It’s a stitch that is both loved and hated, usually in direct proportion to how well the crocheter can execute this challenging stitch. There’s no one way to do it, and I’ve seen people use a variety of tricks to make it easier.
When someone on Facebook asked me if I had any advice to make bullions easier to execute (hi Malena!), I went looking for a particular video on YouTube that demonstrates using a tapestry needle taped to the crochet hook. The idea is to wrap the yarn around the hook and the needle as one, keeping the wraps more open so that the hook travels through them without snagging. It’s a nifty trick, and I sacrificed a few crochet hooks to the cause a while ago so that I could use duct tape to hold the needle in place permanently, more or less. The video I’d seen long ago to learn the tapestry needle technique didn’t come up immediately in my search, but another one did, and it uses the tapestry needle in a completely different way. The needle was used instead of the hook, moving the yarn through all the loops in the eye of the needle itself. It works very, very well. I found that it works particularly well with the loop eye wool needles from Knitter’s Pride. Note: the first part of the video shows the traditional method of making bullions. Go to the 3 minute mark to see the tapestry needle method.
Honestly, the bullions come out looking great. I haven’t used a lot of bullions recently in my freeform projects because my focus tends to be on accessories, which I like to keep as light as possible, and bullions add weight and bulk to the fabric. But, since I stumbled onto this tapestry needle method, I’ve been making a bunch of them just for fun. The process is a little bit fiddly, but it’s worth it for such handsome bullions.
As with most things in freeform crochet, there are endless options for yarns and colors. Sometimes it’s fun to use anything and everything and see what happens. You might end up with a blanket, a piece of wall art, or a freeform coat of many colors. Using a wide variety of yarns and following your curiosity is really tremendous fun. But if you know what your project will be, if you have a plan for what you’d like to end up with, you may want to choose your materials with careful attention. Yarn curation can really set you up for success, especially for wearables.
Consider what you’re making as part of the curation process. If it’s a wearable, look to your closet to remind yourself what you wear the most. Do you tend towards bright colors? Versatile neutrals? Bold prints? If you make something that fits in with your ready-to-wear accessory collection, it’s more likely to be worn.
When you’ve figured out what you’d like to make, you can start choosing colors and textures. You can use a color wheel to make all kinds of gorgeous palettes based on color theory, but lots of people are not confident enough in their skills to combine colors, and they think that they do not have an artistic eye for it. Maybe that’s true, maybe it’s not, but there are some tricks that can make you look like a color expert.
One of my favorite palette strategies for wearable accessories is to pick a single color (or two colors side by side on the color wheel) and search my stash for as many shades of that color as I can find. This is an especially approachable strategy if your stash is deep with single skeins and odds and ends of your favorite colors. Adding a neutral makes it even easier to wear.
These scrumbles are shades of red plus neutral black with a couple of neutral greys.
Sometimes I find that a multicolored yarn inspires a color palette. A variegated yarn that you love already has a color palette baked in. If you like the mix of colors in that one yarn, it’s the perfect resource for choosing solid color yarns. Find as many yarns in the stash that match the colors in your inspiration yarn, including yarns that just come close. The idea is to get as many yarns together as possible and winnow them down to your perfect palette later in the process.
All of these solid colors coordinate with some part of the variegated yarn in the knitted section. I ended up have a few variegated that matched pretty well, too.
If your stash includes lots of variegated yarns, then a reverse strategy is to choose one particular color, then grab any of your multicolors that have that color in the mix. You’ll probably want to include solid color yarns in your original color plus a few more that coordinate with the variegateds, too. The solid colors will help the multicolor yarns shine by contrast.
The yarns in the freeform panel are both solids and variegateds in shades of the green and teal. It’s hard to tell in this photo, but the teal has a very small strand of bright green, and those little green circles are a perfect match to it.
Mini skein collections or slow color change yarns, like Noro, are great palette builders. These yarns are already curated by talented dyers that know how to put colors together, so it really takes the guesswork out of color choice. If you have enough of these types of yarns for the whole project, you don’t even have to bring in any other yarns, you’re ready to start crocheting.
The freeform section in this wrap was made entirely from a mini skein kit that I purchased on vacation in Juneau, Alaska. The kit has a light grey, so I chose a slightly darker grey for the solid knitted section.
It’s worth mentioning here that it’s a good idea to occasionally include a color you don’t like in the palette. The electric lime green and the pink in the mini skein kit I used for the wrap shown above are not usually colors I choose for myself, and I almost left them out. I even bought a few duplicates of my favorite colors in the kit to substitute in. In the end, though, I decided to trust the dyer and used all of the colors she put together, and it was a good decision. The unloved colors made my usual palette more lively, and this wrap is one of the pieces I wear most often.
Kay Gardiner and Ann Shayne of Modern Daily Knitting have a great strategy for choosing colors. Their motto is “Juicy and Blah,” and it’s a good reminder that striking a balance between the rich and the subtle makes for a very effective palette. Click on over to their blog to see some examples of Juicy and Blah.
If you’re willing to use just one type of yarn for your project, try looking at yarns that are used for colorwork designs. The colors for these yarns will be chosen to work together, making them great for freeform projects. Berroco Lanas Light and Pascuali Balayage are good examples, as are many of the Rowan yarns, such as their Alpaca Soft.
If you’re having trouble even starting to choose colors for a project, look to the art world and nature. Inspiration is everywhere. A painting, a mosaic, a quilt, a piece of beautiful fabric, a stained glass window, a garden, a sculpture, or even a pretty piece of gift wrap could all be inspiration for a freeform color palette. Find a yarn that fits with your original inspiration, then use one of the tricks mentioned above to flesh out a palette.
Once you’ve assembled a pile of possible yarns, you can do some editing. Leave the yarns out where you’ll see them during the day and remove the ones that bug you as you notice them. Sometimes one of the colors will stand out because it’s brighter or more muted than the others, or maybe you realize that you’ve put more contrast in there than you really want. Maybe the palette needs a little more Juicy or a little more Blah, who knows! Take time to figure out what you think it needs, but don’t hesitate to go ahead and start scrumbling. Seeing how the yarns behave when they’re worked up can help you decide which yarns make the final cut.
These are some of my favorite tricks for choosing yarns, but what are yours? Tell us about it in the comments, we can all use more ideas.
This design has popped into my head a lot recently, maybe it’s time to make another one? It’s a fade pattern to use with gradient kits or just a few hanks of fingering weight yarn that look good together. The dark purple contrast color is a strand of lace weight wool and a strand of lace weight wool/mohair, but you could easily substitute a single strand of fingering weight instead. Check out the pattern details in my Ravelry store.
A collection of Malabrigo Finito speckled colorways inspired this design. Each color is named for an instrument: Violin, Viola, Cello, Double Bass, and Piano. This happens to be the instrumentation for Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet, a favorite of mine. Also, the colorways use lots of purple, another favorite of mine. To top it all off, the Finito is an exceptionally soft merino that feels like cashmere. I bought my mine from Great Yarns in Raleigh, NC. It was a couple of years ago, but they may still have it, and they offer online shopping.
Taking stock of the calendar year at the end of December in various ways is a fairly common practice for lots of people, probably because for most pursuits, review and evaluation are crucial if you’re trying to learn and move forward. If you’re a knitter/crocheter who uses Ravelry to track your projects, it’s easy to see your year at a glance.
In 2022 I finished 47 things. That’s a pretty big number, but a lot of them were rather small. Here’s how it breaks down:
toys and notions: 4
socks: 1 pair
dishcloths: 12
hats: 4
mitts/gloves: 5 pairs
cowls: 6
scarves: 5
wraps/shawls: 7
sweaters: 3 (2 were for babies and 1 was for me)
Only 4 of these projects were freeform, but there are many, many swatches and experiments that may show up in future freeform or design projects. Since they’re just swatches, they don’t count on my list of completed items.
One cowl was a sample for a pattern that will be published in a magazine, 1 shawl and 2 pairs of mitts were commissioned, and 13 items were gifts.
If you happen to be interested in Ravelry-type details, you can take a look at my project page.
I think it’s interesting to look over 2022’s fiber projects, calendar entries, mileage records for music work, etc. If you’re self employed (like me) and therefore don’t have an annual evaluation from your boss, you, too, have most likely found that it’s useful to review what you’ve done during the year. It’s reassuring to look over your work output and see that you (hopefully) really did accomplish a lot of whatever it is that you do.
As an enthusiastic record keeper and list maker, I’d like to do a little more tracking in the new year, things like recipes tried, weddings played, books read, and walks taken. What do you want to track in 2023? I’d love to hear your ideas in the comments.
Visiting with the New York Dohertys and spending time in the city was a great way to finish out the last week of the year. After touring Rockefeller Center we enjoyed the bright, clear day at the Top of the Rock Observatory. Dinners from Greek and Polish restaurants introduced us to a couple of new dishes to try recreating at home in the next few weeks. Seeing Patrick Page sing one of his last performances in Hadestown on Broadway was particularly exciting. That voice!
As always, we’re happy to get back home and looking forward to next time.
While I’ve really enjoyed using the name String Theory for this blog, it’s time for a change. My free newsletter, Freeform Yarny Things, will be starting in January, and I like the simplicity of using the same name on both of my online home bases. If you would like to subscribe to my newsletter-to-be, click on over to Substack. Thanks for reading!
There’s a running list of things I want to try out in my freeform notebook. When I sit down at my table and there’s not a current project that I want to work on that day, the list gives me new things to experiment with. Sometimes I end up learning how to do a new stitch or technique that I will want to incorporate into a future project, but even if it’s not something I want to keep doing, at least I learn something new.
One of my recent experiments is this little mandala coaster pattern by Tatsiana Kupryianchyk, part of her recent Geometry&Texture Make Along. Buying this collection (for only $4) gives you a loop cowl and a pillow pattern as well. Each project features wonderful crochet texture techniques. In overlay crochet, used in the mandala coaster, stitches are worked into previously completed rows to create intricate patterns and effects.
Rather than making it a coaster, I left off a couple of rounds and decided to use the mandala as the top of a pin cushion for tapestry needles. It’s nice to be able to jab the needles into the little cushion instead of having them laying around on my work table.
Will I use this technique in a freeform project? Maybe so. With all of the overlapping stitches, the fabric ends up being somewhat bulky, so I’d be more likely to use it for something other than wearable projects. It is possible, though, that little fragments of this crochet style could end up sprinkled into an accessory. Have you done any overlay crochet? What do you like to make with it? Feel free to answer in the comments.
Just a reminder: I’m starting a free newsletter in January about freeform crochet and things related. If you’d like to get that newsletter in your email inbox, visit substack to subscribe.
This gorgeous photograph from Marcella Giulia Pace shows 48 colors of the moon taken by the Italian photographer over the course of 10 years. While the purple one is my favorite, the palette as a whole is so attractive, and I find myself wishing that some talented independent yarn dyer would create a mini skein collection so that I can knit with these colors.
More information about the photograph and the moon colors can be found in this article.
There are a number of yarny things that I’d like to do every day, whether or not I’m inspired or motivated. Having a regular practice means that things are getting done, even if it’s just a little bit at a time. So, over the past few months I’ve been playing around with my workspace to make it a hospitable place for keeping up a routine.
Making sure that everything is set up in plain sight is really helpful to me. I can just sit down and dive into whatever task is next without unpacking a project, digging around for a book, or trying to find the right tools. Using a blocking board as my tabletop means that I can always measure things without trying to find a tape measure first, and it’s a luxury to have the space to leave freeform projects spread out 24/7. You never know when there will be a few minutes to make a motif, attach something, or see how a new ball of yarn fits in to the palette.
Just outside of the frame of this photo there’s also a ballwinder, a lamp, a laptop, and mugs full of hooks, scissors, and pencils. Honestly, having the swift and ballwinder handy might just be the best part of this set up.
Of course, when a knitting project is underway or a freeform project is fleshed out, the “busywork” part of the process moves to the couch for TV watching or to a bag so that it can go with me for travel or social stitching meet ups. But for all the planning-thinking-swatching-assembling-reading-writing, this is a nice little mini-studio, a comfy nest where (mostly) everything is within arm’s reach.
This Spring I’m teaching a couple of classes at the Carolina Fiber Fest CarolinaFiberFest.org, and I’ve decided the shawlette class needs another sample piece. The class is about combining freeform crochet with traditional crochet, and I’ll post more photos about it soon. The original sample is a crocheted asymmetrical shawlette with one side edged in freeform crochet.
But I think it would be nice to have a sample that combines freeform crochet with plain knitting as well. After all, many crocheters also knit, and many knitters also crochet. This version of the shawlette (which is yet to be named) combines both. I’m using a silk yarn for the main color and plant fibers for the freeform yarn palette, which you can see in the photo.
Even though I’m using the same elements and techniques as the original sample, this one feels completely different. That’s the nature of freeform crochet, each project is a new adventure.
Freeform Yarny Things 