Please join us in making a Fern leaf for February’s 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, you’ll know you are at the tip of the first leaflet (see inside the black box in Photo 1).
Work back along the chain you just made, slip stitching in each chain st, and making a picot across from each previous picot. Don’t sl st all the way to the end, because that’s 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.
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 you’re 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 (pronounce 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.