What A Crocheter Does When She's Bored

I recently found myself between projects. (The horror!) I decided to work on a couple of long standing WIPs and not start anything new because I'm waiting for a crochet-along that's about to begin. I'll have limited time for that so will want to devote myself to it completely. Unfortunately, I got bored with the WIPs. What to do? Learn a new technique!

The Winter 2016 issue of Interweave Crochet has an article by Darla Fanton on illusion crochet. I had never tried that technique and thought it looked interesting. Darla developed a method to create illusions with crochet after seeing it done in knitting. When viewed straight on, the piece has straight stripes. But when viewed at an angle, a different pattern is visible. It involves strategic placement of single crochets in the back loop to create the design on a background of standard single crochet under both loops. 

I spent a contented hour making the swatch from the article. Here's what it looks like straight on:

At a slight angle:

And at a steeper angle:

Pretty cool, eh? In addition to the tutorial, Darla has designs for an illusion crochet hat and scarf in this same issue of Interweave Crochet. 

Darla is an expert in many of the less common crochet techniques such as broomstick lace, hairpin lace, and Tunisian entrelac. If you ever get a chance to take one of her classes, I highly recommend it. 

Rose City Yarn Crawl

The crochet-along I mentioned above is part of the annual Rose City Yarn Crawl in Portland, OR on March 3-6. This will be my third year participating. Both the crawl and the CAL are loads of fun. It's a mystery CAL. We know the finished object is a shawl but that's it. There's also a mystery knit-along. I think my favorite part of the yarn crawl is seeing all the beautiful finished projects from the CAL/KAL being worn in the streets of Portland and surrounding suburbs. If you're in the area or just enjoy mystery "alongs", join in the fun. Here's the Ravelry group for the crawl with forum threads for the CAL/KAL. The first clue comes out in 2 days!