A Beginner's Guide to Tunisian Crochet

A Beginner’s Guide to Tunisian Crochet

Table of Contents
Introduction
Crochet Tips For beginners
Basic information about crochet
How to Hold a Crochet Needle
Starting to Crochet
Chain stitch
Double Stitch and Turning
Crochet Stitch Symbols
Abbreviations for Crochet Terms
Making a Tunisian Needle Hook
Introduction to Tunisian Crochet
Starting on Tunisian Crochet
Easy Tunisian Crochet Scarf
Run Out Of Yarn?
Conclusion
Author Bio
Publisher

Introduction

One of the most popular traditional creative art forms, apart from weaving, knitting, or knotted work is crochet. In Victorian times, women used to spend hours making crochet covers to cover every visible surface, including furniture, and furnishings. This is of course apart from the dresses, scarfs, shoes, doilies, purses, pillow covers and anything else of which you could think, made by just one hook and some sturdy, colorful thread.

Well, these women did not have much else with which to occupy their time, and they were just practicing an art which has been around for millenniums. Nobody really knows where crochet originated, although people in the East have been practicing it to make delicate patterned items for millenniums. That is why this book is going to tell you about Tunisian crochet.

Crochet came to the West, especially to Europe in around the 16th century, when the demand for delicate lace like items made women switch to this technique. But I have a feeling, that this technique was brought to Europe, much before this, by the Crusaders, coming back from the East, and it was only in the 16th century that the nuns of France, Spain and Italy began to concentrate more on this technique to produce things of beauty.

Lace crochet is still very popular today, and the art is applied to making handkerchiefs and table linen. Even more popular today is crochet using heavy and soft and fine wool to make articles of clothing and even things for your living room. I would call them dust catchers, but they last and last.

So is it a surprise that time and again, old lace patterns serve to stimulate ideas for producing beautiful items, which have been inspired by some creative person who decided to pick up a crochet hook and some thread and found a magical new creative technique.

Tunisian crochet and adapting it for making beautiful creations with one knitting needle made into a hook is my contribution to this age-old technique which was going out of vogue. So you can consider this book to be a salute to Tunisian crochet, which is going to be a boon for all those people who just hate knitting, but want to knit sweaters, scarves and other items, without the botheration of two needles.

Tunisian crochet is also known as Afghan crochet and is considered to be a mixture of crochet and knitting. Ladies normally made a number of shapes on their hooks and when they had made 50 or so squares of the same size, they stitched them together to make huge shawls and wraparounds. These are the so popular Afghans which you wear today.

So if you are crocheting squares with a crochet needle, intending to join the strips together with cross stitches to make an afghan, try making it in Tunisian crochet.