Serendipity

I love the concept of serendipity, it is like the kissing cousin of the old saw "good things come to those who wait".
Those of us that wait often times are given no other option, maybe giving up was our other option- eh whot?

I am a lifelong needle work enthusiast. It is something I credit to the influence of my grandmother. She is forever in my mind's eye busy with knitting needles softly clicking, yarn slowly being looped into afghans, dish cloths, baby caps, layette sets, slippers and so on. She tried once, when I was about 11, to teach me to knit. I- like all kids, had the attention span of a gnat. Gramma pronounced me hopeless. I did not give up on needle arts, I learned to embroider as a kid and made great use of it throughout High School. I learned to sew in Jr. High & taught myself garment design as an adult. I learned needlepoint from my mother-in-law in my 30s. At age 40 I learned to crochet. I taught myself crochet because it seemed that my deceased gramma was somehow egging me on, saying come on honey- you can do it!

I do love crochet, it is both relaxing and an exciting creative outlet. I have come up with several cool designs on my own. I love freeform work and I would like to try my hand at it. I have looked at several books on the subject for guidance. There are some cool books, with lots of inspiration, but they all seem to overlook on important point. Once you have crocheted up a pile of motifs, how do you form them into a garment? The books I have seen all say "sew or crochet motifs together as desired". Well, DUH! I was hoping for a bit more than that revelation from a $30.00 book!

So, I have made up a small mountain of motifs, and over time have tried to figure out how to join them attractively- with no success. UNTIL NOW! I had backburnered the crochet project for a few months. Today, while looking for some simple large flower patterns to embroider on a camo jacket that I have, I struck freeform crochet joinery pay dirt! Serendipity n. an aptitude for making desireable discoveries by accident.

I googled embroidery flowers and found a site by a needlework enthusiast with a real do-it-yourself soul. She had some nice old DMC patterns posted, and after printing one of a bird of paradise (they go nicely with flowers) I decided to poke around her site. She has a sidebar full of links to pages on various knitting, doll making, embroidery, crochet and other needle crafts.

One of the links was to Crochet Design. There, Lo and Behold was a link to crochet joining flowers and squares the precise information I had hoped for in expensive books written by freeform experts. This lady, Jessica Tromp, has put it on the web for all to access. She has the attitude of the original web citizens, information should be free and accessible to everyone. She has sponsored links to support her site and I will be certain to visit some of her sponsors. Thank you soooo much Jessica! The photo accompanying this post is from her site.

So if you have been as frustrated as I was, check out the link and get to joining your flowers and other bits together. If you need some flower motifs and such, Jessica has lots of motif patterns for you. Just poke around and you'll find em!