Art of Crochet Blog

Don’t forget to upload pics of your swatches to the Art of Crochet Flickr Group.

Last week, I offered up a few different stitch patterns that combined Tss and Tps stitch to create delicious surface texture. This week we will continue to explore this aspect of Tunisian crochet.

What did everyone think of the stitch patterns from last week? Which one was your favorite (Ribbing, Honeycomb or Zig-zag)?

Check out these gorgeous examples from Swatch-along participants:

Gorgeous colorwork by thepriapisticpress	Perfect stitches bythe crochet side
Pretty stripes bydlad2002

Does anyone want to turn the Swatch-along into squares for an afghan sampler? That’s what I’m going to do - anyone else want in? I can include 2 sets of instructions for swatches from now on - a small version that is just to get a taste of the stitch, and a large version that creates a 10″ x 10″ square (that you can use later to assemble an afghan).Remember: if you want to make your swatches for the sampler afghan, make certain that all of the squares use yarn with the same gauge, so that the squares will fit together later.Last week, we experimented with subtle surface texture and we practiced the interplay of Tss and Tps stitches. This week, we’re going to experiment with more bold surface texture - those achieved with Tunisian Front Post stitches. (Video guides here: right-handed, left-handed.)

I’ve also added some colorwork to this week’s swatches, but you can use a single color if your choose.

Swatch #4
Bold Ribbing
(A) Base Chain - ch 21.
(A) Foundation Row - lp on hook counts as first st (now and throughout), Tss into each of the next 19 ch, end-Tss into last ch, return.
(A) Row 1 - Tss into each of the next 19 sts, end-Tss into last st, return (change to color B in last return stitch).
(B) Row 2 - (fp-Td into st 2 rows below, Tss into next st) x 9, fp-Td into st 2 rows below, end-Tss into last st, return (change to color A in last return stitch).
Rows 3 to 15 - repeat Rows 2 & 3.

Swatch #5
ULTRA Bold Ribbing
(A) Base Chain - ch 21.
(A) Foundation Row - lp on hook counts as first st (now and throughout), Tps into each of the next 19 ch, end-Tss into last ch, return.
(A) Row 1 - Tps into each of the next 19 sts, end-Tss into last st, return (change to color B in last return stitch).
(B) Row 2 - (fp-Td into st 2 rows below, Tps into next st) x 9, fp-Td into st 2 rows below, end-Tss into last st, return (change to color A in last return stitch).
Rows 3 to 15 - repeat Rows 1 & 2.

Swatch #6
Double Ribbed
(A) Base Chain - ch 21.
(A) Foundation Row - lp on hook counts as first st (now and throughout), Tss into each of the next 19 ch, end-Tss into last ch, return.
(A) Row 1 - Tss into each of the next 19 sts, end-Tss into last st, return (change to color B in last return stitch).
(B) Row 2 - (fp-Td into st 2 rows below, Tss into next st) x 9, fp-Td into st 2 rows below, end-Tss into last st, return (change to color A in last return stitch).
(A) Row 3 - (Tss into next st, fp-Td into st 2 rows below) x 9, Tss into next st, end-Tss into last st, return (change to color B in last return stitch).
Rows 4 to 15 - repeat Rows 2 & 3.

Swatch #7
Shadow Box - really needs 2 different color yarns to see the stitch pattern
(A) Base Chain - ch 21.
(A) Foundation Row - lp on hook counts as first st (now and throughout), Tss into each of the next 19 ch, end-Tss into last ch, return (change to color B in last return stitch).
(B) Row 1 - Tss into each of the next 19 sts, end-Tss into last st, return (change to color A in last return stitch).
(A) Row 2 - (fp-Td into st 2 rows below, 1 Tss into each of the next 5 sts) x 3, fp-Td into st 2 rows below, end-Tss into last st, return (change to color B in last return stitch).
(B) Row 3 - (Tss into next st, fp-Td into st 2 rows below, 1 Tss into each of the next 3 sts, fp-Td into st 2 rows below) x 3, Tss into next st, end-Tss into last st, return (change to color A in last return stitch).
(A) Row 4 - (fp-Td into st 2 rows below, Tss into next st) x 9, fp-Td into st 2 rows below, end-Tss into last st, return (change to color B in last return stitch).
(B) Row 5 - repeat Row 3.
(A) Row 6 - repeat Row 2.
Rows 7 to 12 - repeat Rows 1 to 6.
Rows 4 to 15 - repeat Rows 2 & 3.

Thank you, everyone, for joining along. And don’t worry if you missed last week - you can pick any of the swatches to stitch up and post… and I certainly hope you do!

A preview of the coming weeks:

Week 3 - Twisted Simple Stitch

Week 4 - Sequences and Series

Week 5 - Random Generations