Crocheted square with a vintage-inspired flower motif

Here is the finished vintage-inspired flower crocheted square. In this blog post, I will share with you step-by-step process of creating one. If you attempt making one yourself, please share with me whether the instructions worked and whether they were easy to follow.

Materials used:

1.)    Alafosslopi - LOPI Wool  (3 shades: arctic exposure, golden heather
        & acorn heather)
2.)    a crochet hook (5,25 mm)
3.)    a blocking board for crochet squares

Abbreviations:

yrh - yarn round hook
tr - treble crochet
ch - chain stitches
ss - slip stitch
dc - double crochet
htr - half treble crochet
hdc - half double crochet
pop- popcorn
puff - puff stitch

STEP 1, 2 & 3 - Create a foundation chain
Start with a slip knot on your hook and then create 3 chains by working a (yrh) wrapping the yarn around the hook and drawing a loop through the loop on the hook for each new stitch.

STEP 4 & 5 - Use a slip stitch to form a foundation ring
Once you have your three chains, then insert the hook through the first chain made, wrap the yarn around the hook, and draw a loop through the chain and the loop on the hook to close the ring.

STEP 6, 7, 8, 9 & 10 - Create 10 (tr) treble crochet stitches into the foundation ring. 
              

STEP 11, 12 & 13    Join round with a (ss) slip stitch.

Switch to a different colour ( or for flower here - Alafosslopi arctic exposure shade)

STEP 14 to 25 - Create 10 puffs with 1 ch of separation between each

Create 2 ch and then work ***1 puff into the space between treble stitches (on how to create a puff stitch CLICK HERE), then make 1 ch, repeat from *** til you have 10 puffs, join round with (ss) slip stitch.

Switch to a different colour ( or for flower here - Alafosslopi acorn heather shade )

STEP 26 to 37 - Create 10 petals by working a popcorn stitch with 3 chains in between each

Create 3 ch, work popcorn in the space between the puffs, ***3 ch, work popcorn, repeat from *** until you have 10 popcorn, join round with (ss) slip stitch.

The flower itself is now finished. In the next step, we want to create a background square for this flower so that it can be easily made into a scarf, a blanket or a shawl or something else you fancy.

CROCHET THE SQUARE BACKGROUND

Switch to a different colour ( or for flower here - Alafosslopi arctic exposure shade)

STEP 1 - Fill in the gaps in between the flower petals

Make 4 (tr) treble crochet stitches in the three chain space between the petals.

STEP 2 - Shaping the background to a square.

We start off by making the corner:

Make 2 ch / hdc** in the next dc / dc / dc + tr / tr, ch2, tr / tr, dc / dc

** hdc - The half double crochet falls in between a single crochet and a double crochet in height, but instead of working off two loops at a time, you draw the yarn through three loops on the hook.

Stitches between the corners:
hdc x 5 times

We connect it now to the Corner #2:
and then reverse the process, dc / dc, tr / tr, ch2, tr / tr + dc / dc

5 hdc between / Corner # 3 / 5 hdc between / Corner #4 / 5 hdc between / ss

How to block your crochet square?

You may find that after you have finished crocheting your square that the corners of your crochet are curled up as you have been handling it for a good half an hour to 40 minutes, so to make sure that your work is straight and even looking, it is best to put your crocheted square through the blocking process.

I invested in a proper blocking board which makes it easy to do, but if you don't have one, there are other ways in which you can do this.

Here is my method:

1.)  with a spray bottle, you thoroughly damp the square all around,
      especially the corners

2.)  depending on the size of your square, you adjust the board pins
      in such a way that the square is not too stretched out

3.) leave it to dry (I usually put three at the same time and leave it
     over night)

Happy crocheting!

Fisherman 's Rib vs Brioche Stitch Knitting

Fisherman Rib Pattern 1: Multiple of 2+1

Foundation row: Knit
1st row: (RS): Sl 1, *K1B, p1; rep from * to end
2nd row: Sl 1, *p1, K1B, rep from * to last 2 sts, p1, k1
Repeat the last 2 rows only.

Image - Pattern 1

Brioche Stitch Rib Pattern

Cast on an even number of stitches
Foundation row: yf sl 1 yo, K1

PATTERN row: *yf sl 1 yo, BRK 1; repeat from * til the end

BRK - means Brioche Knit

(knit the stitch that was slipped in the previous row together with its yarn over)

Freshly made bouquet of crocheted roses

Finally here, my very own bouquet of crocheted roses! I've been meaning to create these for some time now - freshly made this morning.
SunchiB ♥

Time to have a cup of tea :)

My latest tea pot cozy in cable knit with pom-poms...

Chunky wool scarf with cables...

Hand knitted scarf in moss stitch with 9 & 18 stitch cables.

Hooded Snood in the cable knit with an upholstered giant button

I found this pattern on Deramores website and I simply fell in love it... So I ordered a pattern and the wool and here comes the most beautiful hooded snood. Winter is slowly creeping up here in Australia and this lovely hooded snood has been already out keeping my neck nice and warm. Because I love big buttons I slightly changed the design and instead of 3 smaller buttons, here you can see one giant size button upholstered in dark grey Indian cotton.

How to convert an old window frame into a chalk board....

This is my new chalk board that serves for the sharing of inspirational quotes,

 but also looks very decorative on any wall in our house! 

Believe it or not, this used to be an old window frame, now converted into a very decorative and useful piece of art that will stand out on any wall in your home. In this post I am sharing with you the step by step process of how to make a board like this by yourself in your spare time. I hope you try it and enjoy the final product.

STEP 1:

Dust off the old window frame.

STEP 2:

Lay it flat on a surface and do a gentle sanding down, covering the whole frame area.

STEP 3:

Just to make sure that the paint will stick to wood well, apply primer first - this will bond the top coat of paint really well with the wood. Allow 2 hours to dry.

STEP 4:

In order to get the old french provincial look, you can apply a darker colour to the edges of the frame - for this you may want to choose dark grey, black or dark brown. Paint is applied scarcely and whilst wet, you can use a cotton cloth to rub it into the wood. We are after that natural look - aiming away from perfection.

Allow an hour to two to dry.

STEP 5:

Now you can measure the size of the window and get the piece of ply-board in that exact size from your local Bunnings or Masters store. Cut the plywood to the exact dimensions. Once you have your ply-board, we can now prepare it for chalk paint. Just like with the frame, we start off by applying the primer, this will make sure that our chalk paint sticks well. Allow 2 hours to dry.

STEP 6:

Now you are ready to apply the black chalk paint. You will need to apply the chalk paint twice, waiting 2 hours in between the coats.

STEP 7:

Meanwhile, we apply the desired colour on our window frame - I used off white colour. We go over the whole frame, even the darker painted corners. As you are painting away, you would use a cloth to rub off some of the colour to show the darker coat underneath that we applied around the edges of the frame. Depending on how it looks, you may want to re-apply the darker colour around the corners and keep rubbing it into the wood until you get the desired effect.  Leave overnight to dry.

STEP 8:

Now we are ready to take the glass out of the window frame and fix the newly painted black chalkboard into the frame. Use a staple gun to secure it into the frame.

STEP 9:

You may want to use a hammer to secure any staples that are stubborn and don't want to go all the way in.

STEP 10:

The last thing we have to do is add the cord at the back of the frame so that we can hang it onto the wall. I have used the staple gun for the cord as well, leaving it secure and strong enough to hang onto the wall.

Your Decorative Black Board is Now Ready to Be Used!

Be creative and change your message as often as you like....

GREAT IN THE HALLWAY

I was hoping to make this a useful tutorial, so please let me know if you find it useful and if I missed anything in the instructions.

HAPPY CREATIONS!!!