Ferns in February
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.
Irish Crochet Doily Crochet-Along
Our Irish Crochet Lovers group over at Ravelry is doing an Irish Crochet Doily Crochet-Along through March. We’re mostly working on different doilies, since we have some beginners and some experts and some in-between.
I chose a plate doily from a 1911 book called Irish Crochet Lace (Revised) by Sara Hadley. You can download it free from Antique Pattern Library.
This project is definitely for confident crocheters. Let’s just say the instructions are not up to the standards of the twenty-first century. Luckily the photos are clear enough that one can count.
It has two rounds of flowers around this center, with sixteen traditional Irish Crochet roses and sixteen flat flowers. It’s the perfect portable project!
More Irish Crochet
My Irish Crochet sample is growing, slowly but surely. I had to redo some sections of the background several times before I was pleased with it. See the pink line in the photo? It shows, more-or-less, the direction of the very simple background mesh I am crocheting between the motifs.
Inside the turquoise circle at the right, you can see how the background isn’t quite level with the corresponding rows elsewhere in the sample. That’s one section I will pull out and redo. Keeping rows even and level will get easier with practice.
One of my favorite tricks is to crochet a good-sized sample of the background stitch. It helps me get used to the stitch pattern for one thing. Also, I can use the sample to help me visualize how the ground will meet the motifs.
Here’s a photo of the background sample lying on top of the actual piece. In the pink circle the sample lines up with the background I have already crocheted. In the turquoise circle, you can see how the stitches might meet up with the flower motif. I will use this as a guide to help me place the stitches when I get to that point.
Speaking of Irish Crochet, I have been working on some class proposals for the Knit and Crochet Show in July 2010. One of the classes is about Irish Crochet. Wish me luck!
An Improvement to the Poppy Pattern
For Rounds 4 and 5 of the Poppy in Crochet Bouquet (pp. 65-66), switch to your petal color yarn. I’m 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 don’t do that!
Instead, cut six 12-inch (30cm) lengths of yarn. Fold each piece of yarn in half.
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. It’s flat. But poppies aren’t flat. So pull the ends of the padding yarn to gather the petal (the blue arrow in the photo).
And guess what?! The petal isn’t 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 the 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.
A Mill in Mora
We usually pass through Mora, New Mexico, very early in the morning on our way home from the Taos Wool Festival. For the first time this year, I drove through Mora at exactly the right time to visit the tantalizing Tapetes de Lana (Carpets of Wool) gallery.
The walls of this large gallery are lined with hand-woven rugs, looms stand along one of the room, and the center is filled with hanks of yarn and handcrafts made by people who live around Mora.
Most of the rugs are woven in the subtle colors of natural wools and naturally-dyed wools. They looked timeless and elegant, but I was drawn to a rug in stripes of bright red, forest green, and yellow. The lady who was minding the gallery said with a smile, “That rug is made of acrylic yarn. Some of our ladies still prefer to shop at Walmart for their supplies.” I didn’t mind–sometimes I buy yarn at Walmart, too. And the colors–wow!
The gallery lady was Carla (she didn’t give me her last name), the founder of this non-profit organization. Tapetes de Lana and its associated mill help small ranches to bring their wool, mohair, and alpaca to the market. In addition, local craftsmen can sell their work in the gallery.
Carla offered to show me and two other customers around the mill. It was built within the last few years, from the ground up, with funding from a grant. The mill sometimes buys fiber from small ranches, but it also does custom millwork.
Our tour started just outside the door, where employees skirt the fleeces, picking away the badly soiled or felted areas. Inside we saw mechanical pickers which separate and loosen the fleeces, washing vats, and a tumble dryer that takes its own sweet time, spinning at one half revolution per minute (1/2 rpm).
The carder was at least 20 feet long and 8 feet wide, with multiple drums ranging from very coarse to very fine. It produced ropes of roving, which were fed into the spinning machine. The industrial plying machine was mesmerizing. I could have stood there watching it for a long time.
I think all the equipment in the mill was second-hand. The carder came from the bankruptcy sale of a well-known mill in North Carolina. Some other equipment was handed down from Brown Sheep Company, after they upgraded their mill in Nebraska. Go to the Tapetes web site to see pictures of this amazing collection.
“You must be very proud to know that you are responsible for all this,” I said to Carla when the tour was over.
“It was exciting at first, but then it turned into a lot of work,” said Carla. She looks forward to a day when it isn’t quite so intense, when everyone doesn’t have to multitask so much.
That day may come soon. Carla and her colleagues are developing a yarn that they hope yarn stores will want to stock. In the meantime, they sell small runs of yarn in the gallery, including special blends like alpaca/merino.
The lure of the shop’s soft alpaca blend yarns was strong, but the natural sheen of this indigo-dyed and natural Cotswold wool yarn was too much for me to resist.
If you’re driving on Highway 518 in New Mexico, I hope you’ll stop by Tapetes de Lana and the Mora Valley Spinning Mill. Or if you would like to buy or retail some unique yarns from fiber produced by small-business ranchers, please contact the Mill at:
Tapetes de Lana and the Mora Valley Spinning Mill
Highway 518, Junction 434
P O Box 1135
Mora, NM 87732
November 2009 CAL: Poppies Again
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, it’s definitely achievable.
The secrets of the Poppy’s 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 let’s 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.
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 Cedifra’s 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.
Irish Crochet Lace at Taos
The second day of our Irish Crochet class at the Taos Wool Festival, I waited, seemingly innocently, until everyone left for lunch. Once I was certain they were all gone, I tiptoed around and took pictures of a few of the class samples.
At this point, we had sewn our motifs (made on the first day) to a fabric foundation. Then we bagan crocheting the background that fills in the spaces between the motifs, as well as joining them.
Making Irish Crochet motifs is fun, because they’re so beautiful. Many people, including myself, are not quite so happy about working the crochet background between the motifs. It’s kind of free-form. I usually have to take rows out and re-crochet them several times before I like them.
Luckily, practice makes even the most uncomfortable task easier. Now I just have to finish my own sample. I have a special mantra for times like this: “Begin. Keep going until you’re finished–¦ keep going until you’re finished–¦ No, don’t get up and get a snack–¦ keep going until you’re finished–¦ ”
An Easy Crocheted Poppy
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
- scraps of red and black yarn of the same weight
- 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.
- Join red yarn and work this corrected Rnd 2: *Ch 3, (slst-picot, tr, slst-picot) in same st as join, (tr, slst-picot, tr, slst-picot) in next st, (tr, slst-picot, ch 3, sl st) in next st, ch 1, sc in ch-3 space, ch 1, sl st in next tr. Repeat from * 4 more times (5 petals with 5 slst-picots each). Fasten off.
- Darn in ends.
- With metallic yarn, make three long stitches from the flower center toward the edge of each black “petal” as shown in photo.
- Sew button at center of flower.
Seveness at Stitches Midwest
Stitches Midwest was relaxed and pleasant at the Schaumburg Convention Center. The market was smaller than at other Stitches events, but the yarns and books and tools were just as tempting.
By the time Sunday afternoon rolled around, everyone was tired and suffering from information overload. It was the perfect time for Seveness Knitting–a class where we prepare our pattern by flipping a coin, and then we knit.
Seveness stands for “Suzann’s Sensational Similar Shade Scrap Stripe System,” which uses up scraps of yarn without looking like a scrap project. A former student said, “It’s like you’re creating a luxury fabric.” Well put!
Our Stitches Midwest class did such a great job, I’m thrilled to show you every single swatch they knitted.
A Winner at the Taos Wool Festival
Stephanie Hatfield designed, knitted, and crocheted the garment that became the Grand Champion ribbon winner in the Taos Wool Festival Garment Competition.
The jacket, called “Reverie” after a poem by Emily Dickinson, glowed with the soft colors of bison wool yarn. The crocheted and knitted details keep the eye of the beholder coming back for more.
I am pleased and proud to tell you that the yoke of Stephanie’s jacket was covered with flowers and leaves from Crochet Bouquet. What a thrill it was to see the familiar Plain Pansy, Columbine, and Round Compound Leaves as embellishment on this masterwork.
Congratulations, Stephanie! And congratulations again! (She won the Reserve Grand Champion ribbon, too.)
