Hat with five colours - Tunisian crochet

My next project discovering Tunisian crochet in the round is a hat. I chose my favourite yarn from Wålstedts to get god quality. It is a two-ply, z-plied yarn. I was curious to see if the z-ply was a problem when making Tunisian crochet (it was not).

I chose to use five different colours/nuances from light blue to black. Black being the only colour used on every row throughout the whole project.

For the beginning I used dark blue and black, alternating the basic stitch with purl stitches. For the rest of the hat I used the basic stitch and alternated the blue colours for every row.

An easy and fun project - I think that Tunisian crochet can be quite addictive ...

Tunisian Crochet (in Swedish: "krokning")

This summer I had signed up for a class in Tunisian crochet. Unfortunately the course was cancelled. I then decided to see what I could learn on "my own" - I was especially intrigued by Tunisian crochet in the round, since I had been told that Tunisian crochet usually was not done in the round. I always prefer to work in the round when knitting, so I found this very interesting.

With  the help of books, internet and Youtube -  I started a "learning swatch" to try out the technique and various stitch combinations that I found. The new double-ended crochet hook  is a  genial solution enabling working in the round.

Trying out two simple stitches I made a pair of wrist warmers:

I also tried to find out something of the history behind Tunisian crochet, which is called "krokning" in Swedish, but soon found, that that was not an easy task. The following is a brief summary of information gathered from the internet, encyclopedias and my book-shelf.

Tunisian crochet is known by many different names. In Swedish "krokning",  in English "Afghan stitch", in French "tricot Eccossais" and some strange American ones: "Idiot stitch", "fool stitch" and "railway stitch"....

Some sources state that it is an ancient technique, but there is no reliable evidence supporting this, other than that Tunisian crochet is described as a mix of knitting and crochet and therefore could be the predecessor of them both.

Tunisian crochet was popular during the Victorian Era, only to be almost forgotten in the beginning of the 20th Century. In 1859, in USA, Tunisian crochet was described as an addition to crochet under the name of "Princess Frederick William Stitch" in "The Lady´s Manual of Fancy Work" by Mrs Pullen. 

In Sweden Tunisian crochet had a revival in the 1950´s, but has since been almost forgotten. There was some interest during the "knitting -boom" in the 80´s, but it never came close to the interest shown in the 1950´s.

Today there seems to be a new interest in the technique, books and workshops are becoming more and more frequent. Could it be because the double-ended crochet hook makes working in the round possible, thus facilitating making mittens, hats and even bigger garments, such as sweaters?

2013-11-02:
More about Tunisian Honeycomb Stitch in this post:
Tunisian crochet - Honeycomb Stitch

Petition for publication of "Tvåändsstickat" in English

 

Tvåändsstickat by Dandanell and Danielsson.

This is, in my opinion, the best book about twined knitting available. It deals with both the technique and the history of twined knitting. It also contains basic patterns and lots of interesting pictures. 

The book was reprinted and revised in 2011 by Dalarnas Museum, but only in Swedish. I contacted the Museum suggesting an English translation but did not succeed in convincing them.

Now there is a petition for publication of "Tvåändsstickat" in English at The Dutch Knitters homepage. If you are interested in making an English version available do follow this LINK for more information and sign the petition.

Twined knitting in the middle of Summer

Knitting mittens in the middle of Summer? Yes, definitely! I knit all year round so I find nothing strange with this. 

These mittens were intended to be half mittens. But then I knitted while watching a very engaging  film on TV, and suddenly saw that I had long since passed the proper length for half-mittens. 

So I decided to continue and make a pair of mittens instead. 

The yarn is a z-plied, 2-ply from Kerstin and Bosse, spun at Wålstedts.

Band weaving at Sätergläntan

I have once before tried to learn band weaving - with very poor result. So I decided I would give it one more  chance and signed up for a course at Sätergläntan. 

And Sätergläntan always delivers: this was a week of pure joy thanks to our teacher Elisabeth Johansson. Elisabeth led a week starting with braided bands continuing with simple woven bands and then patterned bands on a rigid heddle (with backstrap). The week also included the basics of setting up your warp, different types of yarns for different kinds of bands  and so on. There were also traditional small looms for bandweaving for those who wanted to try that out.

I stuck to the rigid heddle since my main goal was to learn how that worked. And I had a really enjoyable week. Of course my bands do not look perfect, they are uneven and contain mistakes. BUT they were great fun to make.

At the end of the week I also learned how to make/weave a napped edging (kavelfrans in Swedish) often used on traditional mittens. This will be useful for decorating knitted mittens in the old traditional way.

We also got to see some old woven bands. Below are some bands from a private collection. They are incredibly detailed (most of them are ca 20 mm wide) and use very complicated patterns.

Bonus: this was my view out the window while weaving: