Jane's Hooked on Crochet

A place to write about my crocheting, things I'm learning, book reviews, ideas, projects in mind, works in progress, patterns, photos, fair entries, whatever...

Monday, May 23, 2005

Tunisian tutorials and new stitches

Today I was introduced to a new site that has tutorial videos on Tunisian stitches. It is called Nexstitch, check it out here "Nexstitch site" . I saw a new stitch called the corded stitch, so I was sitting at the computer watching a stitch tutorial and working with yarn & hook at the same time. I liked the stitch, so made a sample block to go in my sampler afghan. With all the other projects, I've neglected this after a really fast start. The Yahoo group Tunisian Crochet started learning a "stitch a week". At the beginning of each month the coordinator would send us a stitch for each week in that month. We could work a stitch a week, or faster or slower, as we wanted. We each purchased our own reference book, or worked from the site's files. Books used include the 52 Tunisian Stitches combine to Make an Afghan Stitch Sampler (Leisure Arts Leaflet #2501 52 T.C.St), 101 Easy Tunisian Stitches (Annies Attic #874612 101 E.T.St.), and 101 Double-Ended Hook Stitches, (Annies Attic #873612 101 Double).
"Tunisian items at Annie's Attic"
I had decided to coordinate the colors I used to make my blocks, and eventually combine them to make an afghan, so I chose colors that would go in my living room and worsted weight yarn, and baby colors in sport weight...might as well make two sampler afghans.
After making the block of the corded stitch, I decided to see what stitches in the 101 booklet I would like to make. While working on blocks for the sampler afghan I was also thinking about what might work up nicely for the "purple afghan". # 34 is a shell-like pattern, interesting, but not a whole afghan in one color in this one stitch. # 19 is worked in 2 colors, I really like this, it looks good in frost green and soft white. I think it would look nice in amethyst and bright white. What I like about all three stitches is that they look nice on the back, not identical to the front, but definitely nice looking. Some Tunisian stitches look great on the front, not good on the back, your work has a definite "right" and "wrong" or front and back. Not so with these stitches, in fact the two color looks better on the "back" to me. You can throw this on the back of your couch and not worry about people seeing the other side of your work!
I think I'll work up a sample of the purple and white and see how I like it. Last night I worked up a sample of a simple ripple with the amethyst, and for the return row I used white. It makes a row of chain stitch, like small arrowheads through the dark yarn. I like the look, so I've got several swatches to think about for this afghan.

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