I've been doing a little Tunisian crochet lately. It forms a nice solid fabric compared to normal crochet stitches and is fantastic for colour blocking.
For a quick weekend (read: instant gratification) project, I decided to make up this little hold all, purse, whatever you want to call it...
It is 10cm x 7cm (about business card holder size) and is perfect for stowing away little bits and pieces, like spare change or a nano.
What you need:
3ply cotton yarn - the number of colours is up to you
3mm tunisian crochet hook
a small shank button
To start, cast on 25 in your first colour. This is going to end up being the colour at the front opening, in my case it's pink.
Tunisian crochet 8 rows in pink, 8 rows in red, 10 in pale blue.
Then switch to your last colour, in my case navy. I crocheted 5 rows, then on the 6th I started decreasing, so that I could create a curved edge for the opening flap of the hold all.
To decrease, all you need to do is stitch two together. On each remaining row, I decreased on the first and last stitch, and also on the 5th stitch in and on the 5th to last stitch. On the 8th row, I also chained across the 3 middle stitches, rather than picking up the stitches from the previous row as usual, in order to create the button hole. I finished off on the 10th row.
This will give you the following piece of crochet:
Carefully block and iron this piece to square up the rows / edges.
I decided to add some further contrast colour at this point. Firstly I blanket stitched just along the front edge of what would be the opening, in navy on the pink.
Then I matched up the sides to form the purse, putting the pink edge to the second row of navy (or, row 1 to row 28) and pinning this in place. I then whip stitched the edges using red yarn. This created a nice contrast on the front and back...
Lastly, I turned added my a small shank button, with a double thread of red yarn, pulled it through to the back and tied it off.
And you're done! This is so speedy, I think it's going to be hard to stop at one....!
Labels: 3 ply cotton pattern, cotton crochet pattern, crochet, DIY, easy project, hold all, purse, Tunisian crochet, tutorial
