It beat me!

I managed to finish my little floweret last night ... its not good!  I'll probably get round to taking a picture but in the end my padding cord wasn't thick enough ... the finished floweret didn't have enough depth & the very find thread means that the twist is barely visible.

I think I will have to try again with thicker thread & a more padded padding cord, maybe 4 strands rather than 2.

irish crochet twist - the progress is slow

Sadly the progress with my irish crochet twist is slow, I am using no80 thread and a 0.5mm hook .... unfortunately I have suffered a crochet related injury by stabbing myself in the finger with my hook. 

Needless to say the project got thrown in disgust following this incident.

I aim to continue with the project when I get home from work this evening - with suitable protection this time :)

Irish Crochet Twist - Complicated!!

I am attempting to crochet this "floweret" that comes from a very old DMC crochet book.  I wanted to try to create the loop motif & thought that this was a fairly simple example to start with.

Well the complication comes with the way the pattern is written.  Here is a section of the pattern as an example.

Make a ring with the cord foundation and crochet 15 plain stitches on this ring continue over the cord foundation and make 1 plain stitch on the stitch of the ring on wiich the plain stitch that preceeds the little ring is set.

It took me to read this quite a few times to try to understand it ... I'm not 100% sure that I do even now, but I am trying to create my floweret regardless ... Once I have finished one I'll post a picture & you can let me know what you think .. did I get it or not!

Irish Crochet Necklace - Old Rose & passion flower

Walnut Baby shop

I started by creating the passion flowers, really I wanted the challenge of creating the roll (or Bullion) stitches & the clones knots that are required for the center & the pistils.

They are quite tricky stitches and more so when using fine thread.  This particular necklace is created with No 30 crochet cotton, so not the finest my any means - but fine enough !

I decided to create an Old rose this time rather than the more traditional Irish rose

It love the lacy petals, I think it creates a beautiful and delicate centre for this piece.

I finished off with a sprig of open work leaves & joined the flowers with little double leaf motifs.

The chain of the necklace is quite plain, but given the complexity of the motifs I thought that this was best. 

This necklace has a tie closure so that the wearer can adjust the length to fit.  When using a tie closer I like to add little crochet covered washers to the end of the chains - this adds a little weight to make the ends hang nicely, otherwise they are prone to curling up.

Irish Crochet Necklace - Irish rose design

Walnut Baby shop

This is one of my favorite necklaces that I have made so far.  It is created with 3 Irish roses, one large and 2 smaller.  Then 2 Irish Crochet rose leaves are added.

In crocheting the necklace "chain" I added in some gutterman beads in groups of 3 along each chain.

I have added some covered crochet covered washers to the ends of the chain to add weight and make them hang nicely when tied. 

There is no specific closure, the chains are tied to close - in that way the necklace lenght can be altered to neck size and also to neckline.

I used no30 multi-coloured crochet thread.  I really like the effect that the multi-coloured thread creates.

Christmas flower necklace

Walnut Baby shop

This flower didn't quite work as expected, but I prefer the way it turned out in the end. It, in theory, should have been much flatter - but I tend to work my crochet quite tight so in the end it became quite 3D.

I prefer the fact the petals stand up from each other it makes the whole flower much more real.

The flower itself reminds me of a poinsettia, which is very much a Christmas flower in the UK (perhaps the rest of the world too??).

The dark red and pink thread also helps with the Christmas theme.  Again, this is no 80 crochet thread.

The necklace "chain" is made with crochet over 2 strands of padding cord & I finished off the necklace with an iridescent flower button for the closure.

Christmas Irish Rose Brooch

Walnut Baby shop

This is created using No 20 Crochet cotton for the main body of the rose. To make this brooch a Christmas Irish rose I added in DMC Metalic embroidery thread in Gold.

Initially I started creating a standard Irish rose and when I reached the fifth layer of petals I then added in the Gold thread. Then again on the sixth layer of petals I added a final row of Gold.

To finish off the rose I created a center in gold thread as well.

This particular thread is quite difficult to crochet. It tends to split into the individual strands and takes quite a bit of patients to keep the work neat and avoid stray loops.

The thread itself is quite course to work with and it can bite into your fingers when working with it. Fortunately in this particular piece the amount of working with this thread was limited so I managed to avoid too much damage!

I think the effort was worth it in the end, the gold thread catches the light beautifully. I think that it turned out to be a really pretty festive brooch.