Free-form crochet

I've been working to strict patterns lately - mainly stripes and squares and I really needed a break from it. So for a bit of fun I thought I would do a bit of free-form crochet.

Free-form crochet is where you pick up a hook and just make something! There are some amazing pieces on the internet, big spirally patterns in lovely bright colours. I don't know if the idea is to just let your hooky wander and see where it goes or if you should have an idea in mind first. I've not done much of this before and I find it at least helps if I have an idea of the shape I want first.

This was the result of my first successful attempt at free-form crochet, a paisley-doily-type-thing that sits on my mantlepiece waiting for a rare vase of flowers. I love paisley patterns and it was an easy shape to do for a beginner.

So this morning, I reached for my go-to mucking about yarn, Rico creative cotton. The problem with this yarn is it is an aran weight, so things come out huge and it tends to split for anything intricate. I didn't want to use wooly looking DK acrylic which is the only other type of yarn I've got in lots of colours. Then I remembered my flower shawl and all those pretty colours!

(yes it's not finished yet but not forgotten!)

I could spare a little bit of each colour for mucking about, the shawl is quite a bit bigger than that now, it's an old picture so I've got fair bit spare. 

My very talented arty friend Anna posted this wonderful picture of hers on facebook yesterday and it caught my imagination:

With this in mind I decided the shape I wanted to make was a mushroom/toadstool and I wanted it to be pretty and bright. I picked up my hook and started:

It's a bit wobbly and a bit weird, but I love it! I like the way it just grew with no real plan and turned into a cheerful child-like wall hanging. The flower was less random, although I did make it up. It was also the perfect excuse to use these little enameled flower buttons that I had :)

I've given it a press with some spray starch but it is still quite floppy so I will be giving it the heavy duty pinning and PVA glue treatment shortly.

I really enjoy making happy things like this, it serves no purpose and probably will never get hung up, I have far too many things like this to have them all hanging around the house. Great fun to make though and that is the most important thing about crocheting :)

XXX

Edit: It has found a temporary home!