Surface Crochet, Part Five - Cut Outs and Add Ins

Unbelievably I am still continuing the Surface Crochet theme! (and there's still at least one more area to cover after this.) This week I really am taking a leap into the unknown. I have just a few lines in a book on this technique and absolutely no idea what results we'll end up with. The instructions I have are for working on net so let's just start there and see where we finish!

 I am suppose to start by outlining my 'shape' in Surface Chain stitch. I discovered that cutting out my shape in paper and sticking it to the net with double sided tape made things much easier!

Now I remove the net from inside the shape. (Voice of Experience: Don't cut too close or your stitches will fall out!)

The next stage is to cover the chain stitches with Surface Double Crochet Spike stitches. It occurs to me that there are two ways that we might do this.

From the Outside to the Inside,

or from the Inside to the Outside!

So from the inside out, bring your loop up inside,

then grab a loop from the outside,

pull it back to the inside, grab another loop,

and pull it through the first two loops on the hook.

repeat around!

From the outside in, bring your loop up on the outside,

grab a loop from the inside,

drag it back to the outside and grab your third loop.

So that is the 'Cut Out'. Doesn't it remind you of the buttonhole and blanket stitch that is made in embroidery? So I thought perhaps I could make a very large button hole this way into a base of double crochet stitches. (SC-USA)

Now for the 'Add Ins' part. There are two ways (I can think of) to do this! The first is simply to work more crochet stitches inside our chain-stitch-outline. 

A bit like I did in this earlier example.

 

Alternately you add in a piece of fabric.

You might have seen pieces of mirror added to fabric with a very similar embroidery technique.

At first glance this sounds like a technique you can only use on net and canvas, but with a little imagination I don't see why we can't use it on a crochet base.

Well that's my offering for this week. I hope you've been having a go yourself and that I've been encouraging you to experiment. The next post will look at some surface crochet techniques that have traditionally been used in rug making. Till then Have Fun!