free patterns – The Crochet Architect

July 6, 2022July 6, 2022

Crocheted Bridal Hair Comb

My oldest son is getting married next month (woohoo!) and I wanted to help out with the wedding somehow. My soon-to-be daughter-in-law said she wants to wear a hair comb for the wedding and she texted me a photo of an expensive one to see. I asked if she’d like to have me crochet one for her and she said “yes”! So I did some online research and found more photos of hair combs that are really pretty for inspiration. She didn’t want one that was too big; just something pretty and functional. So I started looking for good flower patterns to use (instead of taking extra time to design my own flowers).

My future DIL picked out the crochet thread colors she’d like me to use from my stash of crochet threads. Since I didn’t have a lot of the iridescent white thread for the flowers, I tried out some of the flower patterns with the pink thread first to see how I liked them. Once she and I picked out which ones we liked best, I crocheted the top 4 flowers in white with size 10 crochet thread and a 1.5mm hook. Then I crocheted some pink leaves to go around the edges.

These are the flower patterns I used:

Large flower in center: 6-petal frilled rose with 3 layers from page 14 in the book, “The Go-To Book for Irish Crochet Motifs” by Kathryn White (book #871388), published by Annie’s. A digital edition of this book is available (as of this blog post) here.

Medium flower on left:

free pattern for Fluffy Carnation Crochet Flower from https://daisycottagedesigns.net/freeflowercrochetpattern/

Medium flower on right:

free pattern for Carnation from Yarnspirations https://www.yarnspirations.com/aunt-lydias-bridal-nosegay/ALC0101-025078M.html

Tiny flower on right:

free pattern from https://persialou.com/make-crochet-flower-hair-combs/ This is a great blog post about how she made a hair comb. She used hot glue to attach her flowers and leaves to the hair comb, but I sewed mine in place. Either way works!

I decided the iridescent flowers could use a little more bling, so I sewed a small iridescent white pearl bead to the center of each one (I don’t know what size I used because I just found some in my stash of beads!). Since the large flower in the center had a somewhat large hole in the middle, I used a little larger bead and added an iridescent sequin behind the bead to keep it in place. I used a package of iridescent sequins from my local Hobby Lobby. They worked out great!

Here is a quick, free pattern for the leaves that I made up off the top of my head:

Ch 8, sc in 2^nd ch from hook, *hdc in next ch, 2 dc in next ch, dc in next ch, 2 dc in next ch, hdc in next ch, sc in last ch**, ch 2, sl st in top of last sc made to form a picot; working in free lps on other side of ch, sc in first ch (in same ch as last sc); rep from * to **; join with sl st in first sc. Finish off, leaving a long tail for sewing.

For the hair comb, I bought a package of 5 silver hair combs from Amazon. Here’s a link to the hair combs I purchased. Some of the teeth were a little bent when I got them in the mail, but they straightened out nicely with very little effort! And the metal is a really nice quality! They also come in black or gold, if you’d prefer another color/finish. These hair combs have 20 teeth. They also come in other sizes, with more or less teeth, which would make them narrower or wider. The one I used with 20 teeth is about 3” wide.

After I crocheted all the flowers and leaves, I arranged them a few times until my future DIL and I liked the arrangement. I also tried an arrangement with a tatted piece that I had made quite a while ago. It’s too frilly for my future DIL, but you might consider something like this for your hair comb.

Trial flower arrangement with tatted lace

Then I had to decide how I wanted to attach the flowers and leaves to the hair comb. I decided to buy an ebook of Irish Crochet patterns by Kathryn White from Annie’s (on sale), since there was a hair comb in that ebook (book #871106E). Here’s a link for that ebook.

While the hair comb in this book is lovely, it wasn’t what the bride wanted (I LOVE the doily in this book, so I’ll be crocheting that in the near future). However, I liked the way Kathryn attached the flowers and leaf sprays to her hair comb in the book, so that’s what I did. Basically, you wrap some extra crochet thread around the top of the hair comb between the teeth of the hair comb and secure the ends of the thread. That gives you a nice base of thread to attach the flowers and leaves to the hair comb. I actually sewed the leaves to the back of the flowers (not to the hair comb) after I sewed the flowers in place on the hair comb.

What do you think? Do you like this hair comb? What would you do differently?

I can’t wait to see my future DIL wearing this hair comb in her upcoming wedding to my son!

Happy crocheting,

Susan

June 23, 2022June 23, 2022

Thermal Stitch Potholder Video

I’ve been wanting to film a video to teach the Thermal Stitch for quite a while and I finally have one for you. But first, a little background on how/where I learned this fabulous stitch.

I first learned the Thermal Stitch from Darla Fanton at the 2008 CGOA Conference in Manchester, NH. Darla is a great teacher and I learned a lot in that class. However, life got in the way and I never pursued doing anything with the Thermal Stitch.

Fast forward to around 2015 when a good crochet friend named Jackie showed me the thick potholder she had made from a free pattern on the internet. She shared the link to the free pattern (by Heather Tucker of Stitchery Project) and taught me the stitch (which I had somehow forgotten from Darla’s class). I was immediately hooked! I’ve been making Thermal Stitch Potholders ever since! They’re so easy to make once you learn where to insert your hook! It’s just simple rows of single crochet, which is pretty mindless (sometimes I need a mindless project!).

One thing I changed in Heather’s pattern was the placement of the hanging loop. Heather makes her hanging loop at the bottom of the potholder. I decided I wanted to make my hanging loop at the top of the potholder. The reason for this is sometimes I want to make a hot pad without a hanging loop instead of a potholder. So I just don’t work the hanging loop at all. Since I changed Heather’s free pattern, I decided to type up my version of this potholder as a free pattern. You can download my free pattern here.

You can find Heather’s free potholder pattern (named “The Best Crocheted Potholder”) here.

The potholders are economical to make. When I see a sale on worsted weight cotton yarn, I stock up on it. This makes the potholders about $1 each, which I love!

These potholders make great gifts! I’ve given them to friends and family for Christmas and/or birthdays, as “thank you” gifts, and as wedding (or bridal shower) gifts, as well.

To learn the Thermal Stitch, watch my new YouTube video here.

I hope you enjoy crocheting these potholders as much as I do!

Happy Thermal Stitch crocheting,

Susan

July 1, 2020July 4, 2020

FREE Easy Beginner Crochet Project & Videos

If you’re a beginner crocheter (or just like to crochet quick, easy projects), I have a FREE beginner coaster pattern, along with 2 YouTube videos for you. This coaster is an easy, beginner pattern that anyone can successfully make. In the 2 videos, I teach you how to do the center of the coaster in rows of single crochet. I also teach you to add any of the 4 edging options to your coasters: 1 round of sc, 3 rounds of sc, corner beads and tassels or side fringe. Here’s a look at the coasters in the video:

As you can see, you can make your coasters in any colors you like. I’ve chosen different colors for the coasters in this FREE pattern to make each of these 4 different coaster finishes distinct! However, I made a set of coasters for our home in colors that coordinate with our living room.

These coasters make great gifts and are very economical to make. One skein of yarn, that costs around $2 – $3, is all you need to make a set of 4 coasters.

You can find the 2 new FREE YouTube videos on my YouTube crochet channel. And you can find the link for the FREE pdf pattern download on my Free Patterns page.

I hope you’ll give these easy, beginner coasters a try. Please let me know if you like this coaster pattern and if you have any questions about the pattern, please don’t hesitate to ask. I’d love to see photos of your finished projects!

Happy crocheting,

Susan

March 1, 2019July 27, 2019

National Crochet Month

It’s that time of year again: the time we celebrate all things crochet with National Crochet Month (NatCroMo) during the month of March. Crochet is so good for our emotional health! It’s relaxing, it can be challenging (if we push ourselves and learn something new), it results in some great gifts for family and friends, plus it can bring like-minded people together to encourage each other and learn from each other. I’ve met so many friendly, encouraging people throughout the 40+ years I’ve been crocheting, especially in the past 16 years that I’ve been a Crochet Guild of America (CGOA) member. If you’ve never heard of CGOA, check out their website. You’ll be glad you did!

National Crochet Month seems to grow each year! This year, there will be designer blog tours, crochet-a-longs (CALs) and all kinds of crochet celebrations throughout the month of March. To help celebrate National Crochet Month, I’m offering a 25% discount on all of my patterns here on my website, along with in my Ravelry shop. Just use the code “NatCroMo2019” in either shop to enjoy the discount! The 25% discount is good on all of my crochet patterns and ebooks (plus my knitting patterns in my Ravelry shop). The discount is good from March 1-31, 2019 (Arizona time).

How do you celebrate National Crochet Month? Do you follow designer blog tours? Do you take part in crochet-a-longs? Do you learn a new crochet technique? Do you buy more yarn (who needs an excuse to buy more yarn, though)?

How many crochet projects do you make each year? I made dozens of crochet projects this past year and I learned a few new techniques (maybe not totally new, but new to me). In June of 2018, I learned to do Planned Pooling. If you’ve never heard of it, you can watch some videos by Marly Bird on Youtube. Planned Pooling is a very different technique. Most patterns are written for the moss stitch (sc, ch 1), but I used groups of 3 dc in my project. In planned pooling, it’s not the size/gauge of each stitch that’s important, it’s the number of stitches in each color and their placement that matters. Here’s a photo of the planned pooling afghan that I made in a month from 9 skeins of Caron Simply Soft yarn:

I also learned to do corner to corner crochet (aka: C2C). I tech edited a few C2C patterns years ago, but I never actually did this technique until January of this year! When I saw some photos of an adorable Grinch Scarf on Pinterest, I knew the time was right to learn this technique and make the scarf, since I LOVE the movie “The Grinch”! Here’s a photo of that scarf for you to see:

Last year, my 2nd grandchild was born in September. His name is Ryker. Here he is wearing one of the many hats that I crocheted for him:

I crocheted lots of baby booties for him, too! Here are a few of them:

I also crocheted a top from a Chinese crochet pattern from April – June of last year. I love following foreign crochet patterns (I don’t read the language, I just follow the symbol crochet charts). This one has a gorgeous pineapple yoke and hem. Here’s that top for you to see:

These are only some of the projects I crocheted (or knitted) last year. To see all of them and get some ideas for your next crochet project, check out my Ravelry projects page.

I hope you find many enjoyable ways to celebrate National Crochet Month! If you haven’t already downloaded my FREE crochet patterns, you can find them here. If you like what you see in these free patterns, you may choose to use the 25% discount on my other patterns for sale this month!

Happy crocheting (and knitting)!

Susan

February 1, 2017

Valentine’s Day is Coming!

Do you love to decorate for Valentine’s Day? Then I have some crochet patterns for you! One of them is free and the other 2 are reasonably priced. They all contain the “heart” theme, which is what I think of most in decorating for Valentine’s Day!

This is my Heart Coaster design. This pattern is FREE and can be found here. This coaster is made with worsted weight cotton yarn for a quick project.

This is my Filet Heart Coaster pattern. This pattern is made with size 10 cotton crochet thread and a size 7 (1.65 mm) steel crochet hook. There are 2 layers of crochet to absorb more moisture. This pattern is available for $4.95 and can be found here.

This is my Wiggly Valentine Hot Pad and Coaster Set. It’s made with size 10 cotton crochet thread and a size 7 (1.65 mm) steel crochet hook. The pattern is available for $4.95 and can be found here. It’s also available as part of a set of Wiggly Hot Pads and Coasters to decorate for 6 holidays throughout the year! You can find the pattern for the set of 6 hot pads and coasters here for $11.95.

I hope you’re getting ready for Valentine’s Day and planning to do something fun with your honey!

Happy crocheting and Happy Valentine’s Day!

Susan

March 7, 2016April 1, 2016

Celebrating National Crochet Month!

Welcome to The Crochet Architect website. Isn’t National Crochet Month wonderful? It’s great to celebrate a month each year full of crochet goodness!!!

As you can see from my ticket above, today is my day to blog during the Crochetville National Crochet Month Blog Tour.

If we haven’t met, yet, my name is Susan Lowman. I’ve been crocheting since I was a teenager, back in the 70’s! I love to create anything with my hands, as I’m sure you do, too. I’ve done lots of crafts throughout my life (many since I was a child), including counted cross stitch, tatting, paper crafts and wood crafts, but I always come back to crochet! I’ve been designing crochet patterns since 1999 and I’ve been a member of CGOA (Crochet Guild of America) since 2002. I was on the CGOA Board of Directors for 3 1/2 years and I served as co-chair of the CGOA Masters program, as well as a CGOA Masters Senior Portfolio Reviewer for 3-4 years. For more information about CGOA and the CGOA Masters program, check out their website here.

I also love to teach crochet whenever I get the chance. I’ve taught at many CGOA Conferences and at last year’s Annie’s Craft Festival. I’ll be teaching again at this year’s CGOA Conference in Charleston, SC in July! The conference details should be up on the Knit and Crochet Show website sometime this month. You can read about all the classes and events here. TKGA (The Knitting Guild Association) has their conference at the same time, so you can take crochet and/or knitting classes at the conference! It’s so fun to meet other crochet enthusiasts and to share my love of crochet with them at the conference! I’d love to have you in any of my crochet classes and get to know you. If you ever feel like you’re the only crocheter around, the conference is a breath of fresh air where we all speak the “language of crochet”! It’s a great time to meet other crochet enthusiasts and to make new friends!

In the past, I did a lot of technical editing of crochet patterns before they’re published (to find and fix the errors). One of the companies/magazines that I worked for was Crochet Today magazine. I enjoyed working for them for almost 6 years and helping that magazine be successful. Unfortunately, Crochet Today was cancelled 2 or 3 years ago (boohoo!). I haven’t done much technical editing lately because I’m focusing on self-publishing my designs now and not being quite as busy as I was in past years (to reduce the amount of stress in my life and live healthier).

I have plans to start recording some crochet videos this year, too! If there is a particular crochet stitch or technique that you’d like to learn, please let me know and I’ll add it to my list of videos to make. I love watching crochet and knitting videos to learn new techniques, whether they’re paid or free videos. Speaking of paid videos, I have 2 crochet videos with Annie’s. They’re “Learn to Crochet with Thread” and “Beginner’s First Doily”. Thread crochet is very enjoyable for me (and for lots of other crocheters I know). I LOVE to crochet doilies! I think it’s because the stitch pattern changes in just about every round, which helps keep my interest and challenges me! Don’t get me wrong. Plain stitch patterns (aka: mindless crochet projects) have their place, but unless I’m watching TV or attending a local crochet group, I like to have a challenge! And doilies come out so nice after they’re blocked. It’s almost like they transform into something even more beautiful! I’ve probably crocheted over 100 doilies in my life (maybe even more than 200 doilies)!

Anyway, enough about me! This is National Crochet Month (yahoo!). To celebrate, I have 2 special offers for YOU for the rest of this month (March 7 – 31).

First, I have a new FREE crochet pattern for you as a “thank you” for visiting my blog. It’s my Luck o’ the Irish Scarf. It’s free for the rest of this month. After that, it’ll be $3.95.

This scarf is made with one skein of Caron Simply Soft yarn. I’m not sure of the exact shade of green that I used because it came straight from the Caron office/factory years ago when I was designing my Majestic Butterfly Afghan (you can see that afghan on Ravelry here). Some of the skeins of Simply Soft had yarn labels on them and others didn’t, so I had to guess what colors they were! The shade of green that I think I used in this scarf was discontinued since then! Anyway, you can use whatever shade of green (or even another color) to make your scarf.

Luck o' the Irish Scarf close up — Luck o’ the Irish Scarf close up

The stitch pattern in this scarf is a 4 row repeat, so it’s easy to memorize (especially since every other row is “sc in each st across”!). The pattern includes written instructions and a symbol crochet chart, as well as step-by-step photos for making the 4-dc cross stitch (many of my self-published patterns include symbol crochet charts and step-by-step photos, too). This scarf has a simple sc edging to give it a finished look. I hope you enjoy this free pattern and will share photos of your finished scarves with me when you’re done. If you have any questions about the pattern, please don’t hesitate to ask! I’m just a message or e-mail away! I want my customers to be successful with their projects and I’m always happy to answer questions about my patterns.

The 2nd special for the rest of this month is 25% off the price of ALL crochet patterns on my website (with code “NatCroMo2016”). Whether you enjoy crocheting accessories, jewelry or home decor items in filet crochet, wiggly crochet, crochet that looks like tatting, or regular crochet, there’s something for almost everyone in my pattern store. If you haven’t heard of wiggly crochet, I have a wiggly crochet tutorial on my tutorial page to help YOU be successful with wiggly crochet. I love to design and crochet items with lots of color, so please take a look around and take advantage of the sale prices while they last!

I hope you’re enjoying National Crochet Month and the Crochetville Blog Tour. There are many talented designers taking part this year. I trust you’ll find something that will inspire YOU to create a WORK OF ART!!!

To learn more about the festivities, freebies and giveaways going on all this month to celebrate National Crochet Month, check out this Crochetville blog post. You can also follow the National Crochet Month blog tour on their Facebook page and on Crochetville.com.

If you’d like to follow me on social media, you can find me on Ravelry here. I also have a group on Ravelry to discuss my patterns, hold CAL’s and all kinds of other fun here. I’m holding a CAL for my Crochet Mosaic Scarf this month and I’d love to have you join us in this CAL (or other CAL’s I hold in my Ravelry group).

I look forward to meeting you and sharing our common love of crochet! It’s great to learn from each other and to encourage each other along our crochet journeys!

Happy crocheting,

Susan Lowman

P.S. If you’d like to follow my blog, simply subscribe to my blog with your e-mail address near the top right-hand side of this page. I don’t write blog posts all the time. I aim to post once a week. Sometimes I miss a week for various reasons, but I promise you won’t get inundated with e-mails from my blog posts!

February 12, 2016

The Crochet Express Blog Tour

Did you realize that next month (March) is National Crochet Month? Who doesn’t love a celebration! I certainly do! For the 4th year in a row, I’m taking part in the #natcromo Crochet Express blog tour. I can’t wait to see all of the fun, freebies and discounts that will be happening next month!

Over 90 crochet designers will be featured in this year’s blog tour, along with yarn companies, crochet-friendly yarn stores and daily giveaways. That sounds like so much fun!!!

My date in this year’s blog tour is March 7th, so be sure to check out my blog post on that date. To celebrate National Crochet Month, I’ll be giving you 2 fabulous offers next month! Starting on March 7 and running until March 31, I’m offering a FREE pattern, my new “Luck o’ the Irish Scarf” design (no code needed) AND I’m giving a 25% discount on all crochet patterns on my website with a special coupon code that I’ll give you on March 7th.

To learn more about the festivities, freebies and giveaways going on in March to celebrate National Crochet Month, check out this Crochetville blog post. You can also follow the National Crochet Month blog tour on their Facebook page and on Crochetville.com.

Come ride the Crochet Express with me and celebrate all that is crochet!

Happy crocheting,

Susan Lowman

April 16, 2015

Free Lacy Granny Scarf pattern

I’d like to share a new FREE pattern with you. It’s called “Lacy Granny Scarf”. The pattern is available on the Red Heart UK website here.

I designed this scarf about 4 months ago for Red Heart using their Red Heart “Precious” yarn, available in the UK. This yarn is a #1 weight yarn, made with 80% acrylic and 20% mohair fibers. I really enjoyed using this yarn and the scarf blocked up very nicely! As with any mohair yarn, you need to be careful with your stitches because ripping out can be a “challenge”!

The scarf measures 6″ wide x 60″ long and is made with 10 motifs, each measuring 6″ square. The motifs are joined as you go, so there is no sewing required. There is a simple single crochet edging worked around the joined motifs to give the edges some stability.

Since this pattern is published in the UK, some of the crochet terms are different in the pattern than the crochet terms we use here in the US. Here are the different terms used in this pattern:

UK “dc” = US “sc”

UK “tr” = US “dc”

UK “dtr” = US “tr”

It can sometimes be hard to wrap your head around the different crochet terms used in another country in a crochet pattern! I’ve rewritten patterns from the UK before with the US crochet terms in them to help myself remember which stitch to work when I’m making something from one of these patterns! And sometimes I draw a symbol crochet chart instead of using the written crochet pattern. I do whatever it takes to understand the pattern in order to make the project accurately!

If you love lacy crochet projects, I hope you’ll give this pretty Lacy Granny Scarf a try.

Happy crocheting,

Susan

March 26, 2015

FREE Baby Baseball Cap Crochet Pattern

In honor of baseball’s Spring Training, today’s FREE crochet pattern is a baseball cap for babies!

This Spring Training Cap pattern was designed by Linda Permann for the Mar/April 2012 issue of Crochet Today magazine. The pattern is available for FREE here.

Isn’t this baby adorable? Of course, this baseball cap would look great on any baby!

Happy crocheting,

Susan

March 25, 2015March 25, 2015

FREE Crochet Duck Pattern

In keeping with the Easter theme, today’s FREE crochet pattern is an adorable duck!

This duck pattern includes a removable bonnet! How cute is that? And the facial expression on the duck is priceless!!! Jackie Laing from the website, Amidorable Crochet designed this cute duck. You can find the free pattern on her website here.

Happy crocheting,

Susan