Adventures with Tunisian Crochet

This was my very first time working with Tunisian crochet. I followed a very wonderful tutorial by Crochet the Day Away.

Tunisian Basic Stitch Swatch

I started with making a small swatch to get a feel for the basic stitch before I made any real projects. I loved the pattern (both right and wrong sides) and the stiffness in the created fabric, but even with crocheting in a fashion that would normally be quite loose, my stitches felt very tight.

Tunisian Basic Stitch Swatch

As you can see in this picture, the fabric was curling a lot. This was after I tried to tame it with a little tugging and flattering camera angles. I also think I skipped a stitch at the beginning. Oops. I figured it was time to try making something with this stitch, and since the pattern reminds me of baskets, I figured it's a perfect stitch to make a little basket for the powder room to hold extra rolls of toilet paper.

I am admittedly quite embarrassed to show this, erm, piece of work. It didn't turn out at all how I wanted. This was my first ever basket and I just improvised a pattern instead of following one. Despite the stiffness of the Tunisian basic stitch compared to normal crochet stitches, it was still quite flimsy and I had major curl-age on the sides! I didn't even bother weaving in the ends because I know this piece is probably just going to get tossed.

I wasn't paying close enough attention at the end and accidentally made my contrast side panels go in two different directions since one was attached directly onto the side and the other was attached onto the base. I'm also not a big fan of the yarn colors. I'm not really a camo girl, and while the only then-current colors in the powder room were white and black (I know, how brave), this just did not look nice. Since then we bought a gorgeous, deep red hand towel so if it wasn't out before, it is now!





I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong to make the pieces curl up, but I think I will have to revisit this project later once I get yarn that looks nice with the new hand towel. Next time I'm going to try using a bigger, non-Tunisian hook to get a looser tension. I think I'll go back to flat things like dish towels for mastering the basic Tunisian stitch and then make my powder room basket with a multiple-strands-together technique.