Figure 49, a beautiful, nearly ethereal, Autumnal make. I really loved the outcome of this design..perfect for practicing Clones Knots, learning to understand patterns by looking at a photo, and constructing more complex designs with padding cord..
Note: My notes & the pattern in the book are written in UK Terminology
At first glance I wasn't the most excited about beginning, mainly due to the amount of Clones Knots that were facing me... see photo below! The blackberry section is made up entirely of this quite complex stitch. But to my surprise after a little practice and a small trick I'll mention further down in this post I found myself actually enjoying these little knots.
I feel like you really can't hide your progress with a Clones Knot and you'll see in my motif mine are far from perfect and need more practice.. but I can also see a nice difference between the first couple I made in the blackberries and the last. I started to improve my tension and I know I'll improve further the more I do..
Anyway, lets get into the instructions. For the most part the instructions in the book are very clear - however I found the instructions for the Blackberry stems a little challenging so I had to do a little research and quite a bit of trial and error. I've written my notes / versions of the instructions for that part below.
Here is my finished piece, and below it I've given some process photos & notes for each step. I've started photographing on a brown background - I feel like it grounds the piece more and is a bit more relaxing to look at - what do you think?
Step 1: Details of Blackberry Leaf
I followed these instructions as per the book, however it took me a moment to understand what it was asking of me. When the instructions say "work up the other side of centre chain in the same way .." this means that you work on the other side of the chain that you haven't worked on and you work in reverse to what you just did. So 1DC where you did a 1DC on other side, 1 HTC in the next two stitches etc. I put 3DC at the end of this line too.
For the second row and every row after; Work BLO (back loops only) the whole way across
When you're joining the padding cord - work the DC in both loops of the stitches all the way around.
Keep adjusting the PC as you go around to ensure the leaf lays flat.
At the end of the leaf where it says work a few DC over the cord for the stem - I made around 6 DC and left quite a long tail of padding cord and working thread (see pic below) as you will use these to join the three leaves together at the end.
You can adjust the leaf pattern to make these leaves bigger or smaller - I'm not the best at maths so I didn't attempt it this time :)
I made 4 five holed leaves, and 2 six hole leaves.
Joining the three leaves together - personally I slip stitched from one stem into another and DC'd around all padding cord from the pieces - so it was around 4 strands of PC for each leaf.
Step 2: Berries
It's probably easier to write the full instructions here - I will add my additional notes in red
Chain 10
Take a piece of PC and work 1DC over 1 strand of cord about 2 inches from the end - I got my already 2 strand (doubled over as usual) piece of PC and doubled it over again with one part being very long - the usual end strands, and the other side was around 3/4 inches long. I slip stitched into this bend to join in working thread- so instead of having the usual two strands of PC hanging down you now have 4 strands - 2 separate parts plus your working threads (a lot of thread!)
Work over all 4 strands of PC working 1DC into each of the 10 chain.
(chain 7, pull cord up * I brought the longer end of the cord (2 strands) up and slip stitched to attach * and pull until it is a little shorter than the 7 chain. Then do 1DC into each stitch of chain, working over the cord) - repeat this step 3 times.
Chain 12, 1 DC on cord, turn and work 1DC in each of the 12 stitches of the chain
Work 2DC between each little stem (I did this over the PC), catch back with a sl stitch to the top of the last stem - so for this bit, the only thing that made sense to me was slip stitching it to what I would call the bottom of the stem (not the tips where the berries would go). This worked for me but let me know if you did it another way :) They might have meant this as the top but I'm not sure..
1DC in 1st stem
Work DC over the cord alone for the short stem - so for here, after this bit is where I fastened off my thread and started a new piece of thread in the next bit of instructions. I don't think that's what was meant but it worked for me for now..
Now work 2DC in the long stem of 12 DC - I did this at the top tip of the longest stem (where the berries would go)
(ch1, 2DC in next stem) x 4 times. TURN
Chain 5 and the 5 chain work a Clones Knot of 20 overs - so as I mentioned earlier my trick when making Clones Knots is to wrap the thread further down the hook on the thickest part, then when you're ready to pass the thread through- gently hold the loops and carefully slip them down the hook and then the thread will pass through easily as the loops will be bigger than that part of the hook. To those of us who are relatively new to Clones Knots - this little piece of information helped me so much.
1DC in first stem
Do a Clones Knots (I was generally working these on a 3 chain - sometimes doing 15 overs, sometimes 20)
Repeat this across - making 1 DC in each space and 1DC in each stem
Chain 14 and carry the chain across the back of the work. Catch in the side of the berry beside the first knot.
Work 4 or 5 more rows of knots, putting the dc between the knots of the last row
*** the small berries only have 4 little stems instead of 5 - for those I worked a chain of 10 instead of 14.
Step 3 and 4: Flowers and Stem
I generally followed the instructions in the book for these two parts. I joined all the various stems together with the same method that I joined the leaves and then I sewed the flower stem and the leaf stems to the main stem with a needle and thread. This part can take a little patience but it's worth it once you start to see it all coming together, remember to keep looking back to the picture for help on placement..
Please let me know if you have any questions or if you also made this beautiful motif :)
Until next time,
Go raibh míle maith agaibh,
Crochet Ciuin
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