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Self Healing Stitches to Cut: Class Resources

2018 Self-Healing Crochet Stitches and How to Cut Them Class by Vashti Braha
Up to date as of 2/03/2022. This page will likely be updated again before class time and possibly after. 
View full size images of steeked swatches. 
This page is a conveniently clickable group of things I mention in the Self-Healing Crochet Stitches and How to Cut Them classes. I teach the next one online!—Part One on March 8 & Part Two on 9, 2022—from 10:30am –11:30am CST. I show a lots of published and unpublished designs in this class. Each illustrates the stitches and techniques learned.  — Vashti Braha
Considering signing up for this class? Read Why “Self-Healing” Crochet Stitches?

Recommended Articles

Designs & Patterns

Steeked Crochet Designs by Others

Inspiration Boards for this ClassA chunky lace vest that can be completed in 2 hours because you create armholes later with quick steeks (cutting).

Self-Healing Crochet Stitches and How to Cut Them started out Tunisian-only in 2016. It was originally titled Steek (Cut) Tunisian Crochet Lace for Fun, Fast Fashions. I overhauled the title to help differentiate this topic from steeking knit fair isle sweaters and other traditional reasons for steeks.

Three fashion trends are relevant to this class topic: graphic/linear texture, net lace, and fringe. I’ve created a Pinterest board for each trend.

  • Steeks: Ideas These are often simple shapes that become magically wearable and trendy with just a cut or two.
  • Trend: the New Fringe I thought today’s fringe was a passing fad but it continues to have a lot of mojo! That’s great for us. Many cut stitch patterns beg to be fringed, especially if you don’t want to use a double-ended hook for Tunisian lace nets. If you cut across several rows, turning that cut edge into fringe is the ideal thing to do with all the ends.
  • Trend: Simple Crochet Mesh Nets It’s a classic fabric with fresh boho looks. It’ll be a long-term trend because it’s also now going urbane-futuristic-techie.
  • To Try with Tunisian Crochet Nets (linear, visually directional fabric grain as design element)

Cutting self-healing stitch patterns is a unique and fun construction method. Knowing how to easily steek as part of your crochet skillset opens up a whole creative avenue of projects. It’s freeing and empowering. As of 2022, it’s always an option that comes to mind when I’m dreaming up a new design. It goes together with inventive folds and seams I might like to use.

I find it also makes pattern schematics newly inspiring—especially for simple shapes. You might enjoy newsletter #80: Pattern Schematics for Insiders and Outsiders. and its “overflow” blog post, Steek Crochet With Pattern Schematics in Any Language (June 2016).

Any Books on Cutting Crochet?

I’ll add information here as I find it, so please check back. (In 2016 I found nothing in books on specifically steeking Tunisian crochet. (If you know of a source, please leave a comment.)

Original 2016 Steeked Tunisian Lace Class Resources page.
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A Crochet Class in a Vest

The first corner of a hanky-hem love knot mesh vest in spring sunshine.
View full size image.

Want to see what I’m working on? This will be Flowerfall, a hanky-hem waterfall vest that I can wear when I teach 21st Century Love Knot Adventures this July in Portland, Oregon. I’m now two-thirds done.

Several Class Skills in a Vest

I’m designing Flowerfall to be a visual aid for several skill levels. I’ll also be adding the pattern to my shop for those who can’t attend the class.

Love Knot Beginner Skills

Another view of this diamond mesh would be the love knot sections of Lovelace. (It’s so iconic that the stitch is synonymous with the mesh in some how-to sources from the 1800’s to now.) Then, compare it with the Electra Wrap’s triangular love knot mesh.

For Students With a Bit of Experience

  • How to increase and decrease this mesh, and add picots as one way to finish the edges as you go.
  • The when, why, and the how-to: making love knots with slip stitches instead of single crochets (UK: dc).
  • My new favorite way to keep love knots from loosening later if the yarn is slippery.
  • A new way to crochet into love knots that I recommend for a project like this one.

For Those With More Experience

  • How to do corner to corner (C-2-C) love knot mesh in which you start in one corner and end in the opposite one.
  • How to sprinkle in other stitches with the classic love knot mesh to create lacy new stitch patterns!

Multi-Purpose Visual Aids = Ideal

This is my seventh year shipping teaching aids across the USA for crochet classes. I teach four to six different topics per event. Visual aids are everything! I always end up with a lot of crochet items to ship.

In the past few years I’ve started designing class items that combine several points of information in one. Not only do I cut down on the shipping this way, it’s a fun design challenge. I also love coming up with how a design for one class topic can double or triple as a visual aid for other topics I’m also teaching.

Self-Healing Stitch Alert

An example of this is I’ll be adding armholes to Flowerfall by cutting them open. Know what this means? It’ll also be a great visual aid for the Self Healing Stitches and How to Cut Them class! I might even bring it to the Tunisian on the Diagonal class if I don’t make a Tunisian one in time. Even though Flowerfall isn’t Tunisian, it’s an example of an easy shape to crochet from corner to corner in any stitch. (Flowerfall is even relevant to my slip stitch classes. It’s the first design I’ve done with slip stitch love knots.)

I’ll post again about this design so that you can see its modified diamond shape, how its armholes happen, and different ways to wear it. I’m smitten ? . Flowerfall’s Flickr album has three photos so far.

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Love Knot Crochet Class Resources

Official 2018 image for the 21st Century Love Knot Adventures class.
Updated on 7/18/18. View the above image full size. This is a conveniently clickable group of things I mention in 21st Century Love Knot Adventures classes. I teach the next one on July 25, 2018 in Portland OR. See student feedback. I show a huge amount of published and unpublished crochet designs in this class and I try new love knots for each class! Each illustrates the stitches and techniques learned.   — Vashti Braha

Thinking of signing up for this class? I wrote the Crochet Class in a Vest blog post with you in mind.

21st Century Love Knot Adventures

In crochet, the Love Knot is also known as Lover’s Knots and Solomon’s Knots. Before 1950 it was most commonly known as “Knot Stitch” and occasionally “Hail Stone Stitch.”

Downloadable Love Knot Crochet Patterns

Vashti’s Forthcoming Love Knot Patterns

As of 7/18/18.

Crochet Inspirations Newsletter Archive

​Love knots serve as important examples for several different newsletter topics!

Online Love Knot Collections

Love Knot How-To’s

Any Books on Crocheting Love Knots?

Yes! Jenny King wrote one: Crochet with Love Knots (Annie’s Crochet 2014).

Non-English Terms (notes)

Beaded Love Knots

Ravelry gallery of my 17 beaded love knot projects

Love Knot Links Miscellany

Older sources were first compiled for the 2012 class. All links work as of 4/05/18.

Tunisian Crochet Patterns: Five Basic Rules

About Tunisian Crochet Patterns

Standards in Tunisian crochet pattern writing are less developed than for other crochet patterns. I hadn’t noticed this until I began publishing my own Tunisian crochet patterns. When I write a non-Tunisian crochet pattern, I check with the industry’s official yarnstandards.com site and usually find everything I need, from yarn weight descriptions to skill levels and crochet stitch symbols. The important thing about this is that I feel confident that other professional crochet designers are using the same site as they write their patterns too. This helps all crocheters.

Tunisian Standards are Evolving

The Five Peaks Shawl with Tunisian eyelet border; image © F+W Media.
Five Peaks Wrap: Tunisian pattern in
Interweave Crochet, Spring 2010.

When writing a Tunisian crochet pattern, however, there is a still-developing standard list of Tunisian stitch symbols and skill level details. Sure, a Tunisian pattern that requires no shaping is rated easier than one that does need shaping. It gets fuzzy when it comes to how Tunisian stitches are worked into which stitch loops. Some are more intermediate or advanced than other stitches.

Example, pictured: the Five Peaks Wrap pattern was rated Easy when it appeared in the Spring 2010 issue of Interweave Crochet Magazine. It is 90% Tunisian Simple Stitch (the beginner’s stitch), and in most of the rows, you do the same thing over and over.

However, this bias-crocheted L-shaped wrap is such a different experience of Tunisian crochet that in retrospect, it should probably have been rated Intermediate.

Pattern Formats

I’m also finding out as I teach Tunisian crochet classes that the best way to arrange the sections of a Tunisian crochet pattern, and write certain things, differ from what works for non-Tunisian crochet patterns. Tunisian crochet patterns contain a handful of unique abbreviations in addition to the usual ones. Unless the only thing going on is Tunisian simple stitch, crocheters may struggle more if the list of Tunisian pattern abbreviations is on a separate page. (It requires one to flip back and forth between pattern and abbreviations list.)

At the end of this post I’ve listed the most common abbreviations that are special to Tunisian crochet patterns.

The Five Rules of Tunisian Crochet Patterns

Aquarienne breaks usual Tunisian crochet pattern conventions
Aquarienne breaks Rules 3 & 5.

Knowing these default standards will help you use Tunisian crochet patterns. They might not be spelled out in a pattern. I’m not sure whether these five have ever been explicitly explained in one place.

  1. Each complete row consists of two steps: a Forward Pass, when you put loops on the hook; and a Return Pass, when you work the loops off of the hook.
  2. The fronts of your stitches face you at all times; you do not turn your work at the end of a Forward Pass or Return Pass. (Unless specifically instructed to.)
  3. The single loop on the hook at the beginning of every Forward Pass counts as the first stitch of the new row. We do not chain to begin a new row, unless specifically instructed to, such as for taller stitches. Also, skip the very first stitch along that beginning edge of the row, otherwise you’ll increase by one stitch.
  4. The last stitch at the other end of the Forward Pass is worked into two edge loops, not just one. It results in a nicer finished edge. Work this last stitch more loosely to match the first stitch of the Forward Pass. This is because the first stitch typically loosens as you complete the row.
  5. Most Tunisian stitches contain a total of five loops. They’re called “bars” in Tunisian crochet patterns. There is a front and a back vertical bar, and three horizontal bars at the top of these two vertical bars. (Taller and compound stitches will have more stitch loops.) Imagine what this means: you can work into not only 1 of 5 different loops of a stitch, but any combination of these 5…or into the space between two stitches…time for me to go swatch some ideas. So much more to discover about Tunisian crochet!

Pattern Abbreviations

Tunisian crochet patterns share many common and standard abbreviations with other crochet patterns. Some examples: st for stitch, ch for chain, rep for repeat, RS for right side of item or stitch pattern.

The Most Common Abbreviations in Tunisian Crochet Patterns

Rimply breaks Rule 4.
  • vb = vertical bar
  • hb = horizontal bar
  • FP or ForP or FwdP (or similar) = Forward Pass
  • RP or RetP or RtnP (or similar) = Return Pass
  • Tss or TSS = Tunisian Simple Stitch
  • Tks or TKS = Tunisian Knit Stitch

So, how many of the five rules of Tunisian crochet patterns do you always remember, even if they’re not explicitly stated?

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On the Hook: New Tunisian Crochet Design

Last week I started a new design that I need to wear soon. I’ll be attending a daytime memorial service in Florida. My plain black sleeveless dress just needs a light covering for my upper arms and chest. That’s why this project is in all black Lotus yarn. (It’s purely a coincidence that I’ll finish in time for Halloween tomorrow.)

Its tentative name is Graven because I first thought of raven’s wings, and it has an engraved-looking texture. I think the last all-black thing I designed was a 2007 mini skirt of single crochet for Caron yarns in their Simply Soft yarn.

Story—its Style and Texture

Early (earliest?) Wicker variation swatched
Early (earliest?) Wicker variation swatched.

The main stitch pattern is similar to one I created for Weightless and Liebling. I’ve planned to design with it for years. I chose short rows to shape it instead of steadily increasing in the round from the neck down, or gathering the neckline. This made it an interesting process.

Sleek black lace crew-neck capelet for daytime urban streetwear (Oct. 2016 Valentino ad for "Glamgloss" sunglasses)
Oct. 2016 Valentino ad for “Glamgloss”

A recent “Glamgloss” ad by Valentino inspired the design idea. Originally I was going to name it “Glaze” or “Lotus Glaze”. It evolved and now will probably be more of a capelet to be worn open in the front or closed in the back.

About the Edging

New Tunisian Crochet Mesh Design in Progress

Last night I tried out the edging you see here. It blocked overnight and today I’m very happy with how it resolved some issues.

Edging priorities:

  • Prevent flaring or ruffling at the hem
  • Add a bit of length because I made it too short for me
  • Give it a restrained but special design detail.

I hope it’s restrained enough! (I struggle with that.)

The stitch choices are very carefully picked to deal with how the hem hangs. This is my top priority because I feel like a little girl if something ruffles even slightly over my upper arms. Some of the stitches recede to create a subtle ribbing effect that pull the hem in just enough. I like the vertical texture they add.

The tiny twisted loops (the shortest I could make them) are actually energy coils that add resilience to the flexy rib, since this yarn has no wool or other stretchy fiber in it. The picots I tried didn’t do this. It’s also dense enough overall to weigh down the hem without the need for beads or a hidden chain.

Close up of the change in stitch pattern for the collar, in progress. These are twisted Tunisian crochet stitches in DesigningVashti Lotus yarn, "Black Gleam" color. (It's inky, glossy, deep black but doesn't look like it in this lightened photo.)
Close up of the change in stitch pattern for the collar, in progress. These are twisted Tunisian crochet stitches.

I first used a twisty loop edging for Aquarienne, my newest published pattern. For that design they’re beaded and a bit longer.

For the neck edge I used a different stitch pattern while crocheting the main piece. You’re looking at twisted Tunisian extended stitches. Interesting texture! I haven’t used them like this before.

As a Crochet Pattern

If/when I write up Graven as a downloadable pattern, it will be for an Experienced skill level and with a video. This is mainly due to what it’s like to do the main Tunisian mesh in short rows. Graven has a project page in Ravelry where I’ll post updates.