Trying Tunisian Crochet in the Round

I've been wanting to try Tunisian crochet in the round for a few months now, but never got around to it until the other day. If you're me, the perfect way to try out a new technique is by making a hat and I had the perfect yarn for it. I'd found these two balls of wool in the charity shop in Moville over a year ago and always planned to do something with them that involved both colours and Tunisian crochet. I started and stopped, ripped back and started again, and set the project aside. I just wasn't feeling the love. The other night, I ripped that out and started over with the hat, which I finished last night while listening to a podcast about books. I am feeling the love now.

I can wear the hat either way--each side is different--but I will probably wear it this way almost always, because I like the green colour.

Here's the other side:

And here's the crown. I wanted a quick decrease and not a gradual one, so I did 12 decreases in each round once I started.

I really like the swirly look of that crown and now am thinking of other ways to use that kind of thing.

The brim is simply the regular Tunisian simple stitch (sometimes known as afghan stitch) but done with a double-ended crochet hook and two colours. When you work this way, you get a stretchy, rib-like fabric. When that strip was long enough to go around my head when slightly stretched, I slip- stitched the ends together and began working Tunisian in the round, using the same simple stitch. I picked up with the green until my hook was full, turned, and worked off with the rust colour, then turned and picked up more with the green, and so on. There's no joining at the end of the rounds, you just keep on picking up stitches and working them off around and around. It can be helpful to have a stitch marker to mark where you started. There are a bunch of youtube videos out there that show the basic technique quite clearly. Any Tunisian stitch or stitch combination can be used--the possibilities are endless!

So now that I've finally tried this technique, I am smitten and thinking about how else I want to use it. I am thinking about socks, fingerless gloves, baskets, and more. I'm always happiest when ideas are tumbling around in my mind, so this is good.

I hope your head is full of happy thoughts today, too!

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