishing the bag yesterday, I was in the mood for some Tunisian crochet and I had scrap balls of kitchen cotton out, so I grabbed a hook and started crocheting.
I put a border on the small pink/orange/yellow (knitted) rectangle I had so now it's in the basket of napkins, along with the plain green one sitting on its right. I decided to make a couple of larger cloths, too. When our friend arrived, she gave me a cloth she'd crocheted. It turns out to be a perfect towel to use in meal preparation. I use it all the time, but when it gets laundered and is not yet dry, it's unavailable and I wish I had it, so I made a couple more. The tea towels we have are good for certain things, but they are thin and get quite wet quite quickly. They're not very useful then. But these kitchen cotton towels are just the right size and thickness to be very useful, so glad I have a couple more now.

I just used a modified Tunisian simple stitch that I came up with one day. I am sure it's not new, but it was new to me and I find it quite useful. Regular simple stitch curls and can be thick. Using a larger hook can help, but then it is more open than is sometimes desirable. With the modification, it's not open or lacy, it's not as thick as the regular stitch, and it doesn't curl. You can see the detail in the first photo above. To work the stitch, you insert the hook sideways in the front vertical bar as you do to make a simple stitch (the hook stays in front of the work). Being right handed, I put the hook in from right to left. I pull up a loop as usual, but then I do a chain 1, leaving the loop on the hook. I do this all the way across and then work off as normal. I make a chain at the beginning of each row to account for the extra height of the stitches.

I might do some textured Tunisian now that I've got my cloths done. Have some ideas, but need to decide which one to try.

Happy Thursday!

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