The other day, I completed a new flower motifs collar after nearly a week laboring the design and technique. As with previous Irish-crochet inspired pieces that I completed in several days, this collar consists of flower motifs, this time in multi-color cotton thread.

I started by crocheting the flowers separately and then arranging them on a flat surface. Typically, I crochet as many flowers as I like, sometimes guided by a general design idea such as “one large flower surrounded by medium sized ones and two or three tiny ones of different color placed somewhere along the margins.”


The next step is joining the flower motifs together all along the outside of the shape through crochet stitches. To hold the motifs together while working, I sometimes use pins as shown in the photograph below.

In the inside of the shape, I decided not to use crochet stitches this time, but rather to use a needle, as I have seen in some of the techniques in making needle-made laces. This results in a tighter, closer and stiffer join.

Here is the finished shape. I made two of these, each with three small rings along one end for joining together. Although, making these shapes wasn’t too difficult, I spent a lot of time testing and deciding on the final shape of the collar, as well as the method of joining them together and securing the collar in place.

I had thought of making two asymmetrical collars, a collar with a criss-cross tie like a lace-up corset, as well as using the shape as a hairband. The final design is so simple (a collar joined with rings in the middle and secured with flower pin) that one wouldn’t think I had to go through all the trouble of trying out all sorts of other designs.

The finished flower motifs collar, available at The Crochetology Shop at http://crochetology.net/shop/

With the collar now out of the way, I have returned to working on the motif top (or dress) which I started several weeks ago using a motif from a free shrug pattern from Pierrot Yarns Japan.

Motif dress in progress

I stopped at the point where I needed to make a decision whether to make a top or to make a whole dress. I am tempted to make a dress but couldn’t really bear having to make more of the same motifs. So this time, I decided to use two different motifs for the lower half of the dress.

Detail of one of the motifs.

For the lower half, I have started using a larger hook in order to make larger motifs to accommodate the hips. Without shaping, I will look like a springroll with a bulge in the stomach and the bum.

The new motifs are likewise crochet joined. The most difficult in this process is again the decision-making – which motifs to use? Which motifs will go well together visually and structurally? It was also necessary to modify the motifs that I used which came from crochet dictionaries and the shrug pattern.

For instance,I decided to lessen the number of dc’s in the dc-bobbles of the motif from the shrug pattern so that I can come up with a lighter fabric more suitable for the summer time. I also had to modify the last rows of the two additional motifs in order to use them together with a join-as-you-go method.

So yes, this crocheted garment is hopefully going to be a dress if I don’t get distracted into turning it into something else.