Geometry and inspiration... and bunting

I love looking at crochet blogs and web-sites for ideas, reading what people have done and how or why... seeing the amazing things people can make. And these ideas all mull around in my head...

And sometimes - not often, but every now and again - some ideas merge. Combine into something new.

And tonight something came together in a way that surprised me. My easily distracted and wandering mind put two things together and any other day I wouldn't have seen them as similar.

Let me explain the wanderings of my mind... if you could humour me...

First, I was admiring bunting. Yes, bunting. In my last post I explained that I really quite like bunting, and I recently received some as a little gift in the post from Sue at The Quince Tree, and this cheerful bunting had gotten me all inspired about making my own.

So I was looking at granny-bunting, which is basically a granny triangle. And thinking about how it is so very... even-sided. Equilateral, if you want to get technical! :-P And the thing is, I'd like to make my bunting a little more long-sided... a little more ... isosceles!

But how could this be done? Can it be done with a granny triangle?

I love the bunting that Alice created over at Crochet with Raymond. She has two bunting patterns, and I really like her first one. The frilly sides make her bunting quite pretty and also a little more isosceles-like. (I'm not sure they really are isosceles triangles, but they just look more longer-sided.) And the picot stitch at the bottom of each triangle stretches it all out just a little more. Very clever indeed.

Lovely bunting from Crochet with Raymond!

Anyway, then I put my love of bunting aside, and started browsing for Christmas ideas.

I was thinking of maybe making some Christmas Granny Trees following the pattern on The Royal Sisters, maybe making a garland or some-such. And that was when it happened. I was looking at the (very clear and helpful) photo-tutorial that Michelle has for her trees and suddenly I saw it.

Grandma Tree from The Royal Sisters

Her trees, with their bumpy sides but straight bases, were rather isosceles-looking! In truth, they were very similar to Alice's bunting triangles - just with four-treble groups instead of 3. And the bumpy sides were similar, but just a slightly different way of doing them. Hmmm... I thought to myself, I quite like these tree-y triangles!

What if - what IF - I made Michelle's tree, but didn't add the stump? And what if I added Alice's picot droplet at the tip of the triangle? Could this become the ultimate bunting pattern - the shape I was looking for?

I tried it - and I LOVE it!


So basically, what you do (would you like me to explain how I combined them?) is: follow Michelle's tree pattern (at the Royal Sisters) until the last round, BUT when you reach the tip of the "tree" (or the bottom tip of the bunting flag), do the four trebles as you start the corner, then chain four and make a picot by slip-stitching into the fourth chain from the hook (that's the idea I got from Crochet with Raymond), then do four more trebles to finish that corner, then continue on as per The Royal Sisters' pattern. And stop at the end of that round - before you make the tree stump. Obviously. :-)

Did that make sense? Visit their websites - I'm sure it will make more sense once you do! :-)

And that's it! Like I said, not that clever really, but, boy, does it feel good when something in my mind just "clicks". I have looked at The Royal Sisters' Granny Trees so many, many times, but never before saw a bunting triangle.

Many people say I have a strange mind ;-) but sometimes it just WORKS. Hee hee. :-)

I'm off to make some more bunting now! And, um, then get back to those other projects! :-)

Happy hooking,
Caz :)

Editor's note: Since writing all this, I have come to the realisation that there are many ways to make long, thin, crochet bunting flags. Simply doing stripes of single (double) crochet with decreases at the end of each row, something like that would probably work, wouldn't it? And no doubt there are patterns out there following that idea. But I was looking at granny-triangle bunting, and that's why they were equal-sided, and that's where my thinking started. I may or may not go and look for other options, but this Granny-tree-triangle combo has left me feeling so pleased that I think it will do, for now, in my quest for the perfect bunting. :)