Adventures in Entrelac

A while ago a crochet friend of mine introduced and recommended “entrelac crochet” to me. She thought that it would match my style just perfect and so I thought I will give it a try. I thought it is a pretty common technique which uses the same method as Tunisian crochet but when I posted a few pics on social media it become very clear that it is not as common as i thought.

A lot of questions about entrelac crochet came up so I decided to do a little blog entry. You will find a lot of tutorials if you search for “entrelac crochet” so I do not feel the need to write my own but I will share the links that helped me to learn this very addictive form of crochet.

Once you understand the technique it gives you the opportunity to be creative with this little squares you create. It is possible to crochet row by row or corner to corner. It is even possible to crochet in rounds of squares a round a center piece. Your creativity is the only limit.

Before you start I want to answer the three most frequently asked questions:

1.) a normal hook works very fine for me when it comes to entrelac crochet. I did not use a Tunisian crochet hook.

2.) I went up 1.5 mm in hook sizes to not crochet to tight when I crocheted the blanket and 1mm for my cushion. For the next blanket which is in the making right now I went up 2mm.

3.) the question how to deal with the border is answered below.

The first tutorial which helped me a lot was this one:

Entrelac Crochet

It helped me a lot to understand the technique and get the main challenge done. After that it is just a matter of creativity to find your own way of using it. I have to say that once you mange and understand the way it works, this is one of the most relaxing crochet techniques I have tested.

I also watched this video tutorial (not the whole) to understand the idea of using entrelac in a corner to corner way:

Entrelac Corner to Corner

The advantage of the c2c entrelac method is that it creates straight edges. But the stripes are diagonal not.

I made a multicolored cushion in this technique in Scheepjes River Washed XL. I think that the corner to corner method is also easier to plan because you crochet till you reach the right length and then you crochet back. It does not require a lot of planing.

At the time I finished the cushion I was absolutely addicted to Entrelac. So I decided to start a baby blanket in Scheepjes Stone Washed.

The colours i chose are moon stone / enstatite / crystal quartz /black onyx. (In this order) I used 4 skeins of  moon stone and 3 of the other colors. I crochet tight so if you want to be on the save side i recommend to buy 4 skeins of every color. There is nothing wrong with having an extra skein of stone washed in your stash.

It i s based on 15 squares  in the first row (starts with 166 chains) and 16 in the second. Which means that it became 68cm wide in the end and that you have to add a row of triangles on each side if you want a straight border.

I crochet 47 rows which equals 102cm in length.

The triangle rows are pretty easy if you are familiar with the square technique. When three loops left on the hook you yarn over and pull through the last three hook at once (instead of two which is the way to create squares). Like this you decrease your stitch count with one stitch every row. So you create a triangle instead of a square. Sounds complicated but it is not… super easy!

The triangle rows on the short side are in black onyx (to match the colour scheme) and on the long side I used moon stone.

There is a way to start and end every entrelac row with triangle too. So the complete row is in the same colour and you do not have to add an extra row of triangles in the end. (The rows on the shorter side are still necessary…) I use this technique in my newest project. The starting triangle is exactly created as the “row triangles”. If you want to end a row with a triangle you have to pull through two loops instead of one in the first stitch of every row. So you also decrease with one stitch in every row.

We will see where this project will take me. It is also crocheted in Scheepjes River Washed XL in Ural (base color), Avon, Eisack, Mersey, Steenbras and Yarra. I use a 7.00mm hook this time.

In my opinion the entrelac technique is very variable, highly addictive and very relaxing once you got used to it. Give it a try! Be creative and have fun.

If you use my patterns and post pictures in social medias it would be nice to link or refer to my blog  www.martinupnorthblog.wordpress.com and use #martinupnorth . Feedback is more than welcome!

More to come soon from up north…