THE STORY
MEZRAYA: This small village belongs to Houmt Souk, the main town on the eastern side of the Tunisian peninsula of Djerba. Apart from the inevitable hotel cluster along the coast, Mezraya and its surrounding area boasts mosques such as Sidhi Mehrez with their beautiful cubic architecture, subterranean oil presses and olive tree fields. In spring 2014, while waiting for a tour group from Germany, I stayed in a small hotel in Mezraya for a few days: Back then, before the revolutionary period, I was lucky enough to work as a tour guide for Sahara treks. This gave me time for endless walks along the coast – and I loved the countless shades of blue of the sea and sky, and the warm light brown colours of the sand and the driftwood.
When I started crocheting Kelim patterns with the mosaic technique, creating a blanket in these shades was at the top of my list.

DESCRIPTION
The Crochet Kelim MEZRAYA consists of a repeat of 48 rows / 44 stitches in two basic colours (white and beige) and two diamond colours (shades of blue).
The number of diamonds and blue shades will vary – I also added a fresh green colour and a calm cream colour. There are no limits to your creativity though – cotton yarns in particular offer a wide array of wonderful shades, especially when it comes to shades of purple and magenta.
The special thing about the Mosaic Crochet MEZRAYA are the colour changes within the rows. At the end of each single diamond, you ‘weave in’ and cut off the colour thread that is no longer used during crocheting. This way, you won’t have to carry along numerous yarn threads, creating an excessive amount of fringes at the edges.
I suggest reading the general instructions for the individual stitches first and trying them out on a sample piece from a single diamond repeat.

Don’t hesitate to contact me if there are questons or problems!