New Book: Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Tunisian Crochet

Please take a look at my newest book on Tunisian crochet. The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Tunisian Crochet, published by Leisure Arts.

I was asked this morning about what Tunisian crochet stitches were included. After thinking about it, I decided to write a list of everything the book teaches in Tunisian crochet. There are things in this book not covered in any other book in my library and certainly not altogether in one place. So, here we go:

Stitches used throughout the book in tutorials and/or projects:

• Foundation
• Tunisian Simple Stitch
• Tunisian Knit Stitch
• Tunisian Purl Stitch
• Tunisian Reverse Stitch
• Tunisian Extended Stitch
• Binding off in different stitches
• Tunisian Drop Stitch
• Reverse single crochet
• Tunisian slipped stitch

Techniques

• Right- and left-leaning decreases
• Increasing
• Adding new ball of yarn or changing color
• 2-color and 3-color techniques
• Seaming, row-to-row
• Seaming, stitch-to-stitch
• Tips on gauge, counting rows and loose stitches
• Making a tassel
• Tutorial for hand felting
• Short rows

Stitch patterns

• Stockinette
• Seed Stitch
• Slip Stitch rib
• Tunisian rib
• 6-stitch left-leaning cable
• Mitered angle
• The bag stitch pattern is popular in hand-knitting, but I can’t remember the name now (I’m sure it will come to me later)

And, then it applies the things learned to the 9 projects, which are presented in the book in an appropriate order for learning. They move on in an order which makes it fun and easy to learn.

In the coming days, I hope to review the projects individually here, but for a preview, you can jump over to the Leisure Arts site to see photos of them. Enjoy!

New Design: Van Gogh Waves

Last year, Robyn Chachula emailed me and asked whether I would contribute to one of her books. Naturally, I jumped at the chance. You all know Robyn, right? I mean seriously. We love her. How could I say no? It didn’t matter that I was working on 4 books. I wanted to be a part of anything dear Robyn does. So, I set about designing an afghan for her. Of course I chose Tunisian crochet. Did you expect anything different?

Van Gogh is one of my favorite artists. I especially love “Starry Night“. Did you know there was a Doctor Who episode which featured Vincent Van Gogh? That was an awesome episode.

This afghan pattern, made completely in Tunisian crochet except for the last two rounds of the border, is published in the book by Robyn Chachula called “Unexpected Afghans“. At first, that may seem like an unusual name. Making an afghan is anything but unexpected, right? But, my take of it is that the afghans aren’t your usual afghans. For mine in particular, it felt like I was making the fabric for a sweater. Gorgeous, yummy, drapey fabric. The unexpected part comes in because it was actually an afghan.

Unexpected also for me was that apparently my kitty, Lexie the Super Cat, prefers Lion Brand Wool-Ease over all other yarns. I had to cover up the project and the yarn every night to keep him out of it.

Also unexpected was that my daughter wanted to learn Tunisian crochet after seeing this afghan. She is a wonderful knitter and didn’t have a lot of interest in crochet. (Who wants to do the same thing as their mother? LOL) But, she was completely inspired by this afghan.

Hop over to Robyn’s blog to get the links to the websites of the other designers in this book as well. So fun to see these beautiful creations by some wonderful designers, all in one place. Enjoy!

ETA: Oh, my goodness! I forgot to say that I have been authorized to give away a free PDF of this book! hahahahaha! Silly me. Please leave a comment and, on the 4th day of July, before midnight, I will have Christian choose a number and you’ll be a winner! Make sure your email address is correct since that will be my only method of contacting the lucky winner.

ETA2: Christian has chosen a winning number! The winner is #77, Medora. I’ll be sending you an email shortly. Your e-book will be delivered to the email you provided to me in the comments, directly from the publisher. So, if you don’t see it in your email in the next few days or so, be sure to check your spam folder.