A chunk of my crochet time comes from my lunch break at work. I try to take something minimally messy to eat and I get in as many stitches as I can, frequently at my desk. This leads, at times, to questions. There are a couple of particularly crafty and kind people who show genuine interest. While I was making dragonflies earlier in the week, one of the crafty kind people asked, “What are you going to do with these tiny dragonflies?” And while I had visions of decorating everything in my life with them, I had to think realistically about what I could do with them. In addition to crocheting, I love to twist wire and string beads, so I have a fair amount of supplies with which to do just that. I decided to make crochet dragonfly jewelry with these tiny crochet dragonflies!

Crocheting leaves is the crochet equivalent of eating candy. They are quick, easy, instantly gratifying, and you can go through a bunch without even realizing it. Just as we don’t create our meals out of candy (not many of them, anyway), we can’t create whole projects out of crochet leaves. They embellish and decorate items beautifully, but don’t make up a sweater, scarf, afghan, or slippers on their own. I certainly don’t want a life without candy, literal and metaphorical, so I present crochet leaf patterns with variations and some information on how to create your own variations.

This lacy waves crochet scarf started life as a shawl idea. That is to say, I was in the process of designing a shawl when I realized I didn’t have enough of the yarn I started it with. Soon, this scarf emerged into being.

This is the Stephen Hat, a crochet ribbed hat. I followed a fairly typical pattern and ran into some typical crochet problems along the way. What follows is the story of this hat and my own crochet journey in six parts.