Category: Crochet

Juvie Chevron Cowl by Toni Lipsey

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This write up has been a long time coming, because this was a Christmas present that I managed to give on Christmas. This is the Juvie Chevron Cowl from The Tunisian Crochet Handbook by Toni Lipsey (@tlyarncrafts).

The recipient’s grandson (modeling it here the night before Christmas because I really went down to the wire on this one) helped pick the color palette, though I ended up having to get different yarn than he helped me pick on the app the night before i

I used about 50g each of the dark blue, light blue, and green, and about 75g of the cream. I think this particular yarn is discontinued, or at least I can’t find it online.

I had to point a fan at the end of the middle while blocking it, because I finished the body 2 days before Christmas while it was heavily raining and super humid. It almost wasn’t ready on time, but that little trick worked and I was able to put the border on Christmas Eve.

I’m still relatively new to Tunisian Crochet, and I can absolutely recommend this book to anyone else who is just starting out. Toni’s instructions and tutorial pictures are incredibly clear and super helpful.

Finished Object – Biased Marie Sweater

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Finished my Biased Marie Sweater by Ila Quinn Designs last week and was able to wear it Saturday. I even whipped up a matching scrunchie.It is perfectly oversized, and perfectly 90s neon. This pattern was so nice to work up, too. My only issues were of my own creation trying to work out the stripes on the fly instead of planning it out from the beginning.

Bonus: The original snow outfit that inspired the color palette of this project – 

Choosing Colors

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A tip for choosing colors, especially colors for stripes or other types of patterns, that I learned in either my color theory class or my first photoshop class: take a picture and desaturate it to black and white.

Five skeins of neon yarn on a light wooden table: blue, pink, green, magenta, and purple from left to right. A speckled black skein sit above them.
Black and white version of the photo above with five skeins of yarn lined up with a sixth, smaller skein above them. The five skeins of yarn are in order of medium, medium, light, dark, dark

A bit easier to do now than it was back then when it involved actually getting out a digital camera, taking a picture, importing it to photoshop, and then changing the color. And I acknowledge that I was lucky to be able to do that a bit over a decade ago. Imagine that same process with black and white film and having to either develop it or take it to Walgreens. Yeah, pretty sure no one would do that.

Five skeins of neon yarn on a light wooden table: blue, magenta, pink, purple, and magenta from left to right. A speckled black skein sit above them.
Black and white version of the photo above with five skeins of yarn lined up with a sixth, smaller skein above them. The five skeins of yarn are in order of dark, dark, medium, dark, light

I was able to make each of these pictures in a matter of seconds right on my phone, and it makes all the difference. This shows you which ones are similar tones and can help you get whatever effect you are going for.

Five skeins of neon yarn on a light wooden table: purple, pink, magenta, green, and blue from left to right. A speckled black skein sit above them.
Black and white version of the photo above with five skeins of yarn lined up with a sixth, smaller skein above them. The five skeins of yarn are in order of dark, medium, dark, light, dark

I wanted contrast in my stripes, so I chose this order. If I had wanted more of a gradient, even with the bright colors, I could’ve rearranged the first group to pull the lightest out of the center and place it to the end.