Formerly known as Flower Cloth, Crochet Charm Lace is made of separately crocheted motifs, fitted together and pinned, right-side-down, on a waste-fabric template, then sewn together wherever they touch. The fabric is removed and the lace turned right-side-up.
Why the new name? My new book, Cute Crochet World, has lots of motifs that are perfect for the Flower Cloth technique, but they’re not flowers.
The inspiration for Crochet Charm Lace came partly from the quilting world. A charm quilt is patchwork, where every patch is from a different fabric. Since you can use yarns in different weights, colors, and textures, the “charm” part of the name seemed to make sense. I call it “lace” because the fabric has spaces that let the light shine through.
The first Crochet Charm Lace project I made was the enormous Rose Poncho. I crocheted dozens of Oval Center Roses, Simple Fives, and Rose Leaves (from Crochet Bouquet). For a template, I sewed a poncho using a commercial poncho pattern and some unfortunatey ugly fabric. I pinned the motifs to the template. Sewing all those motifs together took forever!
This doughnut-shaped doily is true to the “charm” aspect of Crochet Charm Lace, because of the many different yarns in the project. Find step-by-step photos and instructions at http://crochetinsider.com/article/crocheted-flower-fabric. All the motifs are from Crochet Bouquet.
The Trillium Flower Scarf is made from motifs from Crochet Garden. You can see step-by-step photos for putting the scarf together here.