From Nature

For the past month, as many of you now realize, I've been completely obsessed with dainty crochet snowflakes. I'm, however, also very picky about the patterns I chose to use in making said snowflakes. Well, the day has come when I have run out of patterns and diagrams that I absolutely love. What to do?

A few weeks ago, my husband (bless his heart) had suggested that I make my own pattern/diagram based on macro photos of snowflakes. They are absolutely gorgeous, and I am still convinced that he over estimates my creative capabilities.

Well, I tried it, anyway.

First, I found a photo I liked that looked simple enough. I didn't do a screenshot. Instead I took a photo of the laptop with my phone, because of the other steps I took in my creative process. I found the photo in this article.

Isn't it stunning? Check out that article. They are all so beautiful.

Did anyone else have one of those Fischer Price desks that had the back light in the tabletop? I LOVED that thing, and would just sit and trace for hours. My daughter now has one, and the desk is from whence I drew my inspiration. I turned up the brightness of my monitor, and set a piece of notebook paper over the screen.

After that, I just doodled over the traced image in order to try to decide what sort of stitches to use.

It . . . sort of worked . . . kind of . . .
I then decided to make what I doodled, doodled some more as I went, and wrote the pattern along the way.

Note to self: do not judge how easy or difficult creating a pattern based on nature by how simple the object appears. Recreating snowflakes from nature is the most difficult process I've ever encountered.

Do not; I repeat, do NOT follow this pattern. You will inevitably create what looks like a shrunken captain's wheel.

In my daughter's words, "arrr, my matey!"

BRKLAHKGT E;AWI F!!!! I was frustrated. So, I just set it aside, did my chores and errands, and went to sleep. I showed it to my husband today. Then, for whatever reason, as we were laughing at my failure, the correct way to make this just hit me. Of course, the crocheted version of this will most likely not look anything like the photo, just because it's physically impossible to recreate those gorgeously fragile crystalline walls with crochet thread. But, I think I came pretty close this time.

Here is a photo of what I have soaking in starch at the moment:

Much better, am I right?

Photos of the blocked version will be coming soon. I have also written the pattern, and it will be available within the next week, hopefully along with a diagram (ooooh, aaaah), and that diagram decoding chart I mentioned in my previous post. Until then, be inspired by nature, but be humble enough to know that God's works are infinitely better than man's.

As always, happy stitching! xo