Adventures in Combining Crochet and Weaving!

Even though I love working with many techniques, I always have crochet on my mind! I especially love to combine different technique to achieve interesting effects. For a while now I have been experimenting with and teaching modern weaving with our eWoodStory weaving kit. I love doing freeform work, and weaving can be so creative. You can really show the beauty of the yarns and fibers you are using.

I recently started experimenting with including crochet in my weaving. The first experiment I did was to crochet the weft for a weaving in an ivory color. I freely wove it into the piece along with some other yarns, and then painted the crochet to go with the yarns. I also crocheted the fringe. I felt it was really successful, and the wheels of creativity began spinning!  If you want to see the evolution of this weaving, here is a link to an earlier post I wrote when I was just beginning to weave this piece.

The next piece I worked on had some crocheted chains and bobbles added to the warp. I then wove around them to incorporate them into the piece without covering them up too much. I also did a little embroidery embellishment to finish it off.

The third piece had a completely crocheted warp. I crocheted a filet mesh that was tailored to fit the loom, and then I crocheted some chains to weave into the mesh. I alternated weaving the chains in, with some of the same yarn that hadn't been crocheted. I love the rich tapestry it created! I made this into a purse. By crocheting the warp, I was able to make the piece long enough to make a purse from the one panel.

After completing this piece, I decided that I wanted to try making the warp the focus of the piece, and I crocheted interesting wavy strips that I wove a little color into after crocheting. I alternated these with double chain bands in a contrasting color. Then the challenge was to find a warp that would hold it all together but not compete with it.

I have many more ideas for combining crochet and weaving. I am excited to keep on experimenting with this! I have decided to call these combo pieces "weavrochet". My daughter and I had a great time brainstorming words combining crochet and weaving, and this was our favorite!

If you would like to follow along  and see progress photos of my weavrochet adventures as they unfold, follow me on instagram, and you can also search by the Instagram hashtag #weavrochet.

Letting Your Yarn Write the Pattern Part 2: Embroidery Embellishment!

We had some wonderful crochet panels in the Weaving Stories Installation, due to the fact that crochet is very popular in Kuwait. I thought it might be fun to show you some of them up close!

I am starting off with one of the panels I made for the wall. In a previous post, I introduced this panel by talking about how I let the yarn write the pattern by changing the stitch type every time the variegated yarn changed color.

I was inspired by the Desert theme and I wanted to show that there actually is some green in the desert! I was so happy to find a variegated yarn that had the exact shades I was looking for. Since the wall tells stories of Kuwait, I decided to include the National Flower of Kuwait, Al Arfaj. It is like the dandelion of the desert and it is a cheerful reminder that there is color in the desert!

I crocheted the panel background before I knew where to place the flowers or how I would stitch them. I just let the yarn do the talking first!

I wanted them to look as much like they do in nature as I could so I went searching for photos of Al Arfaj, and I found the perfect image:

I printed it in the size I needed it to be for the panel and traced the main lines on to some thin paper and pinned it into place on the panel.

Then, I used some regular sewing thread to stitch all of the stems through the paper.

After it was all stitched, I tore off the paper so I could follow the thread stitching lines to stitch with the yarn.

The stitching lines appear very faint in the photo, but they were visible enough to stitch easily.

I chose the shades of green from the variegated yarn so they would show up well on the background, cutting the yarn and changing colors wherever necessary.

Once the stems were embroidered, I pulled out all of the sewing thread.

I used the photo as inspiration for where and how to stitch the flowers. I tried a few techniques for stitching the flowers, and decided on one that would give the most realistic look. It involved stitching a rather thick base of petals, then cutting some of the stitches and separating the strands of yarn to give a fuzzy appearance in the center of the flowers.

This method was a great way to stitch the flowers as realistically as possible!