episode 137 | 100 crochet tiles

EPISODE 137 SHOW NOTES

This week I’m excited to be just talking about the new book from David & Charles, edited by Sarah Callard called 100 Crochet Tiles and I’ve been patiently waiting for this moment for over a year!

Because I was asked to contribute some tiles for this book (so exciting) and I created four, new and original designs based around tiles with specific meaning in my life.

The tiles I designed are of course my usual simple, clean designs and I hope they are easy to crochet with an effective look when joined together, also I hope you love them as much as I do.

VICTORIANA

The first tile idea I’ve always had is to create a version of the popular Victorian floor tiles seen here.

We live in a Victorian cottage and whilst we have some limited entranceway tiling (red and black checkerboard in the porch), I’ve long dreamed of having a true Victorian entranceway complete with fancy tiles like this.

This square is most effective when joined together, I love the fact that the black corners join together to create smaller squares, and the pattern in the book that goes together with this, a simple black and white bath mat, shows off this design really well.

Whilst simple and small, I think the Victoriana Square packs a big punch and would look great for blanket projects as well as the small bathroom rug I made for the book using Drops Paris (aran weight) in Black and White.

*Victoriania Bath Mat Pattern from 100 Crochet Tiles*

INDIAN TERRACOTTA

My second design idea comes from these floor tiles from India and in keeping with my Indian heritage I thought that I absolutely had to design a motif based on these amazing tiles.

I am super happy with how this design came out, it took a while and many, many different outcomes (!) but I hope that you agree the final design is stunning even if it does look like a certain virus we all know! ahem!

I worked a series of bobbles which are then wrapped around to create the look and I think it looks simply stunning.

The design would look great as a blanket in just two colours, and I seem to prefer it when it’s worked in terracotta hues.

Indian Terracotta Tiles in Stylecraft Special DK - Mustard (top) and Copper (bottom)

TALVERA TILES

I was quite taken by the pretty hand painted tiles from Talavera in Spain.

And amazingly the name of one of my first schools was Talavera - living in an army town everything is named after army generals, battles and wars and there was a big battle against the French at Talavera in 1809.

I wanted to re-create the middle tile here and first tried doing it with white as a second colour (see below) for the white spaces but this didn’t work out and so the finished tile, called Talavera 1 in the book, is worked in just one colour.

The final look is lacy and lovely and looks perfect when blocked hard.

*Different version samples of the Talavera 1 design*

TALAVERA 2

And finally I did a hexagon design. Again based on hand painted Talavera tiles and this design has multiple colours too, quite unusual for me!

The design incorporates some bobbles and wrap-around stitches as well as a round of puffy petals, seen here in the peach colourway, I love it.

*Talavera 2 tile from 100 Crochet Tiles*

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Enjoy the episode and note that you can buy 100 Crochet Tiles from all good book sellers (try to avoid the evil that is Amazon though eh, Bezos really doesn’t need any more money), and it’s very important to note for all UK based crocheters that the book is (weirdly) written in US terminology. Gah! How annoying.

Happy crocheting.