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A new object with several novelties
Nov. 10th, 2013 10:45 amAnother object done in time for Christmas, this one for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ilhander. I don't think he reads livejouranl any more, so I'm not going to bother marking this as a Secret Post to hide it. :)
Anyway, this is two-color Tunisian Crochet. Tunisian crochet is a somewhat new technique for me (I tried it once years ago for an afghan I never finished, and gauge changes between my start and finish doomed the project), and two-color Tunisian is totally new to me. So: crochet. You have this loop on your hook. A basic stitch is: pull up a second loop connected to the row below, and then pull a sideways loop through the new loop to connect it to your first loop. Now this new sideways connecting loop is the one loop on your hook. Iterate. Tunisian crochet involves pulling up all the connecting-to-the-row-below loops first, so you accumulate a bunch of them on your hook, and then pulling the sideways loops through to take the accumulated loops back off. You wouldn't think that the order would matter so much, but it looks very different than "normal" crochet. Normal crochet looks more like knots; Tunisian looks almost woven. But then the bonus here is that you can use two different colors, or even two different yarns - one for going forward, one for going back. That means two-color Tunisian has to be done in the round, or else you'd end up with one yarn at one end and the other at the other end after just a row, and there would be nowhere to go. But here, the "vertical" yarn always goes forward, and the "horizontal chain" always goes backwards, and each of them spirals around in the opposite direction as you make a tube. (How do you make a non-tube, then? For example, the face opening for this hood? With a steek.) But, interestingly, although each yarn is going around in a spiral, you are *working* back and forth - go around the circle one way, go backwards around the circle the other way.
Anyway, I thought it was a neat technique. And I learned about types of tunisian crochet stitch that aren't the basic - well, okay, really, I only learned one other type of stitch. But there are others. I learned the "purl" stitch, which has the vertical yarn in front for pulling the loops through, so there's more of that yarn on the front of the fabric. It looks a little to me like chain link fence. And then, if you alternate between basic stitch and purl stitch, the forward yarn clumps together to make these bars. I think of it as ribbing, though it doesn't pull in the way knit ribbing does, it just generates vertical stripes.
Next, the pattern called for a thin strong laceweight for the vertical yarn, and a fluffy unspun wool yarn for the horizontal chains. One person who used this yarn described it as "knitting with a fluffy cloud of sheep", which is not so far off. (For my non-yarnie friends, "unspun" means "untwisted". The twist in yarn is what gives it its strength; the fibers are bound together, so they don't just pull away from each other when you tug on them. This yarn does pull apart when you tug on it. No tugging.)
ilhander. I don't think he reads livejouranl any more, so I'm not going to bother marking this as a Secret Post to hide it. :) Anyway, this is two-color Tunisian Crochet. Tunisian crochet is a somewhat new technique for me (I tried it once years ago for an afghan I never finished, and gauge changes between my start and finish doomed the project), and two-color Tunisian is totally new to me. So: crochet. You have this loop on your hook. A basic stitch is: pull up a second loop connected to the row below, and then pull a sideways loop through the new loop to connect it to your first loop. Now this new sideways connecting loop is the one loop on your hook. Iterate. Tunisian crochet involves pulling up all the connecting-to-the-row-below loops first, so you accumulate a bunch of them on your hook, and then pulling the sideways loops through to take the accumulated loops back off. You wouldn't think that the order would matter so much, but it looks very different than "normal" crochet. Normal crochet looks more like knots; Tunisian looks almost woven. But then the bonus here is that you can use two different colors, or even two different yarns - one for going forward, one for going back. That means two-color Tunisian has to be done in the round, or else you'd end up with one yarn at one end and the other at the other end after just a row, and there would be nowhere to go. But here, the "vertical" yarn always goes forward, and the "horizontal chain" always goes backwards, and each of them spirals around in the opposite direction as you make a tube. (How do you make a non-tube, then? For example, the face opening for this hood? With a steek.) But, interestingly, although each yarn is going around in a spiral, you are *working* back and forth - go around the circle one way, go backwards around the circle the other way.
Anyway, I thought it was a neat technique. And I learned about types of tunisian crochet stitch that aren't the basic - well, okay, really, I only learned one other type of stitch. But there are others. I learned the "purl" stitch, which has the vertical yarn in front for pulling the loops through, so there's more of that yarn on the front of the fabric. It looks a little to me like chain link fence. And then, if you alternate between basic stitch and purl stitch, the forward yarn clumps together to make these bars. I think of it as ribbing, though it doesn't pull in the way knit ribbing does, it just generates vertical stripes.
Next, the pattern called for a thin strong laceweight for the vertical yarn, and a fluffy unspun wool yarn for the horizontal chains. One person who used this yarn described it as "knitting with a fluffy cloud of sheep", which is not so far off. (For my non-yarnie friends, "unspun" means "untwisted". The twist in yarn is what gives it its strength; the fibers are bound together, so they don't just pull away from each other when you tug on them. This yarn does pull apart when you tug on it. No tugging.)
