Leaves, Leaves, Leaves

Ahhhh. Leaves are my delight, especially as lariat/neckwarmer adornments. And I am proud to have developed
a wonderful maple leaf, and to have improved my gingko leaf.


Yet I needed more for the garland/lariat/neckwarmer and as I'm not a fan of repeats, more is indeed, more for me.
I thought about an old leaf spray and didn't remember the souce. I searched for it on the web and couldn't find it.
Digging through my samples, I found it! The green leaf spray was my sample.. and it feels good, right, well done...
but how to do it?

My patterns are an unreachable floor away and I have, unsuccessfully sent someone to find my crochet flower pattern books.... so I trieed to decode the stitches and I remembered on thing about the construction, that the first (closest) leaf is the last one to be made. The white one is the reproduction, I think I came close.



I am very inspired by Roberta Wong's peerless book on crocheted lei. In it she has a tiny leaf, Rereading it as I set about designing my Fall Leaf adornments, I found what I was missing: a small leaf, created in what seems a totally different way. It unlocked a whole series of thoughts. Her leaf was created to accompany buds and flowers, to be twisted in a bundle. As mine is more a singular entity, I needed a plumper,fuller representation. And this was easily accomplished,

What a refreshing antidote to the stolid march of stitches and stitch heights along a chain!


Then I did find a leaf spray, this white one, a new one to me. Very gestural, the leaves look sketched and
I think this would be fab fab fab if I had white wool, so I could felt it, and make the small leaves firm....

Well this leaf spray had a similarity of approach in the leaf creation to the larger spray, in that it wasn't about
the march of stitches and stitch heights along a chain. Each is shaped. And it is easy to make each one
different and still stay true to, well remember, LOL! the pattern.


So I'm almost ready to do a leaf pattern collection. I thought I was before, but now that I have several approaches
to leaf making, I think the collection is more robust.

Ginkgo/Little Fan Pattern

I may have mentioned that I'm working on a series of leaf patterns that I will offer as a collection for sale in my Etsy store. I shared this one on the FreeForm Crochet Group, and I'm sharing it here.
I will have another more articulated and larger version in the Leaf Collection.

I miss the gingkos that i would visit each fall and collect leaves from. Their fruit smelled like chesse, a funky edibility. They adorned a strip near the railraod track that ran through the center of town, right by the bridge and parallel to the river. They shimmered in the fall with their yellow gold green leaves. I read they are the oldest of tree form families.

Gingko/Little Fan

Ch 4, 4 DC in 4th ch from hook, turn
ch2, 3 dc in first dc, 2 dc in next 3 dc, 3 dc in last dc, turn
ch2, sl st in same st, (small picot made), sl st across to #5, make large picot: ch3
slst in same st, sl st to edge, at edge picot: ch 2 sl st in same st,
sl st down side 5 times to center dc (#3)
ch 4, sl st in second chain from hook & up chain to in center dc
sl st 5 times up side to starting sl st
fasten off weave ends in.

Joy in the making,
Akua