Stitches Conference: Tunisian Crochet in the Round

Tunisian crochet has been a love of mine for some time. I created my Elizabeth infinity scarf design in Tunisian crochet after my grandmother died a few years ago.   I love making it for every order I get.  Tunisian crochet works up as quickly as standard crochet yet offers a number of new stitches to work.

Now to explain a little about Tunisian crochet. It's a cross between knitting and crocheting. You work it with a long crochet hook. You may have seen them in a store and wonder why the hook was so long. You pick up a number of loops on the hook and work them off one by one. Leaving the loops on the hook is very similar to knitting in that sense.  But in this class I worked with a double ended crochet hook - a hook at each end.

I elected to take Tunisian in the Round by Lily Chin this year at Stitches, held in Santa Clara. I've actually been a fan of Lily's designs and credit her for encouraging me to play with yarn color.  It was a pleasure meeting her and learning new techniques from her..

Tunisian in the round only took a few minutes to catch on, that was after a few mistakes. We started working with a very small project, 18 stitches. It was worked quickly enough and gave us lots of opportunity to practice.

 

She worked with everyone to make sure we all understood the techniques and gave many examples of every stitch we worked.  Afterwords she shared several of her pieces based on the same technique we were learning.

The one thing I realize about Tunisian is if you don't use this skill you can forget it quickly. So I will be working on a few designs soon to keep things fresh in my mind.  Lily really encourages you to create your own work which was truly amazing.

Lily Chin has a number of books out and her latest is Tunisian Crochet in the Round by Lily Chin. (seen above) Lol, easy enough to find.  She does a number of designs for Interweave Crochet Magazine where you will find countless designs.  She is also a knitter and does designs for Interweave Knitting Magazine.

If you are interested in learning Tunisian Crochet I do offer classes.  Just contact me for more details.

Now I'm off to buy new hooks. Once can never have enough of them ;).