“Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths” Announcement and Blog Tour

I’m very excited to announce the publication of my newest crochet booklet, “Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths”, published by Annie’s! Here are photos of the front cover and the other 3 dishcloths that aren’t shown on the front cover:

 

Front cover of Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths

Front cover of Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths

Four Squares dishcloth

Four Squares dishcloth

 

Concentric Squares
Concentric Squares dishcloth

 

 

 

 

 

 

Diagonals dishcloth

Diagonals dishcloth

This booklet includes photos, instructions and charts for 6 different wiggly crochet dishcloth projects. These dishcloths are made in an array of beautiful colors of Omega Sinfonia yarn, which is a light worsted weight cotton yarn. Each project measures from 10 ½” x 11” to 12” square, the perfect size for dishcloths. These dishcloths are fun to stitch and make fantastic gifts! If you’d like to order a copy of this booklet, you can find it on the Annie’s website.

If you aren’t familiar with Wiggly Crochet, let me tell you how it’s done. Wiggly Crochet is made in 2 steps. The first step is to crochet the foundation mesh. This mesh looks a lot like the open mesh of filet crochet, made with double crochets and chain-2 spaces. Here’s a photo of a Wiggly Crochet foundation mesh:

Wiggly Crochet foundation mesh

Wiggly Crochet foundation mesh

The next step is to crochet the “wiggles” onto the top of the foundation mesh, which makes these wiggles stick up and gives the wiggly crochet piece dimension and thickness, which is not found in most other crochet techniques. The wiggles are usually made up of double crochets worked on top of the foundation mesh: around the post of the double crochets and in the chain-2 spaces (not IN the chains themselves, but in the spaces created by the 2 chains). You work the specified number of double crochet in/around each post/chain-space, making a 90 degree turn each time to fill the appropriate areas with the wiggles. It’s the act of turning 90 degrees that makes these stitches wiggle and stick up instead of lying flat! Here’s a photo (taken from the top) of the first round of wiggles worked on a wiggly crochet foundation mesh:

Wiggles shown from top

Wiggles shown from top

Here’s a photo of those same wiggles (taken from the side), so you can see how dimensional they are:

Wiggles shown from side

Wiggles shown from side

"Hot Stuff for the Holidays" booklet

“Hot Stuff for the Holidays” booklet

Isn’t that cool? I love this technique so much that I’ve previously had 2 crochet booklets published on it. The first one was “Hot Stuff for the Holidays”, published by Jeanette Crews Designs in 2003. There are patterns and charts for 6 “holiday-themed” hot pads and coasters in this one (for Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, July 4th, Halloween and Christmas). This booklet is extremely hard to find, so if you find one for sale online (and it’s not too expensive), you might consider snatching it up! These designs are worked with size 10 cotton crochet thread (for all of us “threadies”!). Here’s a photo of the front cover of that booklet:

 

 

"Wiggly Crochet Rugs" booklet

“Wiggly Crochet Rugs” booklet

 

The 2nd wiggly crochet booklet was “Wiggly Crochet Rugs”, published by Annie’s Attic (now just called “Annie’s”) in 2009. This booklet has 5 wiggly crochet rugs in it, complete with instructions and full-color charts. These rugs are made with yarn: the foundation mesh is made with sport weight yarn and the wiggles are made with worsted weight yarn. This booklet might be easier to find, since it was published just 4 years ago. Here’s a photo of that cover:

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve also designed some other wiggly crochet projects, which were published by Annie’s (mostly in Crochet World magazine from June 2008 to Feb. 2010). If you’d like to see all of them, please visit my Ravelry designer page. Oh, I almost forgot! I have a FREE wiggly crochet pattern, available on the Red Heart website. You can try this technique for free and see how you like it! Isn’t that great?

If you’re more of a “hands on” type of learner and would like to learn to do wiggly crochet, I’ll be teaching a Wiggly Crochet class at the CGOA Conference this year in Indianapolis. The class schedule hasn’t been made yet, but this class should be scheduled between July 17 and 21 (either from 9AM-12Noon or 2-5PM). To read about this CGOA Conference, please visit the CGOA website (look under the “events” tab on the left-hand side of the page). I would be thrilled to meet you and teach you how to do wiggly crochet in my class!

To celebrate the publication of my new Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths booklet, I’m doing a Blog Tour in February with several of my crochet friends/designers. Each person will blog (or post on Facebook) about this new booklet and possibly give away a copy to a lucky entrant. Please visit each of these blog posts to find out more about my new booklet, as well as reading the blogs of these extremely talented individuals!

The blog participants are as follows (dates to be announced next month):

Andee Graves, Kathryn White, Ellen Gormley, Kara Lyon and Brett Bara

At the end of the blog tour, I’ll be giving away an autographed copy of this new booklet to a lucky winner (US residents only please). To enter the contest, just leave a comment on this blog post telling me which of these dishcloth patterns is your favorite. It’s that simple! A winner will be chosen at random from all of the comments at the end of the blog tour. Good luck to you all!

If you’ve never tried wiggly crochet, you don’t know what you’re missing! If you have tried it and are looking for more wiggly crochet patterns, we have a few of them here at The Crochet Architect. Here they are for your viewing and crocheting pleasure:

Wiggly Flower Hot Pad & Coaster

Wiggly Flower Hot Pad & Coaster

Our Wiggly Flower Hot Pad & Coaster Set is the perfect pattern for learning to do wiggly crochet. The small size of the coaster is a quick project and the hot pad is a natural progression for increasing your wiggly crochet skills. The cotton crochet thread that is used makes them ideal for soaking up the moisture from any glass or pitcher in humid weather!

Wiggly Crochet Playing Cards Set

Wiggly Crochet Playing Cards Set

This Wiggly Crochet Playing Cards Set includes a centerpiece and 4 coasters: one for each of the suits of playing cards. This set is unique and would make a great gift for that special person!

Wiggly Crochet Fish Rug

Wiggly Crochet Fish Rug

When you’ve learned to do wiggly crochet and want to take your skills to the next level, this Wiggly Fish Rug is just the thing! It’s great in any fish-, seashell-, ocean- or tropical-themed bathroom. The texture of the wiggly crochet makes this rug “squishy” to walk on, too!

I hope you’ll give wiggly crochet a try and come to love it as much as I do!

Happy crocheting (and good luck)!

Susan

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7 Responses to “Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths” Announcement and Blog Tour

  1. says:

    I love the look of these wiggly crochet dishcloths. I think my favorite is Concentric Squares. The colors are great.

  2. Susan Lowman says:

    Charlotte Lusk left this comment and I’m posting it for her because of “issues” I’m having with moderating the comments!!!:
    Just found your site and what a delight!
    I love all crochet but have not seen the Wiggly before. I am so anxious to try it. I copied the May Flowers Hot Pad and Coaster Set pattern and it will be my next project! Thank you.

  3. I have Wiggly Crochet on my “bucket list”. Now I have a good reason to try it — something small but useful.

  4. says:

    I can’t wait to try this technique. The dishcloths look lovely. I’d love to try and find a copy of the hot pads book as well. Congrats!

  5. Susan Lowman says:

    Kathy, I’m looking forward to the blog tour, too. Thanks for taking part in it. I can’t wait to read what you think of the book.

  6. says:

    Looks like a great book Susan. I am looking forward to being part of your blog tour.

    • says:

      This looks like a fun and fast project. I really like the diagonal pattern and would like to try it out. The concept of putting different colors together looks like a fun way to use up left over yarn.

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