Category: Colourwork

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Free Tunisian Crochet and Traditional Crochet Shamrock Patterns

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, everyone!

Chances are, wherever you are in the world, this coming weekend, you’re likely to encounter at least a couple of Irish people.

And those Irish people (and their kids ((and their kids’ kids neighbour’s dogs)) ) will likely be wearing something green, and singing lilting ballads about a lost love (or a lost shoe) that leaves you yearning to visit the beautiful island of Ireland.

Chances are, there’s an Irish pub somewhere in your closest city, and chances are on Paddy’s Day – the 17th – they’ll happily serve you a pint of black stout that’ll curl your toes. There’s also an excellent chance that that stout will have a three-leafed design poured into its foamy top.

That shape – the three-leafed shamrock – is a national symbol, and unlike our other national symbol, the harp, is much easier for school children and publicans to draw.

The shamrock is also something we wear pinned to our chests on the feast day of one of our three patron saints – Patrick.

And before we get to the crocheting the lovely little thing, I thought ye might all like a few facts about Ireland, and the day we’re all here to celebrate.

  1. The Shamrock is associated with Saint Patrick because according to legend, he used the three leaves of the shamrock to explain to the pagan Irish how one god could be made up of three aspects ☘️ (the father, the son and the holy spirit). In reality, the Irish were very well aware of what a three-fold deity was. They had plenty of their own. But we love the story nonetheless.
  2. 4-leafed clovers are not our thing. According to my Nanny, the 4th leaf “let the devil in”, so be aware and count your leaves carefully!
  3. Arthur Guinness – he of the famed black stout – chose the harp (a deeply rooted symbol in our culture) as a logo for his brewery long before the formation of the Irish state. So, when the Republic of Ireland was founded, the decision-makers found they couldn’t use it without their official documents being mistaken for beer-related business. They decided not to overthink it, they turned the harp to face the opposite direction and carried on creating the modern Irish Republic.
  4. Ireland has three patron saints.
    Patrick is one of them. We all know him. He was a very serious man, and he’d have haaated the party in his honour.
    Brigid is another. Half pagan goddess, half christian saint. Something for everyone, really. We love her, and now she has a bank holiday of her very own, so we love her more.
    And Colmcille – who very few people know anything about, probably because he spent most of his adult life in Scotland.
  5. Patrick is also the patron saint of Nigeria, and Montserrat. Pretty cool.
  6. It’s “Paddy‘s Day”. Not “Patty’s Day”.
    Patty is the female form of the name Patricia (and also the slab of meat one might put in a burger).
    Paddy is the male form of the name Patrick (and also a waterlogged field in which one might grow rice).

    If you wanna make an Irish person’s day brighter, use the right word. We’ll be ever so grateful.

If you wanna make my day brighter, stay til the end and see some of my Ireland-inspired patterns!



Pattern Info:

The hook I used for my samples was a 3.75 mm hook.
The yarn I used is a cotton DK (Rico, Ricomuri DK in colours 44 and 49 to be exact)

These patterns are written using UK stitch terminology.
UK dc = US sc.
UK htr = US hdc
UK tr = US dc

Traditional Crochet:

Step One: Make 3 chain stitches.


Step Two: Work 3 tr into first ch made (this ch will be the very centre of our shamrock), 2 ch, 1 ss into first ch made.

Step One complete
Step Two, just missing the final slip stitch
slip stitch complete

Step Three: Make 2 chains

In order, work Step Two, Three, Two.

Step Three complete
Second Leaf Segment complete
Third Leaf Segment complete

Bind off. Weave in starting yarn strand. Trim end strand to desired length.


Tunisian Crochet:

Step One: Make 4 chains, make a circle with 1 slip stitch into the 1st chain.

**Step Two: Make 4 chains.

Step Two
Step Three, Forward Pass complete
Step Three, Return Pass complete

Step Three: Forward Pass: Skip 1st chain and insert hook into 2nd ch.
YO and draw yarn through ch.
– 2 loops on hook

Insert hook into 3rd ch, YO and draw yarn through ch.
– 3 loops on hook

Insert hook into 4th ch, YO and draw yarn through ch.
– 4 loops on hook

Insert hook into ch-4 circle, YO and draw yarn through ch.
– 5 loops on hook

Return Pass:
*YO, draw through 2 loops* repeat until 1 loop is left on hook

Step Four, Forward Pass complete
Step Four, Return Pass complete

Step Four: Forward Pass:
*Locate closest “bar” on surface of previous stitch. Slide hook through this bar.
Yarn Over (YO), and draw a loop back through the bar and onto the hook* repeat 2 more times
– 4 loops on hook.

Return Pass:
*YO, draw through 2 loops* repeat until 1 loop is left on hook

Step Five, Forward Pass complete
Step Five, Return Pass complete

Step Five: Forward Pass:
*Locate closest “bar” on surface of previous stitch. Slide hook through this bar.
Yarn Over (YO), and draw a loop back through the bar and onto the hook* repeat 2 more times
Insert hook into ch-4 circle, YO and draw yarn through ch.
– 5 loops on hook

Return Pass:
*YO, draw through 2 loops* repeat until 1 loop is left on hook

Repeat Steps 4 and 5 one more time.
Complete first leaf segment by crocheting dc sts into each bar on the edge of the last st made. 1 ss into ch-4 circle. **

Step Four repeated
Step Five repeated
dc sts down side of last stitch, 1 ss into ch-4 circle

Repeat from ** to ** for each additional leaf segment.

Second Leaf Segment added
Third Leaf Segment Added and 4-ch stem completed

Make 4 ch for stem.
Bind off and weave in ends.

Aoibhe’s Ireland-Inspired Crochet Patterns

More From Aoibhe’s Blog

Colours by County

There’s more to Irish colour than green.

We may all wear “the green” on Patrick’s Day, but did you know that each county in Ireland has its own, unrelated colour scheme?

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Crocheting left-handed

Crocheting left-handed.

My Mam is a leftie. I’m a rightie.

With patience and ingenuity, she taught me to crochet anyway. Here’s how I use those same qualities to teach lefties in my own classes.

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Colours by County

We may all wear “the green” on Patrick’s Day, but did you know that each county in Ireland has its own, unrelated colour scheme?

At local, regional, and national-level sporting events you’re as likely to see blue flags or maroon jerseys as you are to see any green at all.

That’s because every county in Ireland (32 in all) has their own flag and their own set of colours.

Most have two, some have three, one has… one.

Some share colours, some swap their order, and some (I’m looking at you, Dublin!), choose to be represented by the same colour twice.

Choosing county colours over the green white and orange of the national flag gives us all a wider patriotic colour palette.

So, this Patrick’s Day (17th of March), show your pride in Ireland by making and wearing something (ideally from an IRISH designer!) with your favourite county’s colours.

Do I have a favourite, you ask?

Of course not (cough-MEATH!-cough) I don’t play favourites.

By the way, if you’ve met me in person on one of www.knittingtours.com‘s wonderful Irish craft-centric events, then you’ve been to either Dublin, Kildare, Wicklow or Clare. And lucky you, too. They’re all gorgeous.

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Of loss and love and renewal

We’re two weeks into the New Year already.

My new Bríd.

And now that my new and improved Bríd shawl sample is complete, it’s time to get cracking on Ard Rí.

Now, despite the gorgeous colours and stunning texture of Tara St 4-ply by Townhouse Yarns, I have found myself reluctant to get going.

Firstly, losing the original was a real blow. I loved that shawl. I loved that exact shawl. Not just the pattern, not just the look of it; the physical piece that existed in my universe.

Because you see, I have a lot of emotion wrapped up in that first Ard Ri.

Firstly, there’s joy. A lot of joy.

It was one half of a two-shawl collaboration with a wonderful knitwear designer named Julie Dubreux (she who Knits in Paris I’m certain you’re familiar.) We got together, decided to make two shawls – hers knit, mine crochet – using the same exact yarns and a similar starting point for inspiration. Julie was a wonder to work with. Encouraging and enthusiastic, open and creative. I started us off, she kept us going. I 100% love this lady. Top class human. No notes.

Left: Aoibhe Crochets in Meath. Right: Julie Knits in Paris.

So, whenever I took my Ard Ri out of my trunk during class I’d thank my collaboration with her for its inception.

Ard Rí also embodied pride in my work.

During each trunk show and each class I could 100% guarantee a gasp from my audience when I fourished its folds away. Like a stand-up comedian taking a sip of water, I knew to hold for a beat as it was examined by the sea of eyes in front of me. Comments abounded; it looked like it was covered in wine bottles (truly a pandemic design, then), it looked like an art deco background, a halo, something vaguely pharaonic when held upside-down. It was described as Afro-futuristic a few times, too.

And I – theatre kid that I am – lapped up the commentary.

But then, there’s also a lot of slower, sadder feelings residing in its fabric, too.

It was my first creation mid-pandemic. My first project started and completed while cooped up in my home, vulnerable and isolated, cloistered and forgotten while the world around me grew more and more dangerous to my unprotected, diabetic body. Every stitch included a little of the thought “this could be the last thing I design”. Maybe that’s why I made it so grand and enveloping and mighty. Maybe it was my shield.

And to top it all off, we’d only just lost our beautiful dog, Rosie. So, when Townhouse Yarns asked me name one of the colourways, I named the golden one “Rosie’s Gold” in her memory. It’s golden, like the flecks in her brown eyes, and it’s warmed by the blush of pink on her chin.

Rosie: Still profoundly missed every single day. What a beauty! (and those teef bubbles! <3)

I spoke to those original golden skeins and told them all about my lost dog, whispering into them as I wound them into cakes, and then I crocheted that grief straight into the fabric. I’m sure I’m not the only one who weaves memories of their life into their work. Intentional or no, I’m sure you do, too.

And maybe that’s why my Ard Ri re-make has been a tough project to start into; each stitch ahead of me on the road contains the loss of a beloved buddy, the fear of the first months of the pandemic, but also now, the loss of the original object holding on to all that emotion.

Perversely, this new one will also guard the newer grief at losing our second dog, Korra – no less dear than Rosie had been.

Our stunning Korra Bear. (Anyone wanna name a yarn colourway after her?)

Grief comes in threes, they say, and though there have been other losses and shocks and trials between Rosie and the Pandemic and Korra, no others are so connected to this pattern. So maybe that’s it for a while. Parhaps Ard Ri can now rest and let some other, newer shawl take care of the future.

And maybe as these new stitches describe an old, retrodden path, I can use it like a spell to wrap and bind and dance around these three griefs, and maybe the shawl that results will be a new sheild, tempered by what went before.

And maybe, as before, when I unfurl it in class, the fascination and glee it inspires will prove to be just the medicine my broken heart needs.

Ard Ri begun anew. A smile I wasn’t expecting.
The ball on the right is the little bit I had left over from making the original. I used it for the first full row. A suitable first step on the journey, I think.


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Bríd’s New Day

The holidays were busy here at Yarn Towers.

I managed to eat three Christmas dinners within the space of 24 hours – not unusual since I cook two of them, and refuse to miss my mother’s cooking on top of all that – but any snatches of time I had to spare were spent remaking my Bríd shawl.

I know I said I was gonna take a break from it to work on Ard Rí, but honestly, the chugging along on Bríd was remarkably soothing, and the regular repeats were something I could do a little of even after the longest day.

So, all through Solstice, and Christmas, and New Years I chipped away at it.

The sun, lowering on Solstice night
The first of three Christmas dinners
A beautiful tortoiseshell butterfly. Her timing was perfect. New Year, new life. (Don’t worry. She’s now back to hibernating happily in our coldest room)

Sometimes, I did three in one evening, sometimes I did one, but slowly and surely, she grew until I had a mass of fabric gathering on my lap, each new panel added more twisting and righting to each turn of my work.

It seemed that the second half took less time than the first, though that might have been because much of it was done in that wobbly, weird mush of time between Christmas and New Years that no-one seems to be able to keep track of.

My original stash.
Four Ceremony, one Selkie
First Five Panels
15 panels complete.

(In fact, maybe that’s the key to solving second sock syndrome and sleeve island. Leave those projects until the last week of December and do them then?)

And now, as of yesterday, I have 32 panels complete.

My original was a broad, sweeping half circle, but I found that blocking it – and keeping the end panel’s shapes consistent with the rest – was a challenge.

The original Bríd – now lost forever in the Spanish postal system.

So, this time, with a slightly altered pattern in hand (and a colour swap that I am thrilled I went for), I opted to make a full circle, and seam it prior to blocking. That way I ensured all the panels came out the same.

Bríd 2.0 pinned down and drying on my studio floor

In the end, a full circle required 32 panels, so that’s what I did.

All told, I used 170 m of the lush, blue Selkie colourway, and 520 m of the glowing goldenrod that is Ceremony.
In real terms, that means you’d need one skein of Selkie and three of Ceremony if you wanted to do the same, and you’d have enough of both left over afterwards to make a hat or something, too.

Next step for me is to wait patiently for it to dry in the middle of my studio floor, then decide if I like it as a circle (doubled over to make a neck warmer), or if I’ll tink the seam and make it a long, curving scarf like its predecessor that I can fasten with a shawl pin (read: crochet hook).

Which do you think would work best?


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Sewing up your colourwork mittens


You have all your three mitten bits made, and it’s time to sew them all together.

Here’s how I did it:

First Things First

Weave in your ends and block your pieces.
Tunisian Crochet fabric has a tendency to curl, you may have noticed.
Tunisian Knit stitch is renowned for this feature. And as we’re working a pretty dense fabric for our mittens, that curl can be quite enthusiastic.

So blocking before you sew will ensure your panels behave (and look) far better.

All blocked and ready to rock!


With Wrong Sides facing in on Panels 1 & 2, seam up thumb side of wrist from Row 1 – Row 24 with Main Colour

Starting at the cuff, use a top / whip stitch to seam up edge of cuff.
Stop sewing when you complete the horizontal stripes.
I like to add a few extra stitches to the last stripe to reinforce the edge.
First seam complete. Gorgeous!

Adding The Thumb

Then, with wrong sides still facing in, align marked st on thumb with top of wrist seam.
Seam side of thumb with left Panel for 15 (17/19) sts.

Fold thumb in half lengthways and seam up edges to tip of thumb.

Use a whip / Top stitch for a flat thumb seam
weave a strand of yarn in and out around tip of thumb
pull firmly to close hole

Finishing Up

Beginning at top of wrist seam again, seam other side of thumb with other Panel for 15 (17/19) sts.

Begin sewing where indicated above.
continue seaming around edge of glove, and down other side of cuff.

Weave all your ends in, and you’re done!

One of the beautiful things about this method of construction is that it is infinitely adaptable.

If you find your hand fits better in a Large glove, but you thumb finds a Large thumb too roomy, you can down size to suit you. Similarly, if your thumb is larger than the mitten size that fits, you can shift that around too.

There is no need to rip back all your work to the base of the thumb and re-do it all. You just need to whip yourself up a new thumb and lash that on in.
Super!

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A reverse TSS2tog for a neater mitten


Tunisian Crochet has a symmetry problem, insofar as it has none.

You may have noticed that each row’s stitches are drawn from the last row’s stitches by pulling them out of the fabric on the side of your dominant hand. This barely matters when we’re working a large piece, or when a slight shift to the right or left can’t be noticed, but for colourwork, especially colourwork that contains decreases, it becomes pretty clear pretty fast.

My mitten designs include TSS2tog decreases towards the finger tips that help reduce the number of stitches, drawing the mitten tip to a pretty point. But, as they are colourwork mittens, the decreases pose a problem;
while the decrease on the right of my fabric (my dominant side) looks lovely and neat, the one on the left gets all bitty and jagged.

Booooooo.

Compare the photos below to see what I mean:

The pink line on the left is made with regular TSS2tog sts and is jagged and broken as a result
The pink line on the left is made with a reversed TSS2tog and is neat and solid as a result


What we’re going to do in this tutorial is work the first TSS2tog as normal. No point in fiddling with perfection, right?

Then we’re going to use a blunt-ended darning needle (a bodkin) to simulate a TSS2tog in the opposite direction.
Hold on to your hats, people. Things are about to get weird!

The First TSS2tog

Firstly, we’re going to work 1 TKS in yellow which is our Main Colour (MC), and then the first TSS2tog on the row in pink, our Contrast Colour (CC).

Make 1 TKS with Main Colour (MC)
Push hook TSS-wise through the next 2 sts, then YO with CC
Draw CC through both sts.
(1 TSS2tog made)

After that, we’re going to work TKS sts across to within 3 sts of the end.
Don’t forget to catch your floats!

Reverse TSS2tog

Here’s where our trusty bodkin comes into play.

Draw both strands to the front of the hook
Thread CC onto a bodkin
sew bodkin through next two sts in same direction as hook is pointing
Pull CC through fabric.
Remove bodkin.
Return both strands to back of fabric
Place CC loop on hook.
Tighten CC loop.
Work final MC TKS st and draw up a final loop in chain

Work return pass as normal.

After a few rows of this malarkey, you’ll see the effect of your reverse TSS2tog stitches.
So smooth!

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Make your Ogham Mitten UNIQUE!

Ogham (either pronounced OW-am or OG-am, depending on who you ask), is a native Irish writing system that is all of 2,000 years old.

It’s impossible now at such a remove to know exactly what it was most used for, but many of our surviving examples are carved into standing stones. A large number of those stones mark ancient boundaries between kingdoms, so the thought is that they were basically signs used to lay claim to certain tracts of land in the really early Medieval / Pre-Christian period in Ireland.

Ogham is a script made entirely of lines cut across a central spine, and is similar in many ways to Nordic Runes.

The Ogham script featured on my pattern sample is my name!
A O I B H E is spelt out from cuff to finger tip, but I’m happy to say YOU get to choose what you’d like to put on your gloves to make them personal to you. Below, you will find a full alphabet (in Ogham order, rather than Aplbhabetical) and in the pattern you’ll find a blank chart so you can make your mittens absolutely unique.

All I ask is that you spell your words from bottom to top, like the ancient Irish did. 😉

Getting Charting

On your mitten you have a maximum of 37 lines.
As some letters use up more space than others, I have added a line count to the side of each letter’s chart, so you can plot accordingly.

Some letters you may expect to see don’t exist in Ogham.
Y, for instance, and V – but those can be represented well with close alternatives. In those cases, I have labelled the alphabet above with both variations, so you can make the best guess.

All you have to do now is decide with you wanna write, then print out the blank chart in your pattern, and add your letters in pencil.



Got a long name, or lots to say?


Luckily, Ogham can be used both letter-for-letter, or phonetically.
So, a name like Jennifer can be condensed down to “Gnfr”, and still be totally Ogham-legit.

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Duplicate Stitch / Swiss Darning


So, there you are, humming along, row after glorious row of Tunisian Crochet colourwork tumbling off your hook, and you pause for a moment to admire your progress.
And that’s when you notice it.

“Oh god. I have a stitch out of place”.

Worse still, it didn’t just happen. It was the result of a momentary lapse in concentration two days ago! ack!

And you’re left with an unenviable question; “Do I frog, or do I live with it?”
Neither option is very satisfying is it?

But luckily, my Mam taught me a third option when I was barely old enough to hold a pair of knitting needles. She called it “Swiss Darning”, which I think sounds elegant and fancy. I’ve heard it more commonly called “Duplicate stitch” these days, which has the virtue of being clear and descriptive.
Whatever you chose to call it, trust me, you’ll be singing its praises.

Here’s how it works:


Examine your fabric and identify the problem
There should be white horizontal stitches to the left, and the white lines to the right should be one stitch shorter.

Thread a blunt needle (a bodkin) with a strand of the yarn you’re using.
Pro Tip: If you can’t find a blunt needle, use a regular sharp darning needle and sew backwards with it. Be careful not to jab yourself, though!

In this case, I’m using Drops Flora in Denim Blue.

Getting Started

Secure your yarn at the back of your work. This will save you from accidentally sewing through your tail and making a mess of the wrong side of your fabric.

Bring bodkin to front of work at base of the stitch you wish to hide. Pull yarn through to front.
Push bodkin under next stitch up. Make sure bodkin passes cleanly thorugh BOTH strands of the stitch.
Draw yarn through stitch. Half of the white stitch is now hidden.
Clever, huh?
Push bodkin back though the base of the white stitch.
Pull yarn to back of work. Hey presto!


I repeated the process on the next two horizontal lines above, and then I got to fixing the missing white stitches on the left side of the work, too.

Bring bodkin to front of work at base of the stitch you wish to hide. Pull yarn through to front.
Push bodkin under next stitch up. Make sure bodkin passes cleanly thorugh BOTH strands of the stitch.
Draw yarn through stitch. Half of the blue stitch is now hidden.
Push bodkin back though the base of the blue stitch.
Pull yarn to back of work. And we have a white stitch where once there was a blue one!

Far better than all that frogging and cursing, am I right?

Oh, hey! And, this also works for knitting, too.
In fact, it was originally developed to add small colourowork detail to stocking stitch knitted fabric… so if you’re a knitter with basic skills, you’ve now learnt a fantastic way of sprucing up your knit stitches too!

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