Dabbling with Tapestry Crochet

 Tapestry or Not to Tapestry

A few weeks back I finally took the dive and tried Tapestry Crochet. I have been admiring Tapestry for years and always told myself I need to try it. I kept coming up with excuses like I’m not advanced enough to try it. How can you become advanced without taking the leap of faith and try something that will challenge you and take you to that next level on the road to “advanced”.

My middle daughter took her first big leap and purchased herself a new car. She was talking about how she wanted to make it a “Decepticon” vehicle. I volunteered to attempt a steering wheel cover as she had found other stuff online but no steering wheel cover. This was my chance and motivation to try Tapestry.

I eagerly went out and purchased graph paper and got to work on measuring the steering wheel, calculating length & depth of lettering, etc. There is quite abit of math involved in some tapestry projects. Of course when I try something I can’t pick a easy pattern to try I gotta go head first into it. haha Graphing out your project is a must in tapestry .. similar to C2C. It’s quite easy to shade in squares to make your design. The part I found most challenging at first was after I doodled my design… I needed to calculate how many chains to length, rows before and after design, etc.

As you can see above.. The first photo, I scribbled out how large I wanted the letters and did the math for stitches and rows. The Second & Third photo are of the graph design. As I progressed row by row I use a highlighter to cross out the rows I have done

 

My first failure was… I tried to work the project the wrong direction. I started off making the entire length of the steering wheel and working horizontal up the graph. This did not work out so well for me. Could I have done it this way.. yes.. because there is no wrong way, just the way that works better for you. I frogged and restarted the project going by the width of the steering wheel and working vertical. For those of you that have worked tapestry before.. at this point you thinking.. what the heck is she doing right?!?! haha

The reason for my wacky way is I did not do traditional tapestry. Traditional and the correct way to work tapestry is you carry your yarn with you across every row, every stitch. I wasn’t comfortable enough to carry my yarn. I chose to drop my yarn as I do in C2C.

This is the chaos I had when working the project in the horizontal direction. It was insane. I have no clue what I was thinking haha I had 20 some odd little balls attached.When I frogged and restarted I would only have max 4 balls of yarn at a time. Yes, I did still create more work for myself than if I would have just carried my yarn as I went.

After changing directions things went alot smoother. As I progressed thru the project I gained more confidence in what I was doing and I began to get a rhythm. I did my project in sc throughout and did my letters 2 blocks thick ( 2 rows).

I liked the thicker lettering.. I think it pops out at you more lol I applied a border that is a DC/SC, SK so when installing it on the steering wheel we can use the SK to sew the 2 borders together to secure it on the wheel.

Tapestry is like C2C in some ways. You either make your own graph or follow a graph and they both use more than one strand of yarn. The difference is Tapestry, you can experiment with different stitches… but mind you the tighter the stitch the better the look of your design.Tapestry also allows you to work in a horizontal or vertical pattern. Proper Tapestry you carry your yarn. C2C you drop your yarn. C2C is a specific stitch and in a Diagonal pattern. Both require calculating size and graphing.

I would highly recommend trying Tapestry Crochet. If you have tried C2C before then it will be less challenging as you already know what to expect with graphing and working with more than one ball of yarn at a time. Don’t let the thought of having several yarns to work with deter you. Do as I did and use only 2 colors 😉

I’m so glad I finally tried tapestry. One, I can cross it of the to try list haha but most importantly it gave me a great deal of satisfaction that I was able to do & finish a project.

I definitely will be trying other tapestry projects and will do my best to actually use the proper techniques.

 

Til Next Post… Take Care 🙂