Monday 17 August 2009

Surface crochet : : A crochet tutorial



As I was writing up my pattern for the spiral baby blanket, I was going to link to a tutorial on surface crochet, but I couldnt seem to find one which would be comprehensive enough, so I just thought I might as well make a quick one up.

Surface crochet is a great way to embellish both crocheted items and knitted items, it's quick and easy and you can make up the patterns as you go along. If you know how to crochet already, then this will be a walk in the park for you to learn.

Firstly you'll need a practice swatch and a contrasting colour to practice with.... and of course, a crochet hook. Here's my practice piece.... it doesn't have to be very big....



Hold your contrasting yarn behind your work so that your crochet hook can access it, I hold mine like this, but you can hold it any way you feel comfortable....



Now, pass the hook through the front of your work where you want the design to begin like this.....



Let the hook grab the yarn and pull it back through the hole, it should look like this...



Now, pass the hook through the front of your work in the next stitch space like this....



And do the same, hook the yarn through the work and you should have this.....



Now, just like ordinary crochet, you pull the new loop through the old one and you have a stitch on the surface.....


After a few stitches it should look like this...



Repeat this till the end of your work and it should look like this....


And there you have it.... you can surface crochet to your heart's content now....

9 comments:

IntegrityHunter said...

Thank you for sharing your beautiful spiral blanket pattern and especially for tutorial. I've never surface crocheted before. This opens up a whole new world! lol

Mona said...

excellent tutorial! How would you make frills using the surface crochet technique?

Mitzi said...

I huge giant ridiculous thank you to you for posting this. I was looking all over online for a surface crochet video and couldn't fine one but your blog came up w/ pictures and within seconds I was putting the finishing touches on my project. I have been crocheting for quite some time now but hadn't ever surface crocheted. Thank you again for posting this online!!! :)

Anonymous said...

This is wonderful! Thank you so much! I couldn't find anything like this for a long time, it is exactly what I needed.

crocheTime said...

Thanks for this, you made it look so easy!

Anonymous said...

thank you so much for this tutorial. i have been looking for how to do this! thanks again, you are the best!

Amy Lynn said...

I love that you call this "Surface Crochet" too! I've never known what it should be called so I just thought it was something that only made sense to me. :) I needed a good way of explaining that stitch in a pattern I came up with on my own blog and used your blog entry for it.

http://amylynn98.blogspot.com/2011/09/ediths-hat-v-20.html

Thanks so much for posting your directions!

Anonymous said...

Thanks so much; I have been searching for a tutorial on this technique. Now I can finish a blanket for my new little nephew!

sylvialellis said...

Thanks so much for this tutorial and the gorgeous spiral blanket. I have so many ideas now for using this technique on other projects. :)