Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Sustainable Pin: Tunisian Crochet

I love to crochet, and I also love to knit.  And I love to discover new methods that create different effects and different types of finished fabrics.  That's why I'm in love with the technique I learned through today's sustainable pin:  how to do Tunisian crochet.

Our inspiration blogger is Crocheting the Day Away.  Go take a look at her excellent tutorial.

Basically, Tunisian crochet uses a really long crochet needle called an afghan needle.  It looks like a long crochet hook with a stopper on one end.  This lets you do a technique that is between knit and crochet.  It uses just the one hook, so that feels very similar to crochet, but it requires you to crochet the stitches onto the needle and then back off, just like knitting.  As it turns out, it seems to have just the right blend of what I like about both knit and crochet, so I am captivated.

One caveat.  When you "turn" at the left edge (which is not really a turn but just a reversal) be extra careful to make sure you make a stitch in that final "bar" at the end.  If you miss it, you will decrease your fabric on that row.  Learning to do this step correctly has meant that my test work piece has a very raggedy left edge, but that's why I always do dishcloths first when I'm learning -- I don't feel compelled rip out errors, because if people are criticizing my dish cloths, they are getting way too involved in the details of my cleaning routine.  

I think this is a great new stitch to have in my repertoire, and I'm very happy to have a new fiber arts skill!
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