Curious and Crafty Readers: Posts Tagged Crochet'

Curious and Crafty Readers
Posts Tagged Crochet

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Denim Jacket with Crocheted Flowers and Leaves
Tuesday, October 5th, 2010
Heres a project that uses the free Frilly Target Flower pattern from the last post plus the Scallop-Edge
Leaf from Crochet Bouquet.
To make the flowers and leaves, I used Louets Euroflax Sport, a 100% linen yarn. Linen has a beautiful
texture for knitting and crochet. You can use any yarn you want to decorate a jacket, though a smooth
yarn will show the details of the crochet better.
You Will Need
3 colors of fine weight (2) yarn. Coordinate leaf and petal colors as in photo or as desired.
Hook: 3.5mm/E-4, or size to give a firm gauge
Purchased jeans jacket
Sewing needle and matching thread
Pins
Instructions
Crochet the large and medium versions of the Frilly Target Flowers (see the blog post just before
this one), changing colors after each picot round as shown in photograph.
1.
Crochet two Scallop-Edge Leaves (pages 116-117 of Crochet Bouquet), needle-join Rnd 2, and
then change color for the scallop round. Make a stem about eight chain stitches long.
2.
Make one long and one short stem for the flowers as follows: chain desired length, then sl st in each
ch. Weave in all ends.
3.
Arrange the flowers, leaves, and stems on the jacket, using photograph as a guide. Pin and sew them
in place.
4.
The project shown here was created with Louets Euroflax Sport, 100% Wet Spun Linen, 3.5oz/100g =
270yd/247m per skein.
Curious and Crafty Readers Crochet http://www.textilefusion.com/bookblog/?tag=crochet
1 of 20 17/11/2010 14:43
Tags: Crochet, flower, jeans jacket, leaf
Posted in Crochet | Comments Off
Palm Leaf CAL and Tutorial
Monday, May 24th, 2010
School is nearly over for the two daughters in my house, and theyve already asked if we can spend some
time at the beach this summer. This reminded me of palm trees, and that reminded me of the crocheted
Palm Leaf on pages 112-113 of Crochet Bouquet.
Please join me in crocheting the Palm Leaf for our June 2010 Crochet Along. To help you figure it out,
here is a tutorial.
Row 1 is easy enough, and you can see Row 1 completed in Photo 1.
Originally, I wrote this pattern with three rows, but my technical editor, kjhay, felt it would be easier to
understand if we combined my rows 2 and 3 into a single instruction, which is Row 2 in Crochet Bouquet.
Row 2 of the Palm Leaf pattern begins at the center of the leaf, goes out to the tip of a spike, and back to
the center.
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Photo 2 shows the Palm Leaf after ch 11 on the very last line of page 112. The ch 11 is a long, long
turning chain.
Now turn and work back along the chain. Photo 3 shows what the piece should look like after the 3
times; on the second line of page 113.
The next few stitches are actually worked into the first few stitches of Row 2, bringing us back to the
center of the leaf (Photo 4).
The instructions tell you to make the stitches into the back loop only. Most of the time, we catch the top
two loops of any crochet stitch as we work. The front loop is the one that is closest to you as you work.
The back loop is the one that is away from you as you work.
Working into the back loop each row, as were doing in the Palm Leaf gives a corrugated look, and it
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helps us gather the leaf when were finished crocheting the points of the palm.
Repeat Row 2 seven more times, and end with a piece that looks like the one in Photo 5.
To gather the leaf, pull up a loop in the base of each spike, except the one you just finished. It doesnt
matter where you put your hook, as long as theres one loop for each spike. (Photo 6)
Yarn over hook and draw through all the loops on the hook. Pull the loop tight to close the gathered edge
as much as possible. (Photo 7). Ch 1 to anchor the gather. Then make the stem.
Now that you can make the Palm Leaf, check out Topsy Turvy #1 (pages 40-41 of Crochet Bouquet). It
works exactly the same way.
Tags: Crochet, CrochetBouquet, leaf, palm
Posted in Crochet | 1 Comment
Powerful Pearls
Thursday, May 20th, 2010
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Recently, Curious and Crafty Readers had a link coming from a foreign language site:
farfin linked here saying, Bu rg yapraklar ok houma gitti ebruli iple r
I peered closer at the link. It was Turkish, and, and . . . I could read it!
What makes a gal from Texas learn to read Turkish? And what in the world does this have to do with
Crochet Bouquet?
Well, Ill tell you.
We go back twenty five years or so, to the Austin Public Library, where I found this book: Tulips,
Arabesques, and Turbans: Decorative Arts from the Ottoman Empire (by various authors, Abbeville
Press, New York, 1982). This book introduced me to the wonderful ceramics, metal work, textiles, and
calligraphy of Turkey.
A motif youll see frequently in Turkish tiles and textiles is intamani, (the is pronounced ch) or the
three dots. Theyre often used together with wavy lines. The three dots probably represented three
legendary pearls floating on the waves of the sea. The pearls symbolized good luck and power.
The three dots motif was the inspiration for the Pearl Trillium, on pages 87-88 of Crochet Bouquet. The
sea waves became the wavy leaves behind the flower. You probably noticed that the colors I chose for the
flower are from the cover of the book.
All those years ago, as I pored over the gorgeous images in Tulips, Arabesques, and Turbans, I vowed I
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would go to Turkey someday and see those wonders for myself. Thats why Im learning Turkish.
Many thanks to farfin for linking to Curious and Crafty Readers. To return the favor, heres her site,
10marifet.org, which has lots of cute craft ideas and great examples of needlework. You dont have to
read Turkish to enjoy. ok gzel! Teekkr ederim, farfin!
Tags: Crafts, Crochet, inspiration, trillium, Turkey
Posted in Book Writing Process, Crochet | Comments Off
Happy Mothers Day from Crochet Bouquet!
Sunday, May 9th, 2010
Heres a bouquet of one of our lovely Texas wildflowers, the Firewheel, for all Mothers! Especially mine!
The Firewheel is also known as Indian Blanket and Gaillardia. We love Firewheels at our house.
I considered naming one of our children after this flower. But that wasnt to be, so we named our dog
Firewheel. It suits him!
Find instructions for a crocheted Firewheel on pages 83-84 of Crochet Bouquet. Here is a correction for
that pattern:
Fire Wheel, page 84, add a ( (shown in bold below) before the word insert
Rnd 2: *Ch 7, (sl st-picot) 4 times; yarn over (2 loops on hook), skip next picot, (insert
Bu rg Teksasta iek var, ad Frewheel. Trkede ate tekerleki.
Eine gehkelte texanische Blume, Firewheel genannt; auf Deutsch, Feuer Rad. (Ist das richtig, meine
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liebe Mutti?)
Tags: Crochet, firewheel, flower
Ferns in February
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010
Please join us in making a Fern leaf for Februarys Crochet-Along!
Readers have adopted the Fern leaf (on pages 110-111) as one of their favorite patterns in Crochet
Bouquet. (The other favorite is the Plain Pansy.)
The Fern is one of my favorites, too. Once you figure out how it works, the Fern is fairly easy to make.
You can add leaflets or picots to alter its size and shape, as I did for this Christmas Tree Mat.
The Fern is a bunch of crocheted bumps or picots, separated by chain stitches or slip stitches. You begin
at the base of the leaf, then
Following the pattern, work a series of chains and picots. When you have three picots right next to each
other, youll know you are at the tip of the first leaflet (see inside the black box in Photo 1).
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Work back along the chain you just made, slip stitching in each chain st, and making a picot across from
each previous picot. Dont sl st all the way to the end, because thats part of the main stem. (Photo 2)
Continue making leaflets in this way. The fourth leaflet is one picot pair shorter than the first three. Now
you have essentially worked up one side of the fern, as in Photo 3..
The top of the fern is three very short leaflets all clustered together as you see inside the pink box in Photo
4.
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For the second half of the fern, you crochet the leaflets as you did before, but instead of chaining between
the leaflets, you slip stitch down the center stem. (Photo 5)
When youre done, you will have worked down the other side, and ended back at the base of the leaf.
There are many ways to make a picot (proinounce it PEEKoh). For our Fern, make a picot like this: ch 3,
sl st into the third chain from the hook. When the pattern says ch 3, sl st picot that means you chain 3,
chain 3, slip stitch into third chain from hook.
The pattern has lots of information to help you figure out where you are on the leaf. However, if you find
this information distracting, copy out the instructions on a piece of paper, leaving out the extra words. See
this post for a more details on copying out patterns.
Tags: Crochet, fern, tutorial
Posted in Crochet | 2 Comments
An Improvement to the Poppy Pattern
Monday, November 9th, 2009
For Rounds 4 and 5 of the Poppy in Crochet Bouquet (pp. 65-66), switch to your petal color yarn. Im
using Opus 1 (with aloe and jojoba) by Zitron, and distributed in the US by Skacel.
In Round 4, your challenge is to correctly identify the second sl st of each petal. I orient myself with the
long sc (from Rnd 3) between the petals. Once I find that, I know the next st is the first sl st of the petal,
and voila! I insert the hook into the next st (the second sl st) for each petal of Round 4.
The photo shows Round 4 completed, and the blue arrow shows where to insert the hook for the first st of
Rnd 5 (it is the second sl st of Rnd 4).
Before you begin Round 5, you need padding/gathering cords. The pattern says to cut six 6-inch lengths of
yarn, but dont do that!
Instead, cut six 12-inch (30cm) lengths of yarn. Fold each piece of yarn in half.
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Follow the instructions until you get to the part that says, begin working over one 6-inch length of yarn.
Instead, insert your hook into the next stitch, in preparation for the sc. AND insert your hook
into the fold of one 12-inch length of yarn. (Shown in photo.)
Finish the sc, catching the padding yarn in the stitch. (Shown in next photo.)
Continue crocheting as per the instructions, working over this double strand of yarn as you go. Stop
crocheting over it after the last sc of the petal. For the next petal, pick up a new folded strand of yarn.
Now why, oh why, do we need this padding yarn? Here is a photo of the first completed petal of Round 5.
Its flat. But poppies arent flat. So pull the ends of the padding yarn to gather the petal (the blue arrow in
the photo).
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And guess what?! The petal isnt flat anymore! Here you see the first petal from above and from the side.
I recommend that you finish crocheting all the petals first. Then tighten the padding threads. Once you are
satisfied with the shape of the poppy, tie together the two ends of each padding thread in a square knot. In
the photo, the light blue circle surrounds athe knot of padding cord ends.
Arrange the petals as described in the instructions: three petals to the front and three to the back. Use the
ends to tack the petals in place. Probably you will feel you are having to overlap them quite a bit to get the
desired effect. Finally, weave in the cut ends.
Watch for the next post, where well finish the poppy center.
Tags: Crochet, oriental, poppy, tutorial
11 of 20 17/11/2010 14:43
November 2009 CAL: Poppies Again!
Wednesday, November 4th, 2009
A member of the Crochet Bouquet Along group on Ravelry writes:
i saw a wonderful crocheted flower and had to ask where it was from, turns out to be a
pattern of yours and i would love to join this group and make one myself(with help!) x (the
flower was a oriental poppy and looked quite hard to do?)
The Poppy on pp. 65-66 of Crochet Bouquet is more involved than many of the other flowers in the book,
but if you break it into small steps, its definitely achievable.
The secrets of the Poppys success are:
The padding threads introduced in Round 5, which we use to gather the petals, and
The finishing touches for the Poppy center.
First, be sure the yarns you use for the center and the petals are the same weight. The center of an
Oriental Poppy is usually dark or black. The petals are normally orange, pink, white, or red. You can use
whatever colors you want!
So lets start with the Poppy center. In the dark color, you make a chain loop. Round 1 is formed simply
with single crochets into the chain loop as per the instructions.
In Round 2, you sc into the sts of Round 1, including six chain-3 spaces placed evenly around. In this
photo you see Rounds 1 and 2 all done. The bumps are chain-3 spaces.
In Round 3, each chain-3 space from Round 2 has 12 stitches in it. It can get very crowded in that little
chain-3 space, but just keep pushing the stitches back until you have room for all of them. These lobes are
the beginning of the petals.
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Between each lobe, make a single crochet stitch all the way down into the original ring.
The second photo shows Round 3 all finished. It ends with a needle join. Once you learn the needle join
(shown on page 14 of Crochet Bouquet), you will want to use it all the time! It makes a lovely, bump-less
join for any round of crochet.
I used a double strand of Cedifras Angora Merino (25g = 118m) with a size H (US) crochet hook for this
Poppy center. Check back in a day or two for Rounds 4 and 5 of the Poppy.
Tags: Crochet, oriental, poppy
An Easy Crocheted Poppy
Sunday, October 18th, 2009
This simple crocheted poppy is none other than the large Fancy Five on page 24 of Crochet Bouquet.
While not exactly botanically correct, it gets the idea across.
If you want a more realistic poppy, try the one on pages 65-66 of Crochet Bouquet. The pattern is more
involved, but well worth the time.
You will need
Crochet Bouquet
Pattern corrections (here)
scraps of red and black yarn of the same weight
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a crochet hook appropriate for the size of yarn you are using (see pages 9-10 for guidance)
a yard of metallic gold thread
a round, black button for the flower center
tapestry needle, thread to sew on button
With black yarn, crochet Rnd 1 of Large Fancy Five. Cut thread after the end of the round. 1.
Join red yarn and work Rnd 2 (check corrections first!). 2.
Darn in ends. 3.
With metallic yarn, make three long stitches from the flower center toward the edge of each black
petal as shown in photo.
4.
Sew button at center of flower. 5.
Tags: Crochet, easy, poppy
Vintage Flower Fabric
Saturday, September 26th, 2009
Being a fan of flower fabric, I was happy to find this vintage pattern book, Doily Bouquet (Star Book No.
71, by American Thread Company).
The doily at the top right is made of flowers crocheted separately at first, and apparently joined as they
are made.
For my own flower fabric, like the Roses Poncho (close-up below), I crochet all the flowers separately,
pin them to a template, and sew them together with sewing thread.
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I chuckled when I read the doily instructions. The designer obviously assumed some intelligence on the
part of the crocheter, which is not so common nowadays:
Work a 2nd daisy same as 1st daisy, joining it to 1st daisy as illustrated.
Illustrated where? The only illustrations in the book are photos of the doilies. Youre on your own to
figure out how to join the flowers.
I think its good for crocheters and other crafters to figure things out on their own. You have to think. You
have to try various options to find the best one. The more you are forced to figure things out on your own,
the more you improve as a crocheter.
Thats how crochet designers, teachers, and writers are made. Hurray!
Tags: Crochet, doily, fabric, flower, vintage
Crazy Eight for the Eighth Month!
Sunday, August 2nd, 2009
Our August Crochet Bouquet Along selection is the Crazy Eight (pp. 81-82 of Crochet Bouquet). It is a
simple eight-petal flower, which is perfect to crochet in the eighth month.
The basic Crazy Eight is easy to crochet and then you can fancy it up with several options for trims and
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embellishments.
My favorite is the Outline option on page 82.
First, crochet a large or small Crazy Eight. To make the outline, attach a contrasting yarn to a ch1-space
of Rnd 1, as in this photo.
Now you outline each petal with sc, working up one side of the petal, over the top, and down the other
side, where you find yourself at the next ch1-space of Rnd 1. When the instructions say to crochet around
the dc, I find it easiest to fold the flower so that the dc is at the top. Then I crochet around the stitch itself.
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When you get to the individual petal at the outside of the flower, you will be holding it sideways. You
crochet around the ch4 (that means you insert your hook under the chain, not into it). Then sc into the
tops of the treble stitches, sc down the ch4 at the other side of the petal, and continue toward the center of
the flower, crocheting around the dc stitch or stitches.
Heres the first petal finished and the second in progress. Crocheting around eight petals takes time, but
the results are very nice!
The outlined Crazy Eights on the Flower Power Jeans (pp. 100-101 of Crochet Bouquet) are made with
Aunt Lydias No. 10 Classic crochet cotton. I crocheted the ones pictured here with Brooks Farm Yarnss
Duet, a blend of mohair and wool.
Tags: crazyeight, Crochet, Crochet Bouquet, flower
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Hello from Suzann
Welcome to Curious and Crafty Readers!
Here's a place where you can ask questions, make comments, and let us know about the projects
you have made from my books, Crochet Bouquet and Polymer Clay for Everyone, or any of the
other designs I've published through the years.
I'll post tutorials (let me know what you want), new projects, and other items of interest to curious
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and crafty readers.
Thanks for visiting, and I look forward to hearing from you!
Comments
There's so much spam going around the web these days, I've decided to accept comments only on
the three most recent posts. That will give you wonderful human readers plenty of time to comment
before we close the door on the spam-bots.
What's a htr?
Find out how to do the htr here.
Crochet Bouquet Alongs
18 of 20 17/11/2010 14:43
Check for corrections to some of the flowers in Crochet Bouquet
Crochet Bouquet!
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I'll be giving a talk at the Dallas Handknitters Guild early in 2011. Stay tuned for more information.
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