embroidery floss crochet Archives - Page 5 of 7

Purple barn owl

It feels like a long time since I sat down and did a crochet project start to finish, so this weekend I spent some time trying for just that. I went through a bunch of links on Crochet Pattern Central and even printed out two (though one went into the recycling shortly thereafter when I realized it had printed with a significant part of the right end of each line cut off). I sorted through my books of patterns and even began making a dragon, from a pattern I’d used before. I also began an orangutan from one of the new patterns, but it wasn’t calling my name.

Finally, yesterday evening I decided to make an owl. I had been working on an owl for a while, the location of which I could not tell you offhand, but I wanted to make a barn owl and also work in embroidery floss, which I hadn’t in quite a while. This is the result:

His feet are made from a black twist tie that extends up his back under his wings and keeps him upright. He’s hanging out with some stained glass shorebirds my grandfather made.

Elephmints

One of my earliest embroidery floss crochet projects was Roman Sock’s instant crochetification elephant. You can see my first elephant in my family photo. It is now in the keeping of one of my cousins. After learning a friend’s younger brother had pronounced it “elephmints” as a child, I decided to make some elephmints. I thought it would be good practice for color work. And it was, though I delayed making them so long that I’d gotten other practice for color beforehand. Anyway, here they are!

Starlight Elephmint was started in January and completed last weekend. I had to change the pattern because originally the initial rounds are multiples of seven stitches, which wasn’t going to work well for a starlight mint pattern. There was a lot of color changing and the floss skeins were thoroughly twisted together when I finished. The trunk and legs are not made by color changing, but by adding one color in the middle of a round and then working alternately with each, stitching as far around as possible with one before switching to the next, as in the last of my mother’s potholders. I also changed the ears to magic rings with ch 2, 8 dc in ring, ch 2 and sl st into ring; join new yarn to ring and ch 3, sc across (which somehow became only 7 sc?), ch 3 and sl st to ring; tighten ring. They aren’t as big as they could be; I’d probably do some sc inc across if I did it over. His tail is a chain stitch with one strand of each color, slip stitched on and with an overhand knot at the end.

The one I think came out much better, Elephmint Chocolate Chip, was completed in December. My multipacks of cheap floss included a good mint ice cream green, but I bought the dark chocolate brown specially. There were no changes to the pattern here (except I did the ears as magic rings with ch 3 on each end of the triples, since when I try to do them as ch 7s they get all pulled out of shape; this may be entirely the fault of working with embroidery floss). I simply threw in an isolated brown stitch every once in a while. It came out better than I could have planned – the effect is remarkably reminiscent of the little flat chips, square or sometimes shaped like half a log, that you find in mint chocolate chip ice cream. His tail is two strands of brown, threaded through his behind so they end up doubled, and overhand knotted at the base and the end.

The very flower of nerdiness

The July CAL on Ravelry was flower themed. I had, of course, just recently made flowers for an Amigurumi Army mission, so I worried about ideas. However, I had also just been in Colorado for a wedding and become enamored of wild lupine, so I thought I would make something purple. My thought was penstemon, or beard-tongue, but my efforts turned into more of a bellflower, so I embraced that. The pattern is simple (as always, abbreviations here): sc 6 in a magic ring. *sc 3, 2sc* four times so there are 10 sc in the round. *sc, ch 2, sc in back bump of second ch from hk, sc in next st of rnd* five times. Sl st, sl st, ch 1 [do not sk any sts], sl st, sl st, FO. (The ch 1 helps with the point of the first petal, which seems to need it.)

Since it turned into the kind of flower it did, I made a calyx for it. If you’re making a calyx you probably want to leave the loose ends of the flower yarn hanging out the back center of the flower. Each sepal is a chain with stitches down it, and this works best (stays flattest) if you stitch into only the top loop of the chain. Make a slip knot. *ch 7, and starting in second ch from hk, sl st, sl st, sc, hdc, hdc* five times (each time you’ll have a ch left over). Sl st to join and then sc around the inside opening, one sc per sepal (5 total). Put the loose ends of the flower yarn through the center of the calyx, stitch them through a loop and tie them together. Braid them with the initial end of the calyx and sc onto that braid with the working end of the calyx yarn. You’ll need to tighten it down on the braid and have the top of the stitches spiral around the braid to make it stable and straight.

[Alternatively, of course, you can make a stem however you like, or just finish off the yarn and have a brooch-style flower.]

The Amigurumi Army mission for July was nerdy crochet. I thought about something from a fandom, but couldn’t come up with anything I wanted to make. However, as we know, I am mathematically minded, so I looked in that world and found this:

A binary tree.

I made it from the top down, sewing as little as possible: when the second piece of each pair was made I just continued into the next segment down, stitching around the first piece without a gap. This required just a little thought about the order of operations. The only significant sewing was the leaves, though that was pretty significant. The smallest bits are 5sc in a magic ring, continued without increase. Then I just put pieces together and stitched around without counting, trying to keep things fairly compact, which is why nothing is exactly symmetric after that. The whole shebang is held up by eight pipe cleaners, one inside each of the smallest branches.

I finished it while visiting a friend with a jewelry tree, so I asked them to pose together.