Crochet Styles

What other craft is as flexible as crochet? With just a few basic crochet skills you can make throws, hats, scarfs, shawls and baskets. Who doesn’t enjoy making something that is original to them?  With a bit of practice slippers, sandals, delicate curtains and jewellery are all achievable. There is even a free form style of crochet and spectacular crochet art installations can be seen online. For a craft that has only been around for about 150 years, the range and scope of crochet is fascinating and is growing year on year.

The lovely thing about crochet more than other crafts is the variety of styles and techniques. Once you’ve mastered the basics your choices are limitless. Twenty crochet style ideas for you:

1. Different countries historically have different styles of crochet. One distinct styles of crochet comes from the Azores where you find lace with sun motifs.
2. Irish crochet is very delicate, intricate and distinctive. Much of it is made free without patterns to produce flowers, leaves and tiny berries.
3. Tunisian crochet is a cross between knitting and crochet. Made using a long needle with a hook at the end, it holds multiple loops on the hook. The result is a fabric that is beautifully textured.
4. Russia and eastern European adapted Irish crochet to form their own style. This is now used widely in free form to create the most intricate and delicate dresses, tops and exquisite wedding dresses. You can find subtle shades of one colour for free form crochet to create delicate scarves and jewellery.
5. In South America crochet is used to make bright Aztec inspired bags. 
6. Bavarian crochet is a fairly new term for an old crochet style of motif that is worked in two rows. The first row is a series of clusters, and the second row is a series of shell stitches worked into the post below the stitch. 
   
7. The development of affordable yarns and clever blends from national, international and independent producers and dyers has opened up a whole world of possibilities for crocheters of all skill levels. The choice of yarns from wools and blends in every weight from lace to super chunky, and yarn blends with Merino, Alpaca, cotton, silk and linen. 
8. Multi coloured yarns and the very popular sock yarns cleverly produce bands of colour to create regular stripes, Fair isle and a whole range of effects, using the simplest of stitches. 
9. Crochet doesn’t have to be restricted to traditional yarns crochet can be made with very fine and very thick cotton, garden string, recycled T shirts and even plastic carrier bags.
10. Jewellery and crochet shoes and sandals for children are very popular now. 
11. In the U.S. favourites are bright multi coloured throws, using variations of the traditional granny square. 
12. In Europe bright colours are also popular but you will also find intricate designs using fine wool based yarn from designers such as Sophie Digard. 
13. Choose what you make by style, Raised crochet, lacy, textured or shells or more intricate stitches. 
    
14. Choose styles by what you want to make, clothes, children’s, home, decorations, jewellery
15. Motifs are a whole category in their own right, make square ones or round ones. Then decide how you want to put them together, in panels, as a circle or with one motif in the centre and building rounds on rounds. 
    
16. You can also make crochet in panels or strips, which works very well for throws and blankets, giving you the chance to show case various stitches and techniques using a subtle blend of colours. 
17. Broomstick crochet gets its name from 19th century crocheters who used a broom handle to crochet lace. Using a broom handle isn’t necessary a large knitting needle will do the trick. The circumference of whatever you use determines how large your lace pattern is. It produces very pretty open clusters.
18. Filet crochet is an old technique and is made using one or two types of stitches to produce blocks of stitches and spaces. These can be used to produce images everything from flowers, faces and house scenes.
19. Overlay crochet is made by crocheting on top of crochet already made. This is done to create a 3D effect and to highlight specific areas of the original crochet
20. Amigurumi from Japan is a whole new world of crochet, using mainly one stitch. These are not as easy to make as they look!