Tapestry Crochet

Are you looking for a fun way to learn more about crochet and knitting? Well, if you’re able to get to Manchester, New Hampshire, June 29th through July 1st, you’ll be able to learn from twenty one teachers and designers (including me!) at the Summer Knit & Crochet Show.

I’m teaching the same classes that were so popular during at the CGOA show Buffalo, NY, in 2009. They are all designed to teach specific tapestry crochet skills, but the projects are small enough that most participants are able to finish them during class.

The first class features bead tapestry crochet. As you probably already know, tapestry crocheting with beads is revolutionary! Since more than one color thread is used, each thread only needs to be loaded with one bead color, eliminating the need to load the beads in a specific sequence ahead of time! A pattern is formed on one side of the fabric by adding a bead to each stitch and on the other side the colored threads create a design. The motif does not need to be pre-planned and offers fantastic design potential. Using the single crochet stitch, create a bracelet and also learn how to design with tapestry crochet graph paper.

My next class features felted and bead tapestry crochet. A large hook and loose single crochet stitches are used to make the bag, then it’s felted in a washing machine. The finished felted tapestry crochet fabric is thick and patterned on both sides. Using the single crochet stitch, students will crochet a bag and learn how to design a motif on tapestry crochet graph paper. Felting instructions are included, but the bag must be felted at home.

The focus of the last class is what I call flat tapestry crochet. Unlike traditional crochet, flat tapestry crochet does not show the back of the stitch on every other row; the front of the stitch is always on the face of the tapestry and the back of the stitch is always on the reverse of the piece. Two methods to do flat tapestry crochet with the single crochet stitch will be taught. Students will also learn how to design on tapestry crochet graph paper, how to crochet a border around their piece and how to block flat tapestry crochet.

These classes are just three of more than ninety others that feature everything from Tunisian, Color, Fair-Isle, Bruges-Lace, to Illusion crochet and more! Registration begins March 30th. Hope to see you there!

Wikipedia is a very popular online encyclopedia written by non-paid volunteers. Although some areas are extensively covered, not all topics are fully represented. After seeing no mention of tapestry crochet, I started a Tapestry Crochet Wiki page and linked it to the Crochet Wiki page. Right now, the new Tapestry Crochet page is ranked as C-class on the quality scale.

Anyone may edit Wiki articles, so I hope you will consider expanding the tapestry crochet page. Wikipedia is very careful about copyright. Text and photos must be your own, or in the public domain. Editors are not allowed to promote themselves or their own products, but are encouraged to edit what has been written and add more original information. For more about editing a Wiki page, please look here.

The tapestry crochet page, as it stands right now, is pretty basic. With your input, though, it could be more complete and move up to B, Good Article, or even Featured Article status! Together, we can do it!

Jocelynn Brown is a very talented and creative journalist. Her Handmade column in The Detroit News includes a variety of media, but my favorite articles showcase some of her own tapestry crochet designs!

Jocelynn was nine years old when her mother taught her to crochet. She reminisced, “We’d spend hours together crocheting in front of the TV and sometimes on the back porch. I continued through my adulthood, designing and making hats, afghans and baby clothes.”

Jocelynn tried to teach herself tapestry crochet in 2008, but didn’t really grasp it until last year. Since then, she’s been designing colorful hats and other accessories. Her goal now is to learn how to use graph paper so that she can add more shapes and motifs.

The instructions (which will be online for three months) for the golf club cover below are included in Jocelynn’s recent A golf club cover for old times’ sake column in the February 3, 2012 Lifestyle section of the The Detroit News. The golf club cover is also featured in her Crafting Blog.

Jocelynn Brown (photo: The Detroit News)
Jocelynn says, “I find tapestry crochet to be very relaxing, and I’m always planning my next project. Right now, I’m looking forward to making a summer tote with lots of jewel tones, using a mercerized cotton.” I’m really looking forward to seeing it. Hopefully, she’ll share it with us in another inspirational column!

Just in time for Valentine’s Day! Tapestry crocheted with Lion Brand’s Nature’s Choice Organic Cotton, this blanket is so soft and cuddly, it’s sure to be treasured every day of the year.

Patterns for both right handed and left handed crocheters are now available online.

. . . I still have a dream . . . , tapestry crocheted cotton, 27″ x 56″, 1983.

The light blue background symbolizes water and green the land that both unite and divide us. The rows of people represent the different human races, which are all the same size – with their hearts in the same place. Large hearts form between them as they unite and hold hands in the top row.

While crocheting the figures, I deliberated about whose portrait to place above them. Who best promoted the idea of different types of people living and working together as equals in a peaceful world? After considering many famous mythological and real people, I realized it had to be Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

To design the face, I projected Dr. King’s image onto graph paper that I modified to accommodate the tall single crochet stitches.

The facial proportions were good, but the curves were not as smooth as they could have been. It was after this project that I designed tapestry crochet graph paper to better accommodate stitch shape and placement.

In front of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963, this great man shared his dream that “. . . all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands . . .” This is my dream, too, that people around the world will learn not only to tolerate, but also to celebrate different points of view and beliefs.

Happy Martin Luther King Day! May it be peaceful and inspirational for you and the world.

There are many ways to make tapestry crochet graphs from photos. The ideal subject is lit from the side and includes several values. A variety of graph papers and information about how to use them are included in my Tapestry Crochet and More Tapestry Crochet books. In summary, the image may be projected onto paper or placed under tapestry crochet graph paper on a light table. After tracing the major lines, the cells are then colored in with light, medium and dark colored pencils.

Another approach utilizes computer graphics. The below images were done in a just few minutes with Photoshop, but several other programs could have produced similar results. Reducing the colors of the photo helps visualize the crocheted version and often makes it easier to trace onto tapestry crochet graph paper.

The number of colors and the posterized colors themselves are easily changed in Photoshop.

The online site, KnitPro, quickly (and for free) transformed my photo into a square-ruled graph.

KnitPro just as easily produced the rectangle-ruled graph below.

To my knowledge, though, there is no computer program available that will fill in tapestry crochet graph paper automatically. Digital versions of the most popular tapestry crochet graph papers are posted in the files section of the Yahoo Tapestry Crochet group. The graph paper may be printed out, then placed over an image on a light table and filled in by hand or the graph may be digitally placed over a photo, then filled in (cell by cell) with the paint bucket tool.

For creating graphs of animals, flowers, etc., there are millions of free online images available for inspiration. For instance, Google “horse”, then click on “images” to find a profile view, then trace it onto the appropriate graph paper. This method helps achieve more accurate proportions and had I used one of those images, perhaps my horses would NOT have turned out like donkeys!

The new Simply Crochet book by Robyn Chachula includes twenty two patterns from a number of crochet designers. My felted Tapestry Basket is one of them – crocheted with Cascade Yarns’ dreamy 100% Peruvian Cascade 220 wool.

My bead tapestry crochet Master Bag featured a woven twill motif, so this time I chose a different basket weave. The colors didn’t contrast enough in the first attempt so I crocheted the final version with yellow instead of beige. The first one was also too narrow, but since the motif was ten stitches wide and there were ten increases per round, it was easy to add three more rounds to make it wider without affecting the motif.

I love felted tapestry crochet! The large, loose stitches are easy on the hands and the projects materialize so quickly. The felted fabric is substantial and the pattern is visible on both sides.

A washing machine transformed the crocheted basket below into the felted basket above.

Are you hooked by felted tapestry crochet yet? If so – or if not – please look at my video tutorial and at my web page and Bead & Felted Tapestry Crochet book for more felted tapestry crochet projects.

Ariana Thompson taught herself how to crochet more than fifteen years ago from the 1993 Harmony Guide To Crocheting: Techniques and Stitches by Debra Mountford. That’s where she discovered the shallow single crochet stitch. Fortunately, Ariana decided to experiment with this stitch while doing tapestry crochet.

According to Ariana, “The finished project does not behave like knitting – structurally it’s still single crochet, but the look is nice. It is actually a little firmer than regular single crochet, as you are working into the stitch below a little . . . deeper, I guess you could say. I think that’s why they call it ‘shallow crochet’, because you don’t actually gain as much height with each round as you would with a round of regular single crochet. It has a firmness that’s great for jackets, purses, pillows – with a finer yarn, like sportweight or sockweight you get a fabric than behaves like . . . maybe light denim. Shallow stitch has a significant bias and has to be wet-blocked to be straight, so I like to use a fibre that can be blocked – a wool or a cotton rather than acrylic.”

“I often do tapestry crochet using a ‘shallow single crochet’ usually abbreviated in patterns as ssc. Instead of working your single crochet into the top two loops of the stitch below, put your hook in the centre of the stitch below, between the two uprights. You have to work this stitch in one direction only so you always have the right side facing. The result is the perfectly stacked little “V” shapes of knitting.”

After Ariana shared her swatches with the Ravelry Tapestry Crochet Group, I began to experiment, too. Several attempts were required to successfully produce the red and white sample below – done with a large hook, loose tension, and stretchy yarn.

The motifs on my sample didn’t slant – maybe because the hook was stuck under the carried yarn of the stitch below.

I’m not only intrigued by the look of the front and back – but also by the incredible thickness of the fabric! To me, it looks like shallow single tapestry crochet has great potential!

Tapestry Crochet was the first of three books that I wrote to spread the word about this fabulous technique. I couldn’t turn this out-of-print book into an e-book because the publisher owns the copyrights of the layout and graphs – but I own the copyrights of the projects and text.

After Interweave said I could republish the projects, I updated the text and redrew the graphs – this time making separate sets for right handed and left handed crocheters (the written instructions are the same for both right handed and left handed crocheters, but the photos and graphs are reversed).

My second book, More Tapestry Crochet, has expanded history and design sections, so I only concentrated on making the eight most popular projects available online, grouping them together by format.

“Spiral’ projects for left handed and “Spiral” projects for right handed crocheters from Tapestry Crochet, 1991.

I actually wrote Tapestry Crochet in the early 1980′s, but it took ten years to get it published! Most of the other pattern books at the time featured expensive fibers, but my Mom and her friends preferred to crochet with inexpensive synthetic yarns, so I made most of the projects with their favorites to appeal to people like them. Unfortunately, most of those yarns are no longer made – but that’s the situation with many published patterns.

I’m an artist and art professor, so the projects were designed not only to teach the basics, but also to provide crocheters with fresh ideas and design tools. I try to encourage crocheters to tweak the patterns, but even when the instructions are followed to the letter, each finished piece is still unique because substituting yarns makes them that way!

What really amazes me when I stop and think about it, though, is that these pieces were crocheted 30 years ago – but they don’t look dated – at least not to me!

Anne Churches and her husband live in Kyabram, a small dairy and fruit farming community around 124 miles /200 km north of Melbourne, Australia. They retired around five years ago to part of the property that used to be their orchard. Anne enjoys golf, weaving, seeing her eleven grandchildren, and of course, tapestry crochet.

This talented artist has been designing and hand weaving stunning shaft shifting rugs on a large floor loom in her home for about ten years. While looking for something to do with the left over wool, she discovered tapestry crochet. As you can see, Anne’s unique sense of design and color have translated well. Over the past two years, she’s sold more than seventy tapestry crocheted bags at Wool Shows, Handweaver and Spinner Sharing Days, through her network of friends, and on her web site.

When asked what inspires her motifs, Anne said they develop as she explores the technique, adding that “I like free form shapes and also flowers. My most popular designs have been called ‘Organic’. A wonderful way to use up many colours.”

And how does she achieve the vibrant variegated colors? After purchasing New Zealand yarn from carpet manufacturers in Melbourne (similar to Jason Collingwood rug yarn), she dyes it with Lanaset dyes, 500 grams at a time in a 5 gallon / 19 liter stock pot on her kitchen stove. For the bags, she doubles the yarn and crochets them with a size G/ 7 / 4.5 mm hook with a wooden handle, specially made for her by a wood turner. Most of her bags are around 13″ 33 cm x 13″ / 33cm in size (not including the strap).

If you’d like to tapestry crochet one of Anne’s bags, you’re in luck, because the pattern for her Summer Bag (below) is for sale on her website. The instructions are clear and the pattern includes several stitch diagrams photographs. Anne plans to add more patterns in the future.

For hands-on workshops, Anne will be teaching how to tapestry crochet a bag in Kyabram and Wangaratta in October and November. Although students are not able to finish it during class, she shows samples of the base, the beginning of the sides, the strap, and the flap and tie and explains how to complete each step. So far, all of her students have finished their bags afterwards!

Anne says it best, “I never tire of making bags. Also I am forever developing new designs. I have found an activity that can go with me anywhere. You can’t weave a rug in the car!”