Free Old Fashioned Flower Crochet Pattern

 I was reorganizing my crafts board on pinterest and came across this inspiration I'd pinned a while back. Unfortunately the link was broken and there was no pattern. I liked it enough to write my own patters.  I write a lot of patterns for what I carry in my etsy shop, but I don't share them or sell them for now.  I figured I probably won't sell this pattern since someone else created it, so time to payback the crochet world for all the awesome free crochet patterns I've found.  Here is what I came up with. 

My creation

The petals on my old fashioned flower are a bit more distinct, but I like it that way.  What do you think? 

Here's the pattern along with pictures of each step.  

I used three colors, a G Hook, and Caron Simply Soft Yarn. 

Step 3: The wagon wheel becomes a hexagon

Steps 1 & 2 make a wagon wheel
with 6 spokes of 2 DC each

1. With color one Ch 4.  Join with a slip stitch to form loop.

2. Slip stitch into loop.  Ch 3.  DC. Ch1,  [2 DC, CH 1] 5 times.  Slip Stitch into top of Ch 3.  Tie off Color 1.
3. Join Color 2 in any CH 1 space.  CH3 DC, CH1, 2DC all in first chain 1 space.  [2DC, CH 1, 2DC] in the five remaining CH 1 spaces.  Slip stitch into top of CH 3 to join.
4. Slip stitch in next stitch,[slip stitch into CH 1 space, CH 2, 6 DC, CH 2, Slip stitch into same CH 1 space, Slip stitch in next three stitches] 6 times.  Tie off color 2.

Now it's starting to look like a flower!

5.  With Color 3, Join by single crocheting  into the top of the first(rightmost) CH 2 of any petal. * SC in next 6 stitches of petal.  Skip CH 2 and next Slip stitch, SC into next stitch covering both the slip stitch and the stitch below. Skip next Slip stitch then SC into top of Chain 2.   Repeat from * 5 times. Slip Stitch into first stitch with Color 3 and tie off. 

 

Weave in the ends and voila!

 There are a bunch of ideas floating around in my head about how I'd like to use this...You may see some soon in my shop :) What would you do with them?

I'm not a card carrying feminist but...

To be honest, since I've become a mom I've really wondered how far we have come.  We being women.  Now we are not only expected to keep a tidy house, raise good children, feed the family, and be a general family manager, but now we MUST significantly contribute financially as well.  It can be a bit overwhelming. Often a lot overwhelming, at least for me.

Yet all these thoughts flew out the window when I was at the park last week with my son.  First of all I was aggravated because even in the year 2013 people still light up cigarettes around children.  It doesn't make a difference if it's open air or not!  Get that thing away from me and my family!!

My son is a bit of a daredevil when it comes to play and I'm the kind of parent who believes in letting him try out what he wants to do (within reason).  Of course J is not satisfied with the 4 and under playground, so we headed over to the big kids playground.  He led the way onto the "ship." It's a neat playground near the river.  The equipment was just replaced from what was there when I was a kid.  The new one is made to resemble a pirate ship, you know, if pirate ships had slides to exit and rock climbing style ladders to board.

And now we're to the point where I get really upset.  We go to the park later in the afternoon so it's not too crowded, so only J and I (I do insist on following fairly closely when he fancies himself to be a big boy) and a group of 5 children around age 8 to 11.  A little girl is the ring leader and sets the stage for the play game.  Naturally they're pirates.  The ring leading girl begins a story telling a younger boy she will need to be saved as she is helplessly drowning at sea...

Why couldn't she swim?

Why in this day and age do girls still think they need to be saved by boys?

Why couldn't she be heroic? or brave?  or at least fight for her life?

Why couldn't one of the boys be the floundering victim?

Why are women still painting ourselves as helpless?

Why are helpless women put on a pedestal?

I really wanted to scream at this little girl, but I realized it's not her fault she thinks this way.  This has be replaying in my mind for weeks and it still bothers me.  Hopefully, this post will help me put it to rest.

Thoughts?