Author: Vashti Braha

I love to promote crochet as many things: an art, hobby, learning tool, and practical medium. I do this with designs and classes. I try to write about what I don’t see others writing about crochet.
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Self Healing Stitches to Cut: Class Resources

2018 Self-Healing Crochet Stitches and How to Cut Them Class by Vashti Braha
Up to date as of 2/03/2022. This page will likely be updated again before class time and possibly after. 
View full size images of steeked swatches. 
This page is a conveniently clickable group of things I mention in the Self-Healing Crochet Stitches and How to Cut Them classes. I teach the next one online!—Part One on March 8 & Part Two on 9, 2022—from 10:30am –11:30am CST. I show a lots of published and unpublished designs in this class. Each illustrates the stitches and techniques learned.  — Vashti Braha
Considering signing up for this class? Read Why “Self-Healing” Crochet Stitches?

Recommended Articles

Designs & Patterns

Steeked Crochet Designs by Others

Inspiration Boards for this ClassA chunky lace vest that can be completed in 2 hours because you create armholes later with quick steeks (cutting).

Self-Healing Crochet Stitches and How to Cut Them started out Tunisian-only in 2016. It was originally titled Steek (Cut) Tunisian Crochet Lace for Fun, Fast Fashions. I overhauled the title to help differentiate this topic from steeking knit fair isle sweaters and other traditional reasons for steeks.

Three fashion trends are relevant to this class topic: graphic/linear texture, net lace, and fringe. I’ve created a Pinterest board for each trend.

  • Steeks: Ideas These are often simple shapes that become magically wearable and trendy with just a cut or two.
  • Trend: the New Fringe I thought today’s fringe was a passing fad but it continues to have a lot of mojo! That’s great for us. Many cut stitch patterns beg to be fringed, especially if you don’t want to use a double-ended hook for Tunisian lace nets. If you cut across several rows, turning that cut edge into fringe is the ideal thing to do with all the ends.
  • Trend: Simple Crochet Mesh Nets It’s a classic fabric with fresh boho looks. It’ll be a long-term trend because it’s also now going urbane-futuristic-techie.
  • To Try with Tunisian Crochet Nets (linear, visually directional fabric grain as design element)

Cutting self-healing stitch patterns is a unique and fun construction method. Knowing how to easily steek as part of your crochet skillset opens up a whole creative avenue of projects. It’s freeing and empowering. As of 2022, it’s always an option that comes to mind when I’m dreaming up a new design. It goes together with inventive folds and seams I might like to use.

I find it also makes pattern schematics newly inspiring—especially for simple shapes. You might enjoy newsletter #80: Pattern Schematics for Insiders and Outsiders. and its “overflow” blog post, Steek Crochet With Pattern Schematics in Any Language (June 2016).

Any Books on Cutting Crochet?

I’ll add information here as I find it, so please check back. (In 2016 I found nothing in books on specifically steeking Tunisian crochet. (If you know of a source, please leave a comment.)

Original 2016 Steeked Tunisian Lace Class Resources page.
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Why “Self-Healing” Crochet Stitches?

Love knots removed on the left; row of double crochet on the right, which need a lifeline (in red).
On the left is a self-healing stitch pattern. I’ve removed two rows of love knots, and the stitches left behind are fine the way they are—I have not edged them. No “lifeline” was required to prevent unraveling.
On the right, a red lifeline has been woven into the base loops of some of the double crochet stitches (dc, or in UK: tr). The nearby stitches without a lifeline are unstable and will unravel. View full size.

 

The Self-Healing Crochet Stitches and How to Cut Them class is thanks to an accidental discovery I made in 2013. A rectangular wrap kept sliding off of my shoulders. It has interesting edges, so I added (cut open) armholes to wear it as a vest.

I held my breath, cut a stitch, and…

Nothing happened. The stitches didn’t care. Why though? (Some stitches DO care. A lot!)

The first armhole is being opened to turn this Tunisian Mesmer Veil stole into a waterfall Maze Vest.
The cut that launched a whole class!

At first I thought it was an odd quality of only a few kinds of Tunisian stitches. After testing why this happened, I created a class called “Steeked Tunisian Lace for Fun Fast Fashions”.

By the time I taught it (2016), I’d already discovered the same effect with some regular crochet stitches. That led to a new version of the class​​, “Easy to Steek Crochet Stitches” in 2017.

Self-Healing vs. “Steek”

Nowadays I’m thinking “self-healing” conveys the topic better than referring to steeks. Steek is a specialized knitting term. I see too many question marks over crocheters’ heads when I use it. Also, steeking often involves cutting across several rows whereas in my class we cut open ONE row.

Cutting a self-healing stitch is creatively liberating and empowering. For me as a designer it’s exhilarating! I think “self-healing” conveys some of the positive, low-stress feeling people have in this class.

​Which Crochet Cutting Class?​

My friend ​Pauline Turner will be teaching a class​ called “Cutting Crochet” at the same event on ​Thursday, ​July 26.​ Our two “how to cut” classes seem to be very different​.

When renaming my class I briefly considered “Cutting Crochet” as a way to avoid the steek term. I worried that it would bring to mind the traditional reasons a crocheter would need to cut crochet: to fix, tailor, or repair it. My class is not traditional.

“Game Changer”?

“It’s a Game Changer” — Vashti’s mom (crocheter).

If you can add a head opening, armholes, and even decoratively shaped openings wherever you wish in a crocheted item, it means this is a distinct, different construction method. Here’s why my mom might be right:

  • It changes what we can do with schematics and simple shapes.
  • Beginners can understand and use the basic principles of it.
  • It simplifies the crocheting: just keep crocheting to the end. No need to make sure you start the armholes in the correct row. Stop crocheting when you want to, not when you’re a fixed distance from an opening.
  • The opening you add later is actually superior to crocheting it in as you go. It’s less lumpy.
  • It’s certainly a game changer when doing planned pooling with a variegated yarn (argyling, color stacking, etc). Crocheting a simple shape straight through is really important for this kind of crocheting. If you were to add an opening as you’re crocheting, you’d throw off your color sequence. To be able to cut open armholes, a head opening, pocket slit, and even a scarf keyhole later is ideal.

It turns out that a large number of stitch patterns are, or can be subtly tweaked to be, self-healing.

Self-Healing Crochet Stitches and How to Cut Them has a 2018 class resources page.
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Starwirbel Class Resources

Crochet class image for Starwirbel webby veil-like star stitch lace
Updated on 7/18/18. View full size Starwirbel images. This is a conveniently clickable group of things I mention in The Starwirbel Way: Lacy Star Stitches classes. I teach the next one on July 26, 2018 in Portland OR. See student feedback. I show a lots of published and unpublished star stitch designs in this class and try new things with the stitch for each class! Each illustrates the stitches and techniques learned.   — Vashti Braha

 

Thinking of signing up for this class? I wrote this post for you.

Crochet Patterns & Crochet Alongs

Recommended Issues of Vashti’s Crochet Inspirations Newsletter

Starwirbel Class, Blogged

Inspiration Boards for this Class

  • Star Stitch Crocheting (Featured by Pinterest: “We think your board is amazing, and it really demonstrates what Pinterest is all about!”)
  • My Star Stitches Flickr album since 2013. Note that newer images display last (chronologically), the default in Flickr. Almost 600 images so far.

Any Books on Star Stitch Crochet?

Yes! Learn Star Stitch Crochet by Jenny King (2014, Annie’s)

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A Crochet Class in a Vest

The first corner of a hanky-hem love knot mesh vest in spring sunshine.
View full size image.

Want to see what I’m working on? This will be Flowerfall, a hanky-hem waterfall vest that I can wear when I teach 21st Century Love Knot Adventures this July in Portland, Oregon. I’m now two-thirds done.

Several Class Skills in a Vest

I’m designing Flowerfall to be a visual aid for several skill levels. I’ll also be adding the pattern to my shop for those who can’t attend the class.

Love Knot Beginner Skills

Another view of this diamond mesh would be the love knot sections of Lovelace. (It’s so iconic that the stitch is synonymous with the mesh in some how-to sources from the 1800’s to now.) Then, compare it with the Electra Wrap’s triangular love knot mesh.

For Students With a Bit of Experience

  • How to increase and decrease this mesh, and add picots as one way to finish the edges as you go.
  • The when, why, and the how-to: making love knots with slip stitches instead of single crochets (UK: dc).
  • My new favorite way to keep love knots from loosening later if the yarn is slippery.
  • A new way to crochet into love knots that I recommend for a project like this one.

For Those With More Experience

  • How to do corner to corner (C-2-C) love knot mesh in which you start in one corner and end in the opposite one.
  • How to sprinkle in other stitches with the classic love knot mesh to create lacy new stitch patterns!

Multi-Purpose Visual Aids = Ideal

This is my seventh year shipping teaching aids across the USA for crochet classes. I teach four to six different topics per event. Visual aids are everything! I always end up with a lot of crochet items to ship.

In the past few years I’ve started designing class items that combine several points of information in one. Not only do I cut down on the shipping this way, it’s a fun design challenge. I also love coming up with how a design for one class topic can double or triple as a visual aid for other topics I’m also teaching.

Self-Healing Stitch Alert

An example of this is I’ll be adding armholes to Flowerfall by cutting them open. Know what this means? It’ll also be a great visual aid for the Self Healing Stitches and How to Cut Them class! I might even bring it to the Tunisian on the Diagonal class if I don’t make a Tunisian one in time. Even though Flowerfall isn’t Tunisian, it’s an example of an easy shape to crochet from corner to corner in any stitch. (Flowerfall is even relevant to my slip stitch classes. It’s the first design I’ve done with slip stitch love knots.)

I’ll post again about this design so that you can see its modified diamond shape, how its armholes happen, and different ways to wear it. I’m smitten ? . Flowerfall’s Flickr album has three photos so far.

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Love Knot Crochet Class Resources

Official 2018 image for the 21st Century Love Knot Adventures class.
Updated on 7/18/18. View the above image full size. This is a conveniently clickable group of things I mention in 21st Century Love Knot Adventures classes. I teach the next one on July 25, 2018 in Portland OR. See student feedback. I show a huge amount of published and unpublished crochet designs in this class and I try new love knots for each class! Each illustrates the stitches and techniques learned.   — Vashti Braha

Thinking of signing up for this class? I wrote the Crochet Class in a Vest blog post with you in mind.

21st Century Love Knot Adventures

In crochet, the Love Knot is also known as Lover’s Knots and Solomon’s Knots. Before 1950 it was most commonly known as “Knot Stitch” and occasionally “Hail Stone Stitch.”

Downloadable Love Knot Crochet Patterns

Vashti’s Forthcoming Love Knot Patterns

As of 7/18/18.

Crochet Inspirations Newsletter Archive

​Love knots serve as important examples for several different newsletter topics!

Online Love Knot Collections

Love Knot How-To’s

Any Books on Crocheting Love Knots?

Yes! Jenny King wrote one: Crochet with Love Knots (Annie’s Crochet 2014).

Non-English Terms (notes)

Beaded Love Knots

Ravelry gallery of my 17 beaded love knot projects

Love Knot Links Miscellany

Older sources were first compiled for the 2012 class. All links work as of 4/05/18.