Freeform Continued

I decided to do my freeform ruffle in Noro Aurora
#8, which is a really cool yarn that has a metallic bit to it (you can see a little bit of sparkle to it in the close up). I thought that two hanks would be plenty. But I underestimated the amount of yarn that freeform takes.

By the time I had done the chain stitch and about a third of the ruffle, I had gone through most of the two hanks, so I figured I needed about 6 more hanks. Problem was, Noro had discontinued the color! Say hello to Ebay. I found this yarn store on Ebay: A Yarn for All Seasons. They had the Noro I needed and they had it for a GREAT price.

I wanted to show you all how it was coming along. I also wanted to give you a feel for what you can do for your freeform projects should you ever choose to do any. At one time, I was fascinated with flowers and was doing lots of them just for the fun of it. I ended up with bowls of crocheted flowers and no place to put them. I think I have found a place for them!

So here are some photos of the ruffles, of the ruffles with some of the flowers and an overview of the ruffle with the flowers plopped down on them.

Freeform Project

I made a purple shawl quite awhile ago and it needed a bit more to it. So after reading Myra Wood's book, I decided to add some freeform embellishment. She calls it a surface crochet ruffle (p. 55). I think it is a form of doodle lace. The first thing you have to do is set your guide line out on the shawl, scarf or whatever piece you are working on. I used a black thread and pinned it onto the shawl. Here's an overview of the squiggle and then I also have a close up shot of the black thread being pinned down. The pinning was a bit of a pain and they did fall out. I'm wondering how to do that in a better way next time. It didn't seem to be very efficient. It also didn't seem to facilitate crocheting the yarn to the shawl, but I am getting ahead of myself.


The next step is to start chain stitching and to randomly attach the chain stitches to the shawl so that it will resemble the shape that your guide thread has picked out. You can incorporate your guide thread into the look or plan to pull it out later when you finish (I pulled it out).

If you look at the top photo again, you can see in the lower left hand corner that there are some chain stitches starting. The process was not an efficient one, as I started to say. There was a lot of turning the shawl this way and that trying to get the right angle. But perhaps that is just a quirk of freeform.

I have now finished the entire chain and pulled out the guide thread and have started on the ruffle and am now getting really excited about the whole project. I've looked through the basket of crocheted flowers I have made in the past and there are quite a few that will work for this shawl. I am using a lovely Noro yarn for the ruffle and I think it will be quite a piece of work when it is done.

Creative Crochet Lace: A Freeform Look at Classic Crochet by Myra Wood

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
Excellent book for the crocheter who wants a guiding hand to explain how to freeform. Myra Wood explains the technique behind freeform crochet and gives you some sample patterns to try out and venture forth. She breaks it down into five forms: funky filet, doodle lace, tossed salad, wild Irish crochet, and organic lace scrumbling. She shows you major projects she created with each type of freeform along with a basic outline of how it was done. She then talks about embellishment.



She goes through some more projects that vary in difficulty and then profiles different freeform masters and shows examples of their works. This is a must have book for anyone interested in freeform crochet.




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