Totally Loopy Flower

Here is my latest flower applique design - the Totally Loopy Flower! I was away for a few days break and in my spare time was playing around with this till it came out looking OK. It would be great sewn onto a girl's hat or bag, particularly if a face were embroidered on it.

My WIPs (works in progress) are mounting up as I keep getting waylaid with small projects like this instead of assembling the two bags I have crocheted but not finished off. Does anyone else suffer from this ailment?

This pattern is also available on Craftsy.

Totally Loopy Flower

UK terms

Materials

Double knit yarn in three colours of your choice

4mm crochet hook

Size

3 ¾ inches diameter

Instructions

4mm crochet hook. DK yarn

Make a magic circle.

Row 1: With Colour A:
10 tr in magic circle. Close circle by pulling on yarn tail. Join with slip stitch in Colour B. Pull yarn tail tightly.

Row 2:  With Colour B:
1 ch. 2 dc in each stitch. Join with slip stitch in Colour C. (20 stitches)

Row 3:  With Colour C:
(9 ch. 1 dc in same stitch. Slip stitch into next stitch)*.  Repeat * around the flower to last stitch.
9 ch. 1 dc in same stitch. Slip stitch into base of first loop.

Finish off and weave in ends.

NB. When changing colour and starting a new row, ensure you pull the new colour through on the very last pull-through of the previous row to prevent the previous colour bleeding into the new row.

I hope you enjoy this pattern. If you find any mistakes in it, please let me know. Thank you.

Kath

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Am I allowed to talk about Christmas in September? I keep finding patterns for small Christmas tokens, tree hangings etc. that I want to try out. I've decided to experiment a little on some of them.

Here is a picture of some Santa heads I am currently busy on as tree decorations. It is a custom order from a friend for 27 of these. Yes, you read that correctly. That's twenty-seven!

The pattern is a slight modification of one I found on someon's blog but, although I copied the pattern to a Word document, I clean forgot to add the website. My apologies go to whoever designed the original and if anyone knows who it was then please let me know and I will change this post to credit them.

I'm not at all happy with the face yet. Any ideas?

Work in Progress

My WIP at the moment (well, one of them if I'm honest) is a simple granny square bag.  I am crocheting with Sirdar Montana yarn with a 4 mm hook and it is coming out beautifully.  Quite zany, really! I'll post a picture of the finished bag soon.

It's great to be doing something that does not require too much thought and I can just rattle through. A lovely rest from trying to design a new pattern. I'm planning to line it in dark brown so have photographed it on a brown cushion to show the effect.

What are you working on at the moment?

A new crocheted dahlia flower to try

I have just developed this pattern for a large dahlia type of flower. It is a straightforward pattern which involves starting with foundation stitches, rather than chains, and then making a second row of stitches ranging from slip stitch up to double treble (UK). The third and final row uses shells to form the petals.

If the thought of using foundation stitches is off-putting, then please read my post about foundation stitches here - the entry contains a link to a very useful and easy to follow video.

Assembling the flower then involves winding and stitching the petals which I found to be much easier with foundation stitches than if the first row were chains.

If you were to attach a brooch pin at the back, then it would make a lovely join for the two edges of an edge-to-edge cardigan or it would be great on a wide knitted or crocheted headband or wristband.

Materials

One ball of DK yarn of your choice

Tapestry needle.

4 mm crochet hook

Size/Gauge

Gauge is not critical for this project, but choose a suitable hook for the weight of yarn you use. Using the yarn and hook above the finished flower measured three and a half inches across and one and a quarter inches deep.

The pattern can be found on Craftsy here


or on Etsy here

 

Warm and cosy for winter

I've just completed this chunky, colourful hat in Sirdar Squiggle yarn, colour Fushcia. The yarn is lovely to feel and delightful to crochet with - but I wouldn't expect anything less from Sirdar. It's 51% wool so cosy and warm and washes at 40 degrees in a machine. I can certainly recommend it and here is another great colourway.

It's a very easy pattern from Twenty To Make Taster Projects which came free with a Crafts Beautiful magazine I recently purchased. Although Crafts Beautiful covers all crafts and so has a limited number of crochet patterns in each issue, it nevertheless is great for ideas and to spark your imagination on possibilities.

The hat itself is on my Folksy shop. It can be worn either in slouchy or in Russian style. Turning the brim down completely makes it super-slouchy (not shown in photographs). It is very kindly modelled here by my friend and neighbour Elsie and the photographs don't really do justice to the colour.

I particularly like the edging on this pattern. It is called Rope Edging and involves working double crochet (US single crochet) backwards from left to right - most peculiar but a lovely effect. Why not try it on the next hat you make?