Please feel welcome to comment with your own clarification questions!

Beginning:

• There are two sets of terminology in crochet, known by the shorthands US and UK. I always use US (including throughout this post) and say that in my website but not the individual patterns. There are a few telltales if you don’t know which terminology you’re working with:
  • If you see sc, it’s US. I’ve seen some warnings that US slip stitch can be called sc in UK patterns but (a) I’ve never seen it in an actual pattern, and (b) it wouldn’t be used as a primary stitch unless you were doing slip stitch crochet, in which case you’d know what to expect.
  • If you see hdc, it’s US.
  • If it’s an amigurumi made with dc, it’s UK.
  • If you see htr, it’s almost certainly UK – I’ve seen htr in US-terminology patterns, but there it’s a nonstandard stitch that needs to be defined.
• If you are asked either to chain some number or attach new yarn with a slip stitch, it is implied that you are to tie a slip knot and place it on your hook first.
• The instruction “sc 6 in magic ring” or similar is preceded by an implied “coil yarn into ring, pull up loop, and chain 1.” The chain 1 is often but not always included in the written instructions; the first two implied instructions are what forms the magic ring.
• “Join with sl st into ring,” which would be applied to a chain, always means to slip stitch into the chain closest to the slip knot.

Middle:

• Stitching “in ring” or “into ring” is done by inserting your hook into the center of the ring, not between the strands of any of its stitches.
• In general, in fact, it appears to me that whenever you make stitches on a chain that is attached at both ends (i.e. not a starting chain for work in rows or a chain out/stitch back situation), you will insert your hook under the chain (in the chain space) rather than between the chain’s strands. It is certainly true for granny squares and other afghan motifs worked in the round.
• When working into the top teardrops of previous stitches, make one new stitch per old stitch if not directed otherwise.
• A range of row or round numbers followed by a single set of instructions (e.g., “8-14: Sc around”) means to do the same set of stitches for each row/round numbered, except for anything that cuts or otherwise finishes off the yarn, which (unless the instructions have you start new yarn) are meant to occur only at the end of the last row/round of the range.
• For double crochet and taller stitches, the row or round stitch count includes the turning chain, but not the joining slip stitch (if applicable). This may also be true for hdc but it is less universal.

End:

• “Finish off” (FO) means to cut the yarn, pull up the last loop on your hook until the cut end emerges from the final stitch, and weave that end in. “Finish off” may itself be an implied instruction, as well.
• “Cut a long tail” or similar instructions, on the other hand, mean to pull the cut end through as with finishing off, but then await further instructions. And, of course, it also means to leave enough yarn attached that you can use it to sew two pieces of crochet together or sew an opening closed.

The post Pattern assumptions appeared first on ReveDreams.com.

This fourth and final post about crochet embroidery takes us full circle, in a way, going back to backstitching and weaving. If you have any last questions or comments please do leave them. I’m open to a follow-up post in a week or two tying up any loose ends (so to speak).

As always, the photos link to larger versions, and the full post is behind the cut.

Whipped and threaded stitches

The first bank of stitches are all built on backstitch, or alternatively double running stitch. In each case, after laying down a base of backstitch, you’ll stitch up at one end, in the same spot as the backstitch. When you finish the row, you’ll stitch down through the same spot as the other end of the backstitch.

We’ll start at the bottom with threaded backstitch. “Threaded” and “whipped” are very similar, meaning you run a new length of yarn under each stitch of the base in turn, but to thread you stitch down through the first stitch, up through the second, down through the third, and so forth, as shown above. To whip you keep the same direction each time, as we’ll see below.

Depending on how tightly you pull the threading yarn you can get anything from an almost continuous line to a backstitch that appears to be tacking down a wavy line.

The second stitch, because I wasn’t sensible about ordering, is Pekinese stitch. In this the threading yarn loops around, much like a backstitch laid on its side. You start by inserting your needle down through the second stitch, then back up through the first, keeping your needle on top of the previous threading yarn stitch. Next you go down through the third stitch and up through the second, and continue in the same manner: stitch down through the second stitch from the one you just used, and back up through the prior stitch.

The third and final stitch, used for the top three lines on this face of the pyramid, is whipped backstitch. In this you stitch the same direction through each backstitch (in the picture above, upward), so the whipping yarn coils around the other yarn. My favorite use for this is to make a line of stitching that appears to be a single continuous length of yarn, as in the second line of the photos below, which even works to a certain extent with embroidery floss, as you can see in the top line below.

One point I’d like to make now, that you’ve probably noticed along the way, is that regardless of the stitch you’ve made, yarn looks more of a piece with an object crocheted in yarn than embroidery floss does. The fact that floss is smoother and shinier makes more difference than its thinness. Sometimes floss is necessary, because the available yarn is too thick for the desired feature, but I have moved toward using yarn whenever I can and floss only when I must.

You can whip, thread, and weave just about any stitch. Check out the picture dictionary on Sarah’s Hand Embroidery Tutorials to see some examples (click through for instructions).

Couching

Couching is tacking a length of yarn lying completely on the surface of the fabric with small crosswise stitches. It is great for creating contours that don’t match up well with the convenient spots to stitch through your crochet fabric. Traditionally, couching is done with a thin thread tacking down a thick thread, as in Sharon B’s tutorial, but it need not be. I began my couching with a long, loose stitch beginning and ending where I wanted the line to begin and end, and long enough to make my desired contour in between. You could also couch while your surface yarn (the laid thread) is attached at one end only, stitching the opposite end down afterward, to avoid potentially leaving yourself too much or too little of it.

As usual, be careful not to pull your tacking stitches too tightly, since the laid thread can get pulled down into the fabric. In the full couching picture above, the left three pink-on-pink couching stitches were made with embroidery floss, and the right two with yarn, for comparison.

You can couch items other than yarn and floss, too, though you may need to worry about raw edges. For example, here’s a crazy quilt including couched rick-rack, seen best in the fourth picture.

Spider’s wheels

There are two kinds of spider’s wheels, whipped and woven, one of which (woven) is also known as a spider web. They are both built on a spokes of straight stitches, with the whipping/weaving yarn coming up through the middle of the spokes to start. Analogous to the whipped and threaded backstitch, in a whipped spider’s wheel you make the same motion on every spoke, and in a woven spider’s wheel you alternate between two mirrored motions.

A woven spider’s wheel must be made on an odd number of spokes; a whipped spider’s wheel may use any number. You can make your spokes in many ways, but the center must be attached to the fabric so you have something to weave around (a fly stitch with an additional straight stitch to make the fourth and fifth spokes would work).

To weave, alternate stitching over and under the spokes in turn. Take care with your tension – it is easy to pull this too tightly, especially in the outer rounds. End by stitching down at the end of a spoke.

The whipped spider’s wheel is more like Pekinese stitch. Begin by stitching under two spokes. Pull your yarn through and then stitch under the second of the two spokes you just used, plus the next one. Repeat around and around; the fourth photo above shows one completed round. End by stitching under one spoke only, and then stitching down at the end of that spoke.

Be careful not to split the spoke yarn; it’s a danger with all woven stitches but I had the most difficulty with it with the whipped spider wheel.

Of course you don’t have to make these in circles. The upper right embroidery floss wheel in the full picture, above, was made with the base below.

Detached woven picot

The detached woven picot is a triangular panel that stands off the fabric like a petal (or an ear). You start by making a straight stitch from one end of the attached side to the other. Do not tighten this stitch down, though. Instead, decide how tall you want the picot to be and insert a pin into your fabric at that distance from the base. Catch the straight stitch with the pin so it tightens into a V.

Come up again between the two ends of the base. I made the V with a different color yarn so the construction would be more visible, but typically the picot would be made with a single length of yarn. Wrap the yarn over the pin and start to weave from the point of the V down. Begin by weaving under the V strands and over the middle strand; when you come back the other way, weave over the V strands and under the middle strand. Continue this way, as we saw before with freehand weaving. Be very careful not to catch any strands of your crochet fabric with your weaving stitches. This stitch benefits from some manual tightening/scrunching of the horizontal stitches, toward the point of the V, so that the finished piece is solid. Weave as many rows as you can fit without clumping them up.

When you get to the open end of the V, loop your yarn once around the outside strand and insert your needle into the same spot the picot frame emerges from. Remove the pin and smooth your picot upward.

For another set of instructions for detached woven picot stitch, visit Pintangle. She also teaches a variation that is attached to the fabric by only one stitch, so it is pointed at both ends, called closed base needlewoven picot or needlewoven picot leaf stitch. You can also make three straight stitches in a fan, attached at both ends, for a fully attached version called woven trellis stitch.

If you like dimensional stitches, check out Brazilian embroidery. The page linked has instructions for several stitches, and in particular I’d call your attention to detached buttonhole stitch. This is a freestanding panel of embroidery like a picot, but allows you to increase and decrease in rows for more control over the shape. I have not tried it but it seems likely to me there will be a conflict between stitches pulled tightly enough that the panel can stand away from the fabric, and stitches loose enough to work into without a struggle. The results could very well be worth a lot of struggle, though.

I’ll just point out, while we’re here, that although this crochet piece and the yellow one from the first post in this series are both square-based, I made them differently. This one (above left) was made with an sc3tog in each corner, and the previous one (above right) with two consecutive sc2tog (standard decrease) stitches. Two consecutive standard decreases makes a more solid fabric.

Visit the table of contents post for this series or all posts labeled “embroidery on crochet.”

The post Embroidery on Crochet 4: Weaving, whipping, and couching appeared first on ReveDreams.com.

Welcome to Episode 3 of this series about embroidering on crochet. I often call lazy daisy and fly “caught stitches.” We’ll see more caught stitches this time, but I’m calling them linked stitches to evoke the fact that they are multiple stitches in a row, rather than separate. Remember that if you have any questions or suggestions, I’d love to hear them!

As before, the photos link to larger versions, and the full post is behind the cut.

Chain stitch

The chain stitch is a sequence of interlocked lazy daisies, each one tacked down by another except for the last, which is tacked in the usual way.

Each chain stitch begins at the pointed end of the teardrop. Bring your needle up at that point and back down in the same spot. Reemerge where you want the rounded end of the teardrop and catch your yarn with the needle before tightening the stitch (1st picture above). Use the spot your thread now emerges from as the point of another teardrop. Your teardrops need not be all in a straight line, although if they angle by 90 degrees or more the loops they tack might not stay flat against the fabric.

When you get to the end, stitch down in the same spot your thread is coming from, but on the opposite side of the teardrop yarn. Just as with lazy daisy, don’t pull your final tacking stitch too tightly, or that end will disappear into the fabric. It is uncommon to make a “long-tailed chain stitch;” i.e., a chain with a long final tacking stitch, but it would certainly work.

The chain stitch is exactly the crochet chain, just made in a different way. If you have access to both sides of your crochet fabric, you can create a chain along the fabric with crochet, as shown on The Zen of Making. Once you have a chain, regardless of how it was created, you can use it as a foundation chain for additional crochet, which is described on About.com.

Open chain stitch is a series of interlocked Us or horseshoes rather than teardrops. It’s slightly more fiddly than chain stitch, but has the same concept. Come up at one end of the open side of the U, stitch down at the other. Come up again at the base of the U on the same side as your downward stitch (1st picture above) and catch your yarn. This time, before tightening, also insert your needle into the other base “corner” of the U (2nd and 3rd pictures above). You will most likely need to hold on to the needle with one hand and pull the yarn away from the chain rather than straight up from the fabric, so the side of the chain caught by the yarn has some downward pressure.

Which side of the chain is caught by yarn and which by needle will alternate, as shown in the first picture above. The other two pictures show tacking your final open chain stitch. After tightening the link, remove your needle and replace it with a pin. This makes sure you don’t accidentally pull the loop too tight while making the first tack. Then tack as usual in each corner. Although a long-tailed open chain is also not common, it would make sense to tack with stitches the same height as each chain stitch, completing the ladder-like shape. Alternatively you can make tiny tacks as shown and add a straight stitch across the top of the open chain, closing it into a series of boxes.

The larger picture above shows both chain and open chain made with embroidery floss, and additionally what open chain might look like if you don’t use right angles for the corners.

You can find additional instructions and versions of the chain stitch on Sharon B’s In A Minute Ago and Sarah’s Hand Embroidery Tutorials.

Blanket stitch

The blanket stitch can be thought of as a sequence of interlinked fly stitches. Plain old blanket stitch is on the lower left of the picture above. Each stitch is an L, and together they form a sequence of open-topped (or open-bottomed, etc) boxes. For some ease of reference, I’ll refer to the “in-line side,” “corner,” and “leg” of each stitch: the corner is the spot caught by the next stitch or the final tack, the in-line sides form a continuous line of yarn, and the legs stick out perpendicularly from that line of yarn.

Bring your needle up at the end of the first in-line side and down at the end of the first leg. Come back up at the corner (1st picture above) and catch your yarn, tightening it into an L shape. That corner is now the in-line end of the next stitch (2nd picture above). When you get to the end make a tacking stitch as usual (3rd picture above) or make a long tacking stitch for symmetry.

Blanket stitch on the edge of a sewn item is the typical basis for a crochet edging, such as around the opening of a pillowcase. On the edge of a piece the details of working the stitch are slightly different, so I will point you to futuregirl’s comprehensive tutorial for that.

Closed blanket stitch looks much more complicated than regular blanket stitch, but isn’t really, and gives a great look. It’s blanket with the in-line sides alternately longer and shorter and neighboring legs leaning toward each other. The first two pictures above show two options for beginning. The first, which is what it shown in later pictures, gives a short in-line side to begin; the second has no length to the in-line end: it’s just a straight stitch. In any case, come up at the in-line end and down at the end of the leg, back up at or close to the in-line end, catching your yarn. This stitch should be more open than a standard blanket stitch: a larger than 90 degree angle. After tightening, stitch down for the next leg at the same point as the previous leg, and up to make a corner that is smaller than 90 degrees (3rd picture above). I’ve tried make my legs symmetric, so a line drawn down the center of the triangle is perpendicular to the in-line sides.

When you get to the second “tooth,” you can once again choose whether to have any length to the in-line side of the stitch (1st and 2nd pictures above). The first picture shows how the final sample was made. At the end make a tacking stitch as usual; the 3rd picture above shows one with length matching the initial in-line side.

The pictures above are just little doodles made with blanket and closed blanket. The first was done with embroidery floss and shows a bit of angling to the blanket stitch. The second one, in yarn, is all standard blanket stitch, but curved strongly. You can see when the legs are on the inside of the curve the in-line sides want to roll in, but there is no such problem when the legs are on the outside of the curve.

You can find additional instructions and versions of the blanket stitch on Sharon B’s In A Minute Ago (which includes feather stitch, below) and Sarah’s Hand Embroidery Tutorials.

Feather stitch

The feather stitch can also be thought of as a series of interlinked fly stitches, with a different orientation and arrangement.

As in fly stitch, the links of a feather stitch are more V-shaped than L-shaped. The pictures above show the construction of a feather stitch in which alternating sides of the Vs form a (nearly) straight line. The first upward stitch is the end toward the inside of the feather, and the first downward stitch is toward the outside. Come up to catch your yarn where the inside end of the next stitch should be (1st picture above), and continue by stitching down on the outside (2nd picture above). Tack with a tiny stitch (3rd picture above) or a longer stitch that makes a stem of sorts (see picture below).

Varying the length and angle of the free arms and tacking arms can result in a big visual difference. You can find additional instructions and versions of the feather stitch on Sarah’s Hand Embroidery Tutorials.

Visit the table of contents post for this series or all posts labeled “embroidery on crochet.”

The post Embroidery on Crochet 3: Linked stitches appeared first on ReveDreams.com.

We continue to learn how to embroider crocheted fabric with “formal” embroidery stitches, which we’ll explore for the rest of the series. This episode covers isolated stitches that may be used separately or together, to draw features or other images. Remember that I would love to hear your comments and answer your questions!

As before, the photos link to larger versions, and the full post is behind the cut.

Lazy Daisy

The lazy daisy, or detached chain stitch, is a teardrop-shaped stitch formed from a loop of yarn that’s caught by a small stitch.

Bring your needle up where you want the point of the teardrop to be. You will stitch down into the same point, and before tightening the yarn, stitch back up at the opposite end of the teardrop. Catch the yarn on the needle (1st picture above) and pull it until it is not floppy, but is still rounded. Stitch back down in the same spot, but on the opposite side of the caught strand (2nd picture above). Be careful not to pull too tightly here as well, as it is easy to acciedntally pull this little tacking stitch down inside the piece. You may also stitch a distance away to make a long-tailed lazy daisy (3rd picture above).

When lazy daisies are grouped together, usually the points of the teardrops are closest. If you make a group of them in a circle, sharing the same teardrop point, it looks like a flower, which gives this stitch its name. In the Medieval Fantasy: King pattern by Kati Galusz, the king’s coat is adorned with frog-closure-like clusters of lazy daisies similar to the second picture above.

Fly Stitch

Fly stitch is quite similar to lazy daisy; you make it essentially the same way, except the first downward stitch of fly is a distance away from the first upward stitch, instead of in the same spot. Fly stitches are also typically pulled more tightly than lazy daisies, so the caught thread becomes a V instead of a loop.

Your fly will be a V (short-tailed) or a Y (long-tailed), and in either case you start by stitching up at one top point. Stitch down at the other and back up again at the base of the V or junction of the Y, catching your yarn under the needle (1st picture above). If you are making a V, stitch back down in the same spot, on the opposite side of the caught strand (2nd picture above); if you are making a Y, stitch down a ways away (3rd picture above). Again, be sure not to tack so tightly that the point of the V disappears into your fabric. You can, of course, make a tacking stitch off at an angle; the adaptability of embroidery stitches is bottomless.

Kool Kat above was made with a long-tailed fly stitch, three straight stitches, and two short-tailed lazy daisies.

Knots

Knots are a common element in crochet embroidery. French knots give little bead-like dots on the surface of your fabric. Less-used bullion knots make thick rope-like lines or loops.

The failsafe way to make a French knot is this: bring your needle up at the point at which you want the knot. Pinch your yarn several inches above the fabric and then, holding the needle by its eye as usual, lay the side of your needle against the yarn between your pinch and the fabric. By moving the hand that is pinching the yarn, wrap the yarn around the needle 2-4 times (1st picture above). Insert the needle back into the fabric not in the exact location where it came up, but around or through an adjacent strand of yarn (2nd picture above). Otherwise, even if the knot does not disappear into the fabric when you tighten it, it could be pushed inside the piece at a later time. Pull the yarn lightly to snug the wraps down around the needle, right at the fabric (3rd picture above), and then bring the needle out in some other location and tighten the yarn. For more pictures of this technique, see Sublime Stitching.

The bullion knot is also made by wrapping yarn around the needle, but it has a slightly more complicated setup. If you want your bullion to be attached to the fabric at points A and B, bring the needle up at A and then insert it through the fabric like a safety pin from B to A (1st picture above). Wrap the yarn around the needle enough times to cover the distance from A to B (2nd picture above). Tug the yarn to tighten the wraps down around the needle toward the fabric, but err on the side of slightly loose, because it can be hard to pull the yarn through the wraps when they are tight. Pinch the wraps lightly with two fingers while you pull the needle first up away from the fabric, and then toward (or really past) the opposite end of the knot. Tighten until the wraps lie flat against the fabric (3rd picture above), and then insert your needle back down at B to finish.

If you wrap more times than necessary to span the distance between A and B, the bullion will stand away from the fabric in a little arch.

We finish this episode with a simple face of two French knots and one bullion knot.

Visit the table of contents post for this series or all posts labeled “embroidery on crochet.”

The post Embroidery on Crochet 2: Separated stitches appeared first on ReveDreams.com.

Here we are! The first post in the series. As we explore embroidering crochet fabric, please do leave me any questions or comments you have. I love to experiment and will work out any answers I don’t already have.

Two notes: All photos may be clicked to reach larger versions. To keep the front page of the blog from being overwhelming, I’m going to cut each of these posts after the table of contents. The rest is after the jump!

Beginning and ending

A while ago I wrote a post about securing and hiding yarn ends in amigurumi, and mentioned it could be used in reverse to begin a length of embroidery floss or yarn. Let’s begin by recapping that method, with some new photos.

Yarn secured through your crochet stitches may peek out no matter how careful and skilled you are. If there is a spot on your piece that will be less visible (under an ear, in the shadow of a limb, etc), you can hide the yarn by securing it in that spot. On the present piece I’ll use the base for hiding the yarn.

To keep a fuzzy clipped tail from peeking out of the stitches if they stretch and compress with handling, stitch completely under the fabric and back up again 2-3 inches away (1st picture above). Carefully pull the yarn just far enough to hide its end inside the crochet piece. Then put your needle through the centers of a row of stitches to secure the yarn with friction (2nd picture above). Depending on how much handling the piece will see you may want to go back and forth multiple times. Finally, stitch back under the crochet fabric completely and emerge where you wish to begin the embroidery (3rd picture above).

At the end you’ll reverse this process, stitching down to the hidden location, securing your yarn, stitching under the fabric for a short distance to hide the cut end, coming up and clipping your yarn close to the surface. See the aforementioned earlier post for photos of that process.

If you use embroidery floss be aware that it being smaller and smoother than yarn makes it harder to secure. Even for an item that won’t see much strain you may find you want to make at least one U-turn securing the initial end so you don’t pull it out when embroidering.

Stitching on crochet fabric

Crochet fabric is not like woven fabric. It has gaps and a lot of hills and valleys. Here are some considerations.

• The more tightly your fabric is stitched, the more you can treat it like woven fabric. Knitted fabric, while not our topic here, can often be treated similarly to woven fabric as well. If you intend to thoroughly cover a region and your piece is fairly solid, you can stitch wherever you like, piercing yarn or stitching into gaps. I’ll point you to a tutorial on embroidering on a hat using waste canvas, which is an evenweave fabric that sits on top of what you want to embroider and is removed afterward. Everything we do in this series will apply to more tightly crocheted fabric as well as gappier fabric.
   
• In general I think it is better to stitch between the strands of your crochet, for two reasons:
  
  1. If you pierce a strand, it can be apparent and look messy. You can see in the pictures above that it depends on where you pierce the strand, but when a little bit of yarn is between your stitch and a gap, it’s highly visible.
  2. (A more significant reason in my opinion:) If you keep your stitches between strands, it is easier to undo stitches, or simply shift your needle to a different spot if you decide the first spot wasn’t right after all. You can see in the pictures below that after stitching right next to my yarn in the same spot and out a ways away, the yarn is completely relocated — no green is visible under the stitches between the two points. I frequently put my needle out in some random location to tighten a stitch so I can look at it before deciding what stitch to make next.
  

  You still have plenty of options for where to stitch!
   

• Although even single crochet fabric is not a grid, it bears some resemblance to cross-stitch fabric. The texture gives it some distinct differences, though, that affect stitching. Consider the photo below, of crochet fabric. Each upside-down V (each model in this series was crocheted starting with the top) is the post of a single crochet stitch, and has four gaps associated with it, roughly at the corners of the post.
  

  If you stitch between neighboring gaps and pull tightly, as in the first picture above, the stitch will all but disappear into the crevice of the fabric. Stitching along a straight line of gaps but farther than just between neighbors (as in the rightmost stitch of the second picture above) makes the strand stay up and visible, but it still sinks into the fabric a bit. Stitching with any diagonal shift bumps the strand up above the fabric, as seen in the other stitches of the second picture above. These both have advantages and disadvantages. A stitch made along a crevice stays put but doesn’t assert itself; a stitch made diagonally gives dimension to the feature being added but might be prone to shifting around.
   

• I’d like to reiterate that it is important, because of the texture of the fabric, not to pull your embroidery stitches too tightly — especially if you are working with floss rather than yarn. Just as when you place a slip knot on your hook to begin a crochet chain, you don’t want the stitch to be loose, but you also don’t want it under any tension. Pull your stitches only until they lie flat and smooth against the fabric.
   
• Particular to stuffed items is the need to work around fiberfill. Yarn needles are fairly blunt, which is in general a desirable characteristic, but they don’t penetrate stuffing well, which can lead to the needle pushing stuffing out through the crochet fabric. To avoid this, try to keep your needle close to and flat against the fabric on the inside.
  

  If you do get a little cocoon of stuffing around your needle, after completing the stitch you can hold on to the yarn and push the stuffing back inside with a stuffing tool. The one shown above started life as a plastic yarn needle. I clipped off the end of the eye and lightly sanded the resulting prongs.

Running stitch and backstitch

A straight stitch is any stitch you make by coming up in one location, stitching down in another location, and tightening the thread into a straight line connecting those two points. If you make a number of these in a row, you get running stitch, shown below.

Running stitch is great when you want something to look “sewn,” but for amigurumi features you typically want a continuous line instead of a dashed line. There are two easy way to do that. The first is simply to make a second line of running stitch that “connects the dots” of the first line, obtaining something called Holbein stitch or double running stitch. The last picture above is of turning around and filling in the gaps just that way. The completed line is second from top in the big picture above.

The second way to get a continuous line of stitches is with backstitch, which is a very sturdy stitch. The first two pictures above show the first two motions of making a line of backstitch: move back one stitch length for the downward motion and forward two stitch lengths for the upward motion. The third picture is of ending the last stitch in the line.

With either a backstitch or a double running stitch, the spots where stitches meet may be quite apparent, as the stitch ends sink into the gaps of the crochet fabric. We’ll meet one way to manage that in part 4 of this tutorial series, with a whipped backstitch, but meanwhile here’s a tutorial from Salihan Crafts where she shows you a version of double running stitch that “connects the dots” of running stitch in a gapless way.

The last two pictures, above, are of double running stitch (left) and backstitch (right) done in embroidery floss.

Satin stitch

Satin stitch is the name applied to a bunch of close, parallel straight stitches, used to solidly fill in a region. We’ll also look at other non-woven filling stitches.

To fill in a rectangular shape, start by stitching between opposite gaps. The direction you stitch may depend on the look you want, but if it doesn’t matter you will likely get a neater result by stitching across the shorter direction. The first picture above has three stitches between each pair of gaps. I got them to lie smoothly by placing them with my finger before pulling the yarn snug. You can see they nearly fill the space; to finish I pierced the crochet stitches between neighboring trios (2nd picture above) and laid one more stitch down in each spot.

Sometimes you have to work by feel. For this triangular shape (animal nose?) I started by stitching in the gaps, added stitches piercing strands, and finally added an extra stitch in the middle and right-hand gaps because that was where it looked bare.

For a larger triangle, you can fill in a lower layer on the wider portion and then stitch the full length on top of it. In this case I also stitched crosswise along the top (seen in the larger picture, above); if I had wanted to fill blanks with such a stitch without having a bar across that end of the triangle I would have laid the crosswise stitch first and made sure my other stitches enclosed it.

Since embroidery floss is much thinner, it takes a lot more stitches to fill a space. I did not depend on purely parallel stitches in this case, although I possible could have if I’d made multiple stitches not just from gap to gap, but between the spots where I pierced my crochet stitches. The last picture shows a crosswise stitch along the top and (faintly) the bottom.

This last example shows both a triangular shape made with embroidery floss, and what I mean by enclosing a crosswise stitch with the main filling stitches: the centermost vertical stitch encloses the crosswise stitch along the bottom.

Cross stitch and stars

Cross stitch is an embroidery stitch often used as the sole stitch on a work. It’s popular for use on knitted and crochet fabric, as well. With no effort whatsoever I found half a dozen tutorials about cross-stitching on crochet fabric, including these from Moogly and CraftStylish.

The bottommost portion of the picture above shows straight stitches made as a row of Vs covering the Vs of the posts. It could be considered the crochet version of duplicate stitch from knitting, and can be used in place of cross stitch to embroider images on crochet.

A cross stitch is just an X made from two straight stitches. Typically you make a row of slanted stitches all at once (as in the first picture above), and cover them with a row of stitches slanted the opposite direction. The standard for cross-stitching on crochet is to make the X over one single crochet post, but you can make it however you’d like. In the second picture above the left-hand batch of cross stitches is made over the posts, and the right-hand batch (to which the first picture belongs) is made askew so only the lower half of each stitch crosses a post.

If you add a plus on top of the X, you have double cross stitch. If you don’t want to pierce threads you’ll need at least a 2×2 block of single crochet posts to work over, but you can make a smaller one by stitching through the sides of the post. You can see both cross stitch and double cross stitch made with embroidery floss in the larger picture above.

If you like this look, you might try Montenegrin, a three-stitch version of cross stitch that might look quite cool on crochet.

Freehand weaving

In weaving, you stitch some kind of framework and then use it as your base for filling in the opening. We’ll see more formal weaving in part 4 of this series.

The easiest error to make in any kind of weaving is piercing the strands of the framework. If you pierce the framework your strand is trapped in that location, which won’t always matter but often will.

Of course you can make woven patches that have the over-under grid construction of woven fabric. Here I’ve chosen my colors to make a sort of plaid. If you wanted to embroider, say, a patch on the knee of a crocheted doll, this would give a great look. You can see in the 3rd picture above that I pierced the leftmost vertical strand with the bottom horizontal strand and no amount of manipulation with the needle would get it to lie smoothly along the bottom.

The simplest kind of weaving consists of outlining your shape and then stitching around and around the outline (needle always pointing as it does in the 2nd picture above). As with satin stitch, guide your stitches by hand to lie where you want them. You can also stitch over-under here, coming up outside one strand and then scooping under the opposite strand to end up outside it. The trade-off is that it “looks woven.” If you stitch around and around, it looks like satin stitch.

This batch of photos shows over/under weaving again. I’ve outlined an irregular shape, plus stitched down its center. The center line could have been a single stitch, as it is straight, but that would be prone to shifting side to side. I broke it into two stitches for stability, which is something the “around and around” example of weaving, above, could also have benefited from.

Over/under in this case, with three framework lines across, means that when stitching in one direction you are under the outside strands and over the inside, and coming back the other way you are over the outside strands and under the inside.

If your shape is roughly circular, it may be easier to fill with a spray of stitches that all cross the center point. If you are neat (I was not) this can give you a lovely fan effect as you might see on a hand-wound ball of yarn.

The large picture above also shows weaving done with embroidery floss.

Many people will find this is all the embroidery they need to happily decorate all their crochet items. If you want some fancier stitches, stay tuned for parts 2, 3, and 4!

Visit the table of contents post for this series or all posts labeled “embroidery on crochet.”

The post Embroidery on Crochet 1: Basics and freehand stitching appeared first on ReveDreams.com.

This is all in single crochet, of course, the center of my crochet universe. The picture above is of a piece rather unhelpfully made partly in variegated yarn; I tried to give more visual information when I recreated it. Working from the bottom up in the picture below, starting and ending with two rounds of single-color stitching and with a round of single-color in between each of the following, is a single round of alternating loops of each of two colors, another single round but with the position of the colors swapped, paired rounds of each of those situations, and finally a single and then three rounds of three colors in rotation, one loop in each at a time. In the single round of three-color work I pulled loops in the order blue, yellow, red. In the second I pulled blue, red, yellow; there are three rounds instead of two because when I started round 2 I realized that I was pulling a loop of red through a red stitch-top, and likewise for the other colors, so at the end of that round I inserted an additional loop of blue and made a round where the colors did not match.

This work is somewhat less elastic than crochet usually is, but not terribly so (you do have to make sure not to pull your yarn tight, as with any color work). If you like the look of duplicate stitch embroidery on knitting, this is probably the easiest way to get it in crochet – it’s not an exact match, but I’m not sure such a thing is possible, and you don’t have to do any embroidering!

To be continued…

The post The Vault: Part 5 appeared first on ReveDreams.com.

Red and gold metallic floss! It gleams! I have a love/hate relationship with metallic floss (in contrast to my just-hate relationship with satin floss). It’s so attractive, and such a pain to work with (crochet or embroidery… as long as you’re not comparing it to satin floss). The floss is made of a fiber core with a metal strip coiled around it; as you work with it the edges of that strip poke out and turn into snag factories. That’s trickier with embroidery than crochet, fortunately for us here, but it can cause difficulties. I have some advice for crocheting with this material, with the ornament instructions below.

This tree is my Tabletop Tree made in Red Heart Tweed “Camo” yarn, through and through. It is denser and smoother than the other tree.

Garland: This tree also has a chain garland, made using the better part of a skein of each color, but not a magic one this time. I found the strands of the two colors were too intermingled – at least at first – to make a magic chain. I used an E/4 hook (3.5mm) and chained with both colors together, instead. A double thickness was too much for even the roughness of metallic floss, and the slip knot and knot at the end did not want to stay put. I augmented them with overhand knots. If I had knotted each color separately, I would have solved both the problem of the slippery slip knot and the strands intermingling.

Decorating: To put the garland on the tree I wound it around in a spiral, trying to tuck the chain into the branches from time to time to mimic how garlands are placed on real trees. I used a yarn needle to hide the floss ends inside the tree. The ornaments were hung by stitching through the tree, as before, and placed at the tucks of the garland to help hold it in place. I stitched straight through and then down and out the foot of the tree.

General floss crochet instructions: The two decorations below were made with embroidery floss and a size 4 steel hook (2mm). For these my abbreviations and conventions are relevant, though the only one you haven’t seen before is likely “2sc” for single crochet increase. “Dec” means sc decrease. I highly recommend the double magic ring to begin, since it does not require any additional floss-end securing. I also recommend the trick of inserting your hook into the first stitch of the round before tightening the ring so it does not get tightened down along with the ring (shown in the video at the link), under both loops even if you won’t be using both loops. After the second round of stitching, make sure the piece is fully right-side-out, rolling the rim up with your thumbs and index fingers if needed. Metallic floss needs encouragement to change position, which is also an advantage.

Ornament balls (red): One skein of floss will comfortably make 7 of these.
1. Form magic ring, ch 1, and sc 5.
2. 2sc, sc, 2sc, sc, sc (7). Make sure the work so far is fully right side out. I like to loosen the current loop so I can take the hook out and roll the rim up with both thumbs and index fingers.
3. Sc, dec, sc, dec, sc (5).
This should not need stuffing beyond perhaps wadding the initial floss tail (and maybe not even all of that) into the ball. Cut floss leaving a long tail. Stitch a drawstring through the opening: up under the front loop of the first stitch, down through the first loop of the second, alternating to end with up through the front loop of the last stitch. Put the floss through the ball and out the middle of the magic ring. Pull the drawstring tight and roll the ball between your fingers as needed to round out the shape.

Pine cones (gold): One skein will easily make 8.
1. Form magic ring, ch 1, and sc 6.
2-3. Sc around in BL only (6 sc; 2 rnds).
As above, the initial floss tail should suffice for stuffing. Cut floss leaving a long tail and stitch a drawstring through the back loops only of the last round; I like to go from inside the round to outside under each stitch’s back loop. Pull it closed but don’t tighten too much. Put the floss through the pinecone from the center of the last round through the center of the magic ring. Roll the pinecone between your fingers if necessary to make the rounds taller and narrower (increase the distance between magic ring and drawstring).

Additional tips: A stuffing tool will be very helpful, a small fork of sorts to push the floss into the item. I use a plastic yarn needle with the back of the eye snipped off and the two resulting prongs sanded smooth. I have seen a stuffing tool of two pointy toothpicks taped together, but a wider end on the tines would be more helpful – perhaps two flat toothpicks, with half of a third one in between for spacing if needed, using the wider ends for stuffing. I also had a much easier time stuffing after I tried twisting the end of the floss until it was all coiled around itself – it gave me more to push against and I didn’t have the problems with individual plies looping up, impossible to hold onto with the stuffing tool. I had no problems with the drawstring staying closed, even though I didn’t secure the tail (well, except for stitching it through the tightly-stuffed item and out the tight magic ring).

I hope you’ve enjoyed this little post blitz! Here’s a final close-up glamour shot courtesy my husband:

I’ve made the decorations above and in the previous post, as well as my tips for working with embroidery floss, available as a name-your-price PDF for easy printing.

The post Red and gold tree appeared first on ReveDreams.com.

I did not like the blue and silver options in metallic floss (though I fortunately picked up a white skein with my gold and red), so I got rayon/satin instead. As mentioned in the initial post, I now think that was a mistake. Many words not in keeping with the spirit of the season were said, and I may have even thrown the floss on the floor at one point in a fit of pique. I can neither confirm nor deny. The starting slip knot in particular does not want to hold well. I made different fixes for the two types of decorations, described below.

This tree is my Tabletop Tree made with a cone of Red Heart Super Saver “Hunter Green” yarn and branches of Herrschners Holiday “Dark Green.” The Herrschners yarn is finer and twistier than the Red Heart, which led to a shaggy, textured tree.

Magic chain garland: Chenille yarn in an appropriate color, metallic eyelash yarn for tinsel, or a simple chain make great garlands, but for a two-color garland I turned to my magic chain. To make one, hold two strands of yarn together, tie a slipknot, and place it on your hook. Now chain as usual, but grab only one strand for each chain and alternate which one it is. I did these with embroidery floss instead of yarn, though, and used a C/2 hook (2.75mm). To deal with the slippery knot, I held onto it with my fingers until I’d chained a few times, and then trusted to fate for it not to fall out (well, fate and the long tail I left) while I finished the chain. It didn’t, and after finishing I went back and tied the two colors in a square knot, with an overhand knot over top of it so the tails would be pointing the same direction. I pulled the end of one color through the last loop of the other at the end, tightened it a bit, and then tied overhand-square-overhand to secure. The garland used about 2/3 of a skein of each color, but more of blue and less of silver – I think this was due to shifting my grip upwards after the same color link most of the time, so the slippery floss that wanted to pull anyway was inclined to do so more on silver than blue.

This magic chain does not look much like a yarn magic chain, but it’s cheerful. The satin floss likes to keep its own shape and doesn’t have the benefit of friction to make it stay put. To put it on the tree, I used a yarn needle to hide the floss at one end inside the tree, wrapped the garland around in a spiral, and then hid the opposite end into the tree as well. And then I re-wrapped the garland, because it had slipped completely out of place during the end-hiding operation.

To add the ornaments, I stitched the beginning and ending yarn ends through the tree to hold the star in place – leave an extra long tail on both ends for ease of doing so.

Stars: I made the stars with embroidery floss and a size 4 steel hook (2mm), or with worsted weight yarn or two lengths of floss and an E/4 hook (3.5mm). You can make them with 4, 5, or 6 points easily, although 5 looks the most like a star – 6 looks a bit like a flower, and 4 like a cross or plus sign.
Here’s the pattern. Note that when I slip stitch into a chain other than to make a ring, I insert my hook in the back bump of the chain.
Ch 4, sl st into ring.
*Ch 3, sl st in 2nd ch from hk, ch 1, sl st into ring* as many times as desired; each iteration of *…* makes a point.
FO, putting the end of the yarn through the center of the ring, front to back.
To make one longer point, replace the *…* with:
Ch 5, sl st in 2nd ch from hk; ch 1, sk 1 ch of ch-5, sl st in next ch of ch-5; ch 1, sl st into ring.

The satin floss did not work well at all. Here’s a sample:

Slip knot tips: I did learn some things, and made enough stars to say that a skein should make 3 each of 3 kinds: 6-pointed, 5-pointed, and 4-pointed with one longer point. In both metallic and satin floss, two lengths held together don’t make for a sturdy slip knot. With metallic floss by itself, the slip knot holds well. With satin floss, it doesn’t, but if you add another wrap to the knot before tightening it holds perfectly. That is: a slip knot is essentially an overhand knot with the working end of the yarn looped up through it. You want to convert the overhand knot to a double overhand knot. In the lower drawing of my slip knot instructions, the tail going off to the left gets wrapped around the last strand it passes under.

In the stars made from two lengths of embroidery floss I knotted each separately and then worked with them together. Metallic plus satin worked fairly well (blue and white); satin by itself was just mushy and hard to finish off. The silver floss in the photo is some I had at home, which of course was on an unlabeled bobbin.

I’ve made the decorations above and in the next post, as well as my tips for working with embroidery floss, available as a name-your-price PDF for easy printing.

The post Blue, white, and silver tree appeared first on ReveDreams.com.

A cone is a basic shape and simple to crochet. The math of it is that the circumference and height of a cone have a linear relationship: for every cone there is a value x so that wherever you are on the cone, the circumference at that point is x times the height at that point. You can use trigonometry to work out stitch counts for cones of specific proportions (here’s a post sort of about that), but more simply it means you add the same number of stitches to each round. That is, at least, on average. You would get a cone by alternating adding 2 and 3 stitches to each round (effectively adding 2.5 per round), or adding 2 stitches to most rounds but only a single stitch to every fourth round (effectively adding 1.75 per round). The fact that increases and decreases in crochet don’t fully take effect until the round after they are made allows this to work smoothly.

By the time you get to seven stitches per round you’re pancake flat, and six is flat enough that it tends to come out as rounded instead of conical. You can get a good wide cone starting with five stitches in a magic ring and adding four stitches per round – even three will come out as fairly wide. For a very narrow cone, adding just one – or even less – is called for. The following cones were made by starting with 3 stitches in a magic ring and adding 3 more each round (gray cone, left side), and by starting with 3 stitches in a magic ring and alternating between adding one stitch and adding no stitches (starting with 1; green cone, right side). They each proceed for 8 rounds, so the gray cone ends with 24 stitches around and the green one with 7.

After the jump: placing increases, making a base, and stitching in back loops only.

The location of your increases makes a difference. The gray cone above wants to have a triangular lip (you can see that in the top picture of this entry) because every round was of the form “*2sc, sc X* three times” – the increases were all made into previous increases. The three cones below were each made by starting with 4 stitches and adding 2 per round. From left to right: blue is most spread out, alternating between rounds that increased in the first stitch and halfway around (patterns of the form “*2sc, sc X* twice”) and rounds that increased 1/4 and 3/4 of the way around (patterns of the form “*sc Y, 2sc, sc Y* twice”). Green is in between; every round is of the form “*2sc, sc X* twice.” And finally, purple is least spread out, with three sc made into the first stitch of each round, and one sc per remaining stitch. I love the spiral shape of the purple one, but it’s really not a cone. The green one has a noticeable puff to its rim in two places (second picture below), and actually a visible slanting line due to the fact that increases tug the previous stitch’s top teardrop up quite a bit. The blue is much smoother.

Now suppose you want to make a stuffed cone. You need a base. For me, a seven-stitch start and increasing by seven stitches per round gives the flattest disk. For the light blue cone I made four rounds, so the last round was *2sc, sc 2* around and had 28 stitches. For the gray disk, I made three full rounds and then did a partial round consisting of three sets of *2sc, sc 2*, for a total of 24 stitches in the round.

The samples here didn’t work out this way, but I have had plenty of examples of cones where the appropriate size disk to cover the bottom opening has fewer stitches around than the base of the cone. In that case, to sew them together, I figure out the overage and space the extra stitches evenly around. When you are sewing this isn’t terribly crucial, but if you want to crochet the edges together, periodically a cone stitch will need to get attached to the same base stitch as the previous cone stitch. I’ve seen a cone that ended with 35 stitches around but had a base disk with only 28 stitches – another round would have made it too wide. Every fifth cone stitch was attached to the same base stitch as its predecessor. Another case was 20 stitches around and a base that was 14 stitches around; every third cone stitch had to be attached to the same base stitch.

Alternatively, you can skip a cone stitch periodically. That might tuck the base of your cone in a bit, though, and make it look like it’s smaller around than it ought to be.

For reasons to be disclosed later, I made some cones stitching in back loops only from round 2 on. Crocheting in the back loop only gives a looser connection between rounds, so the resulting fabric is taller and more malleable than standard crochet fabric. The cones can be pulled up tall or mushed down.

Note that the difference is only in stitch height – the two blue cones fit the same base despite being quite different heights, and the purple twisty cones would too.

Finally, your trailer for next time. This lovely was made in back loops only, starting with 3 stitches in a magic ring, 2 added in the next round, and 1 added in each round after that – and each time I placed the increase in the stitch after the previous increase (so if the first round had an increase in stitch 1, the next had it in stitch 3, after that stitch 5, and so on). I made three blocks like that, which should have resulted in a 40-stitch final round by my calculation, but I had just 36, so I clearly missed some increasing. It’s still a lovely tall Seussian bit of landscape!

The post On cones, shaping, and one-loop stitching appeared first on ReveDreams.com.

We have essentially five techniques: spiral, stepped spiral, standard joined rounds (plus 6 variations), progressive joined rounds (plus 1 variation), and unjoined rounds (plus 1 variation). These are all cases without turning between rounds. I want to acknowledge Crochet Spot, Cre8tion Crochet, and Crochet Ever After for giving or inspiring many of these variations.

The samples are numbered by the order in which I stitched them, which is not quite the order in which they appear in the categories. I didn’t want to change the labels when I reorganized because it seemed likely I might mix some up.

Here’s the punch line: use spiral crochet for patterns that call for it. For patterns calling for you to join with a slip stitch in the first stitch of the round, chain 1, and then begin the next round in the same stitch you slip stitched into, make a slight variation: after slip stitching, hold the yarn against the hook with your thumb and pull upward to tighten the slip stitch (method 9 below). Make everything else at standard tension.

To compare, I looked at ease of stitching, seam line, biasing of stitches, the back side, and whether the end of a round aligned vertically with the beginning. The punch line is that when you can use a spiral, do. If there are features that have to be lined up, you may have to use a spiral, because it biases slightly backward (each round starts slightly earlier than the previous one), and there is no other technique that does so. There are techniques that bias forward, by starting each round in the second stitch of the previous; I call most of those “progressive.” They are interchangeable with each other but not with the spiral or techniques with no bias. Most of the techniques below do not bias either direction; they are all based on standard joined rounds. The gory details are after the jump.

Sample number: 1
Description: Standard spiral.

Difficulty: easy
Seam: none
Bias: backward
Back: as nice as front
Alignment: significant jog at end

Notes: Easy, standard, may need this if the biasing is accounted for in the design.

Sample number: 2
Description: Stepped spiral: slip stitch at end of round, do not chain up; next round starts in second stitch of previous round and ends in slip stitch.

Difficulty: easy
Seam: minor
Bias: forward
Back: as nice as front
Alignment: mild jog at end

Sample number: 3
Description: Standard joined rounds: slip stitch into first single crochet of round, chain 1, and begin round in same stitch as slip stitch; skip slip stitch at end.

Difficulty: fairly easy; must take care starting round in correct stitch and counting
Seam: strong; long horizontal strands show
Bias: none
Back: arguably nicer than front
Alignment: no jog at end

Sample number: 4
Description: Almost standard joined rounds: as 3 but slip stitch made in back loop only of stitch.

Difficulty: medium; slip stitch distorts first stitch of previous round
Seam: strong; long horizontal strands; no better than 3
Bias: none
Back: as nice as front
Alignment: no jog at end

Sample number: 5
Description: Almost standard joined rounds: as 3 but slip stitch made in vertical strand behind first stitch of round.

Difficulty: hard; those strands are tight and using them tightens the first two stitches of the previous round
Seam: less visible than 3 but stiff
Bias: none
Back: strandy
Alignment: no jog at end

Sample number: 6
Description: Almost standard joined rounds: as 3 but slip stitch in back loop of first single crochet plus the horizontal strand immediately under that loop on the back of the stitch.

Difficulty: more than 4, less than 5: must separate the strands again for the first stitch of the round
Seam: different from 3 but similar level of visibility
Bias: none
Back: …awkward-looking
Alignment: no jog at end

Sample number: 8
Description: Almost standard joined rounds, but slip stitch into the ch-1 and then tighten the slip stitch down (after making sl st, hold yarn against hook with thumb and pull up).

Difficulty: slightly tough (tight work)
Seam: obvious, vertically compressed seam
Bias: no bias
Back: slightly better than front
Alignment: no jog at end but entire piece is distorted

Notes: I didn’t try this method without tightening the slip stitch, but I can’t imagine it’s a contender.

Sample number: 9
Description: Almost standard joined rounds but tighten the slip stitch down as in 8.

Difficulty: fairly easy
Seam: findable but quite non-obvious
Bias: none
Back: as nice as front
Alignment: no jog at end

Notes: This is the best method of its class; stitches stay at a good tension, so there is no added difficulty, and the seam is minimized. Tightening the chain as well, as below, increases tension but does not make a noticeable improvement in the seam. The fact that this is on rose petals is a coincidence, by the way. The most ordering of backgrounds I did was trying to make sure I didn’t get a stretch of one color.

Sample number: 10
Description: Almost standard joined rounds but slip stitch and chain 1 both tightened down (as 8 but repeat tightening after chain).

Difficulty: harder than 9 (tighter)
Seam: very similar to 9
Bias: none
Back: as nice as front
Alignment: no jog at end

Sample number: 7
Description: Progressive joined rounds: slip stitch in first single crochet of round, chain 1, begin round in second stitch of previous round and end in joining slip stitch.

Difficulty: easy
Seam: slightly more than 2 but not much
Bias: forward
Back: as nice on back as front
Alignment: no jog at end

Sample number: 11
Description: Variation on progressive joined rounds: slip stitch in back loop only of first stitch of round; chain 1; make first stitch of new round in second stitch of previous round and last stitch of new round into both loops of first stitch of previous round (where joining slip stitch was made), enclosing the slip stitch.

Difficulty: challenging
Seam: fairly non-obvious
Bias: forward
Back: arguably worse than front
Alignment: no jog at end

Sample number: 12
Description: Unjoined progressive rounds: Do not slip stitch; chain 1; work new round from second stitch of previous round to first stitch of previous round, enclosing ch-1 with last stitch(es).

Difficulty: moderately challenging
Seam: ghastly – looks like spike stitches
Bias: forward
Back: ghastly
Alignment: no jog at end

Sample number: 13
Description: Careful unjoined progressive rounds: as 12, but work final stitch(es) in front of ch-1 instead of enclosing it.

Difficulty: challenging
Seam: quite disguised but findable
Bias: forward
Back: obvious long strands
Alignment: no jog at end

Notes: This final sample is intriguing. It has the least seam I could produce in proper rounds, at least if you don’t get to turn it over. I would recommend chaining very loosely because the part that looks like a seam seems to be produced by needing to pull the first stitch of the round up when you stitch into it at the end of the next round. I’ll be including this in a later episode of Crochet Gladiator: Stripes in the Round.

So! I’m sure there are other variations I could try, but I’m pretty content with this batch. There is no way to slip stitch and single crochet in the same stitch without a chain in between, incidentally, because the slip stitch will turn into a chain when you make the single crochet, ruining its purpose.

The post Crochet Gladiator: Working in Rounds appeared first on ReveDreams.com.