Introduction: Legend of Zelda Valentine Message - Tunisian Crochet

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 I made this wall hanger for my wife for valentines day this year.  It is done using Tunisian crochet.  The great thing about tunisian crochet is you can use any pattern that is in a grid formation.  This makes cross stitch patterns and charts drawn in excel or on graph paper, perfect!  since one stitch is roughly a perfect square, it makes it perfect for old school 8-bit art work.

If you have never crocheted before and wish to learn, this instructable is a great place to start.

Step 1: Link Message Line by Line

Here you can see the progress of the design, line by line.  The patterns are worked from the bottom up and from right to left.

Click here for the Link pattern

Step 2: Following a Simple Pattern

If you are new to Tunisian Crochet, let's learn with a simple pattern such as the one below.  Once you have the basic skills to make this one, you can easily move to more complex patterns.

We are going to make a simple 10x10 swatch using a cross design.  click here to download the pattern.

Here is a youtube video I created on how to follow the downloadable pattern.




See the notes on the pictures below for detailed instructions on each step.

The pattern has 10 boxes, horizontally, so let's begin by chaining 10 stitches.
Insert your hook into the closest stitch to our hook, yarn over and pull through.
Repeat in the next stitch.  Do this in every stitch until you have 10 loops on your hook.  Each row of the pattern requires two crochet patterns.  The forward pass and the retun pass.  We just completed the forward pass, now let's do the return pass.
for the first stitch coming back, yarn over and pull through ONE loop only.
For the remainder of the pass, yarn over and pull through two stitches.  Repeat until the end of the row.
That completes row one, now repeat for the remainder of the rows in the pattern.  When you come to a different color box in the chart, you have to change yarn colors.  Just simply loop the new yarn over the hook and pull through.
Once you are finished with your last row, it is time to bind off.  Insert your hook through the first stitch in the forward pass, yarn over and pull through as you have been the entire time.  You will now have two loops on your hook.  slip the left most stitch through the right most stitch.  This is called a slip stitch.  Do this for the remainder of the stitches in the row, cut your yarn and you are done!

Step 3: More Examples of Tunisian Crochet

Here are a few more designs I have made using this method.

Please let me know if you have any questions. 

Good Luck!

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