Tapestry Crochet
/I recently discovered tapestry crochet thanks to a few cute Miyazaki patterns from Ty_Balie that I saw on Instagram. After watching a few helpful YouTube videos from Cozy Nooks Designs, I got to work since these patterns were just too cute to pass up.
My first project was the Kodama Tree Spirit tapestry since it only involved two colors and I thought that would be easier for me as I learned. The instructions were written really nicely (with both color block and regular written versions) and even included a Stitch Fiddle graph. While I hadn’t encountered color block instructions previously, I found them to be the easiest for me to use. The finished object looked great! My only complaint was with my own tension since it differed between the fully black rows and the black and white rows.
I worked on the No Face tapestry next. This pattern was written just as nicely as the Kodama pattern and I followed the color block instructions with ease. I do want to call out that I made some color changes as requested by my husband (since this was part of his Christmas present), but this was really easy using the color block instructions. I was also really happy with the way the finished object turned out with this one (except for tension between the completely lavender rows versus multicolor rows - I clearly have something to work on here).
My only grump with learning tapestry crochet is that I had difficulty finding information on mounting the finished items. I eventually came across a post from High Desert Yarn that I found helpful and sent me down a good path. I ended up adding a few rows of single crochet to the top each item to create a pocket for the dowel rod to slide into. I then added a yarn chain that attached to the top of this pocket for hanging on the wall. This method worked really nicely, but I felt the bottom needed a bit of weight to keep it from curling. Instead of creating another pocket at the bottom, I decided to sew a dowel straight onto the back. This looked super messy from the back, but was pretty effective. I added a dot of super glue on each end of this dowel to keep the stitches from falling off the ends.
I’m so glad I came across these patterns on Instagram so I could learn about a type of crochet project that was new to me. These were really fun to make - I’d definitely like to try more in the future (and maybe even venture into attempting my own Stitch Fiddle pattern - who knows!). Happy crocheting!
