Please join our March 2009 Crochet Bouquet Along, when we will be crocheting the Shamrock from pp. 118-119 of Crochet Bouquet.
Lots of U. S. Americans boast Irish ancestry, but everyone is welcome to celebrate St. Patrick”s Day on March 17. The Shamrock is the symbol of the day.
Some use St. Patrick”s Day as a pretext for drinking green-tinted beer. School kids are eager to pinch people who forget to wear green on the day. If you’re in danger of being pinched, just say that you’re wearing green underwear. An honorable kid will refrain from pinching.
When I was a school kid, someone in my grade disdainfully commented that the true color of St. Patrick’s Day, the color that people in Ireland wear on March 17, is orange. My family lived in the UK for several years, and I saw no evidence to support this claim. Orange certainly never replaced green as the St. Patrick’s Day color in my school.
Judith, a Crochet Bouquet Along participant who has made many of the flowers and leaves from Crochet Bouquet, had some difficulty figuring out how to join the pieces of the Shamrock. If she had trouble, others might have trouble, too. So here are some photos, which I hope will help.
Start by crocheting the heart-shape leaflets. Weave in the ends before joining.
Chain the stem. Pick up one leaflet and hold it so you’re looking at the wrong side.
* Find the ch-4 at the pointy tip of the leaflet—it is the first ch-4 at the beginning of Round 2 of the Heart-Shape Leaflet. Insert the hook behind the ch and bring it back to the front on the other side of the ch. (The photo at left shows the hook at this point.) Now sl st around the ch-4. This is called slip stitching around the post.
Ch 1 and sl st into the chain that was just before the sl st around the post. Ch 1.
Pick up the next leaflet and join as you did the first, repeating the instructions from the *. The photo at right shows the hook in position to sl st around the second leaflet.
Repeat from the * once more, and then finish the stem as described in the book. Use sewing thread to sew the points of the leaflets together.
The Shamrock is meant to be sewn or glued to something else as embellishment. It won’t support its own weight. For the sample in this post, I used Crystal Palace Yarns’ Cotton Chenille.