What are Continuous Crochet Motifs?

 

Imagine drawing a picture without ever taking your pencil from the page. If you replace that pencil for a hook then you have entered the world of Continuous Crochet Motifs!

I am often enticed by patchwork crochet but the idea of making piles of identical motifs bores me stupid. That's not what this is. This is like a series of logic problems, the solutions to which are endlessly fascinating.

The best way to explain is to demonstrate how it works, so let's start with a simple motif and fit them together in a square.

Having shown you the single motifs I'm now going to ask you to see this panel as a series of rows not of separate motifs.

Basic shapes like this panel begin in a corner, we are starting in the bottom left hand corner. Instead of starting in the centre of a motif, we start on the outside and make a series of chain stitches to take us into the centre of the first motif.

The end of the chain length is slip stitched into a ring to form the centre of the first motif. The working yarn is taken beneath the chain length so that the yarn is in the correct position for the next stitches. This is an important manoeuvre which makes the technique possible.

From there, we chain4 and make a DoubleTreble2together (Tr-US) into the chain ring, chain4 again and slip stitch into the ring. This is the only petal of the first motif we are going to make on this row.

To get to the centre of the next motif, we have to chain out of the first flower and chain into the centre of the next flower. Then slip stitch to create the ring in the middle of the next flower.

Having made the DoubleTreble2together of the next flower petal we need to join the points of the two petals together.

To join the petals, the hook is removed from the loop and placed in the first petal. The loop is then pulled through that first petal and the two petals joined with a slip stitch.

That petal can now be completed with a chain4.

The bottom two petals of the second motif are made and the process is repeated.

The first 'row' is made.

As the second row is made, the chain stitches we made in the first row are incorporated in the petals, becoming the chain4 of the petals.

The second row is made, but once again we only make one petal in the last motif, so that only half of that flower has been made.

The third row is made. The petals are joined to the row below with a slip stitch.

I am making this panel five motifs wide and five motifs high, so when the final row is made the whole panel can be turned.

The side of the panel is finally completed and that means...

...we finish where we started. We have made 25 motifs but we are left with just two yarn ends to sew in.

This is a much more complicated design. The hexagon is made up of triangular motifs. The design begins in the bottom left hand corner.

Chain stitches take us into the centre of the first triangle. The triangle is then crocheted in rounds up to the point where the second triangle joins at the top right hand corner. The design is worked in rows, the top of the first row of triangles is finished on the return 'row'.

The arrows in this image roughly show the direction of the work. The red arrows show how the final row completes the side of the hexagon, finishing where it began on the left hand side.

Each design has it's own solutions. When using multiple colours the internal (blue) rounds must be made first. Then the final colour can be added using the continuous crochet technique. While this sounds like 'Join-as-you-go', the last colour begins on the outside with chain stitches and once again the work ends where it began.

I find this technique endlessly fascinating and highly addictive. You have been warned!

Fastening off...