Hook and Needle Girl

I wanted to pre-face this with a little bit of history:

 I wanted to make a project for All Saints Day. When I researched the holiday, I at first got very little information besides what parts of the bible are read during mass on that day. Eventually however I found that in Spain it is a national holiday and instead of just celebrating Christian martyrs they try to remember all of the dead.

Of course my brain just loves free association, and the remembrance of the dead lead me to the memento mori’s of Victorian England. The culture celebrated death to some extent and mourning to a great extent; mostly because Queen Victoria never came out of mourning. They wore pictures of dead relatives, lockets with bits of their hair, and occasionally skulls in intricate gold settings.

Okay, now I knew what I wanted to do, and I chose the colors black- the Victorian color of full mourning, and Violet, the color of half-mourning.

(So you see- there is a method to my madness.)

The pattern is quick, and I made it in one night.

Materials: Size B crochet hook, Size 10 crochet thread in Violet and Black, (only a very little bit), hair clips- also called quilt binding clips, skull beads and a tapestry needle.

Gauge: not important, but about 8 st/inch

Some quick abbreviations:

sc- single crochet

hdc- half double crochet

dc- double crochet

tc- triple crochet

qc- quadruple crochet

Start by making an adjustable ring and single crochet (sc) 6 into ring, pull it closed and slip stitch(sl st) to join.

Round 1: Chain (ch) 3, sc in next sc, repeat 5 times (should be 6 ch 3 loops)

Round 2: (sc, hdc, 5 dc, hdc, sc) in each ch 3 sp around

Round 3: Join violet, and from back of project make a sc around the sc post from round 1, ch 3, (sc around next sc post, ch 3) repeat 4 times (6 ch 3 loops)

Round 4: (sc, hdc, dc, 3 tc, dc, hdc, sc) in each ch 3 sp

Round 5: pick up black and sc around the first post in round 3, ch 4 and repeat 5 times (6 ch 4 loops)

Round 6: (sc, hdc, dc, 5 tc, dc, hdc, sc) in each ch 4 sp around

Round 7: pick up violet, sc around the post of the first sc in round 5, ch 4, repeat with next 5 posts, (5 ch 4 loops)

Round 8: (sc, hed, dc, 2tc, 3 qc, 2tc, dc, hdc, sc) in each chain 4 loop, sl st to first sc in round to join, and  break yarn.
Weave in all ends, and use some extra black thread and the tapestry needle to connect the bead to the center of the flower and the flower to the hair clip. (The flower, the hair clip and hopefully the bead will all have convenient holes for this purpose.)  Tie off the yarn, and tuck the end in.  Ta-da!