Experimentation...Open Work in Tunisian Crochet

Since my last post, I've been experimenting with Tunisian crochet, trying to figure our how to work in a little open work. Also, working out ways to use the stitch without it curling up so much.

Here are some of my results.

Love this one. Turned into a long, wide scarf with tight work and a lovely square looking pattern. Alternates between a regular row and a row where it skips every stitch, alternating whether it starts with the third or fourth stitch being the first skip. This leaves a two stitch border on each end.

Such a clean pattern. Very soothing and regular. Would be great for a satchel, too, I think.

The back looks just like knitting.

And this one, without the stabilizing normal row, same alternating skipped stitch rows. Ended up looking like chainmail. It's a bit stretchy and seems like it could deform, but it's a nice bouncy result. I took some shots of my attempt to do it again, having forgotten to write it down the first time. 



Came out with a nice border row, didn't curl a lot, but the weight of the project (a long scarf) helped. Didn't turn out well with the springy grey yarn. Hence this is what I chose to use. 

Work as so to draw up loops over open spots.

 Where you insert the hook to draw up and from what direction you insert has vastly different effects.



Reverse pass, you create the spaces over the skipped stitches by adding an extra ch between.  Each row, you swap 3rd and 4th stitch as the first skipped stitch. Basically working up loops only from previous row's open.

And then I went fuzzy, and made two scarves using variations of these.  Here's the first, a slight variation of the grey one. Patterns aren't as noticeable with the fuzzy stuff, so I didn't alternate the start of the skipped stitches.

 

Made some nice vertical lines on this.

The second, which I'm still working on, uses dc on the open work rows to create wider open work. I draw the loops on that one by inserting the hook under the 2 ch as for normal crochet. Instead of one normalizing regular row, I did 3 between each open row. As a scarf, I thought having too much openwork might be detrimental to the point of having a scarf.

Big holes, and the Boucle yarn is so fuzzy and bouncy. Tried it with alternating opens, but it looked funky with the bigger openings. So, they are all lined up.

Well, that's what I've been up to. I've made a dent in my yarn stash, but there's plenty more. I still want to start a blanket, but it's a wee bit hot out to do that just yet.

Happy crocheting!