I hate it that I’ve been too busy to blog, especially when there’s so much to share! Where to begin? Let me start with my trip to Asheville, NC, where I attended the WARP (Weave a Real Peace) conference in early May. It was exhilarating to be surrounded by so many inspirational women! Reconnecting with friends and making new ones was fabulous.
The day before leaving for Asheville, I realized that the amazing tapestry crocheter featured in one of my 2009 blogs lived there. So, I arranged to meet Esther at Earth Guild, where she works.
First she introduced me to her tapestry crochet hats. Esther is so creative and generous! For instance, she carries elastic in the last few rows for a better fit. What a great idea! (Esther’s pattern for the green and white pinwheel in the background of the picture below is part of her Tapestry Crochet Basics packet sold at Earth Guild.)
Esther also came up with a great way to carry both colors so that she can go back and forth between them without readjusting the yarns on her left hand between the changes. Tension is maintained by holding the yarns with the middle, ring, and little fingers of the left hand.
But the light bulb really went on when I noticed that her motifs don’t slant as much as mine. In fact, Esther made a special tapestry crochet graph paper with less slant.
What does she do differently? Let’s see if you can figure it out by looking at the photos below.
Did you see it? Instead of going under the yarn and grabbing it yarn from the back, she hooks it from the front! Eureka! I suspect that many Guatemalans tapestry crochet with Esther’s method because the motifs on most of the bags purchased down there do not slant very much. My next blog will explore these two methods more in depth.
You’ve probably also noticed Esther’s colorful yarn. Some of it is Earth Guild’s cotton Dragon Tail Yarn and the rest she dyes herself. Her hand painted yarns are sold at Earth Guild and her dying method is explained in her Tapestry Crochet: Basics, Bags, and Pouches packet sold at Earth Guild. It also includes stitch tutorials (her method for right and left-handed crocheters), patterns, design notes, several animal motifs, tapestry crochet graph paper, and tips.
My only disappointment is that I didn’t schedule enough time to look at more of Esther’s amazing tapestry crocheted works of art!
I updated this post because I just realized that Esther is still hooking the yarn on the top, but she’s grabbing it from the front instead of the back.
This is how I hold my yarn and use my hook:
I’m tapestry crocheting with Esther’s method now. It’s awkward, but has gotten easier with practice (like most new things). I don’t lose the yarn, but have to really concentrate so that I don’t start hooking it my usual way! I’ll blog about it next week and show how both methods slightly change the slant.
I am in love with that swirl patterned hat! I’ve been doing the rest of tapestry crochet instinctinvely since I was a child of about 8 or 10 years old, including crocheting over the unused yarn, but I never thought of pulling from under. I thought there was some mention somewhere of doing that making the warp too thick? Here is my real question though. It seems that going from under instead of over, would be easy to lose the yarn a lot, having to spend a lot of time repicking it up. How do you prevent this, or does it not seem to be a problem?
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