Crochet Irish - Tips and Ideas | Irish crochet technique

• Material and preparation
• Crochet Irish - Instructions
  • 3-D flower
  • cloverleaf
  • The leaf
  • network

The Irish crochet technique looks very plastic, filigree and rich in detail. She likes to work with threads or three-dimensional motifs. Irish crochet is certainly not for beginners. It is rather an exciting broadening of horizons for those who lack the challenge of traditional crocheting.

Originally, the Irish crocheting technique goes back to the Venetian lace. It was taken over and developed by the nuns in Ireland. Particularly striking are the near-natural motifs such as leaves and flowers. The big challenge in Irish crocheting is probably the thin yarn and the matching crochet hooks, which can sometimes be around size 0.5. Learn to crochet the first motifs in this tutorial and put them together to form a complete work.

Material and preparation

Material:

• thin, mercerized cotton yarn
• matching crochet hook
• pins
• scissors

The original lace yarn strength 80 comes on a run length of 90 m to 5 g. It is usually worked with a crochet hook around 0.75. This is certainly too fine for anyone crocheting Irish for the first time. We made our showpiece with a coarser yarn (580 m / 100 g) and used a size 2 crochet hook.

Crochet Irish - Instructions

3-D flower

This flower is very typical of the Irish crochet technique. It looks particularly vivid, as the individual flower wreaths are crocheted one behind the other.

Prior knowledge:

• chain stitches
• strong stitches
• rod

For the center of the flower, you need a very basic technique of Irish crochet: Crochet a sock. Cut as inlay thread about 40 cm from your crochet thread. Fold the thread twice in the middle so that four threads run parallel. Put a loop around your crochet hook with the working thread. Then make a first sturdy stitch at the end of the inlay thread with the two loops. Include only two of the four threads. So the beginning of the Einlegefadens is secured.

Now crochet eleven stitches around all four threads. Join the twelve stitches with a slit stitch in the first stitch into a circle. Cut the inlay thread flush.

Crochet six pieces of air . These are representative of a first stick and three air meshes. Work a chopsticks in every second stitch and connect three meshes. Close the round with a slit stitch in the third loop from the beginning. There should now be six sticks with three air stitches each in the gap.

Start the next round with an air mesh and a tight loop in the first round of the preliminary round. Crochet six sticks alternately over the three pre-rounds and a single crochet into the intervening stick. Finish this round with a slit stitch in the first tight stitch.

So far the flower is two-dimensional. Now the third dimension typical of the Irish crochet technique is added: Make an air mesh. Crochet a warp stitch from behind around the top of the first stick of the first round. Make a chain with six air meshes. This is followed by another sliver stitch from the back around the second stick of the first round. Continue working the round and close it with a chain stitch in the first air mesh. On the back of the flower should now run small connecting strands from one stick to the next.

In the next round, always crochet a single crochet, eight chopsticks, and another round crochet around the chains from the preliminary round. This new round of petals is in the lower part behind the first petals, but looks out underneath.

Now you can work as many rounds as you like in the same scheme. Each time you make a new round, make the link chain one more crochet as you crochet one more stick. In the third round of flowers, it would therefore be seven air meshes as flower base and nine rods for the flower itself.

cloverleaf

Prior knowledge:

• stitches
• chain stitches
• strong stitches
• half sticks
• rod

Hit five meshes and tie them into a ring. Crochet nine more meshes.

Make a bow by crocheting two tight stitches around the ring. Do not put the stitches in the mesh but around them. There are two more nets and two stitches in the ring. Make a slit stitch in the first mesh instead of the last loop.

Note: The Irish crochet technique often works around whole stitches instead of stabbing in the stitches.

Now crochet a sturdy stitch, half a stick, and nine sticks around the first half of the first sheet. At the top you work a picot . For this you make four air meshes and close them with a chain stitch in the first air mesh to a round.

Now crochet the second half of the bow with nine sticks, half stitch and two stitches.

The other two bows are crocheted the same way. They start with two fixed loops, half a stick and nine sticks. After Picot it goes back in reverse order.

At the end, close the cloverleaf with a chain stitch in the first loop.

The leaf

Prior knowledge:

• stitches
• strong stitches

This sheet looks very contour rich . For an Irish crochet technique, it is not difficult to make. They start with twelve air meshes. From the second stitch, crochet 11 stitches in front of the needle.

Connect three air stitches for the turn.

Now crochet on the underside of the chain from the beginning nine stitches. That means you do not crochet back to the beginning, but skip the last two stitches. Make an air mesh and apply the work.

Crochet back to the top with tight stitches . Always pierce the upper mesh element only. So the rows are clearer from each other.

When you get to the air stitches of the previous row, crochet two tight stitches over the meshes. Now crochet back along the other edge of the sheet . Make only three air stitches and crochet again two fixed stitches in the air stitches of the previous row. After another nine fixed stitches in each upper mesh member, the row is completed. Make an air mesh and apply the work.

According to this scheme, you can crochet as many rows as you like. The pattern is easily changed if you want a larger or smaller sheet. It always depends on how many meshes you make at the very beginning.

network

Net: shape and background

If the individual motifs are sometimes already a challenge when crocheting Irish, then putting together on one point high art. The Irish crochet technique allows all forms that you can imagine. Our example is just a small, round doily, but with the same technique you make also tablecloths, blouses or whole wedding dresses. You only need the pattern of the parts.

In addition, you need a solid base on which you can attach your motifs with pins. Draw the outline in advance and arrange the individual motifs into this outline as you like.

The outline itself usually crochet as an air chain. In our example, we opted for an inlay enclosed by fixed stitches, which makes the edge a bit more stable.

Pin all the individual motifs and the chain of stitches for the edge to your base. It is important that the undersides look up! Push the pins all the way in to prevent the heads from disturbing crocheting.

If the edges of individual motifs touch, sew or crochet them together immediately.

Tip: As an alternative to the pins you can sew everything with coarse stitches in different colored yarn.

Now we crochet the net to which all parts are connected. For righties it is easier to crochet from right to left. Left-handers are the other way around. As a rule, however, it will not be possible to avoid one or the other change of direction.

The exact procedure now depends heavily on the shape of your tip. For starters, it is good to choose large open spaces and fill them from bottom right to top left. Crochet the mesh for the horizontal line and chopsticks for the vertical anchorages. Crochet as follows: three stitches to the left, one piece down, three stitches to the left, one piece down, etc.

If you find corners or edges of subjects on the move, include them in the row with a chain stitch.

This is what your crocheted result looks like.

Since we are crocheting a round doily, as we have decided to crochet in rounds from the outside in. As I said, many approaches are possible. For the sake of the overall picture, you should always keep one direction. For example, it is not advisable to start from the bottom up, but then work from top to bottom elsewhere.

The hardest thing to crochet on the net is to get used to the proximity to the surface. The freedom of movement with the crochet hook is somewhat limited. If you need to cross a motif completely, you can do this with Kettmaschen. So you come across the motif on one side, cross it with Kettmaschen and crochet on the other side.

Whatever is possible and how we did it is the filling in of gaps.

If there was a larger motive, we crocheted up with the chain stitches at the edge and filled up the smaller gap to the next motif.

Note: As a base, you can only crochet a uniform net in your frame and sew the motifs later. This makes the whole tip more uniform and more sculptural.

In general, the net is to crochet very flexibly . If the distance to a subject is smaller, you may only make one or two air stitches or half a stick. In dead ends, it has also proven useful to complete with a stick to the left edge. Then you can immediately go up in the next row with air meshes. Be flexible and creative ! Fortunately, you can dissolve everything again. It is definitely worth trying the Irish crochet technique once!