African flower

I have been admiring this gorgeous flower pattern for a few months now. But until last night I hadn't attempted it because I thought it would be a bit tricky plus I wanted to finish my other projects first. Well they are super easy - if you can crochet a granny square you can do one of these. I've come across a couple of online tutorials and patterns and so I've kind of combined them so will share the way I've done them. I'll be using English/Australian terms as I haven't been able to find a tutorial for these that doesn't use American terms. You can find a tutorial with American terms here and the original pattern written in Afrikaans is found here .I hope my instructions are easy to follow. If you need further help, just add your question in the comments section.

Pictured below are three finished African Flower Hexagons. I prefer the one at the top where the two rows that make up the petals are the same colour. But to make it easier to see each row,  I'll be showing a step by step of one of the flowers using a different colour for each row. Excuse the quality of the pictures - I used my iPhone to take them all and haven't edited them at all.

I have used a variety of 8ply wool that I have in my stash and a 4.5mm hook

With your first colour, start with 5ch, then join with a slipstitch to form a ring.

First row: ch 3 (which will count as your first treble {tr}), 1 tr, 1 ch into the ring (2 tr, 1 ch) 5 times until you have 6 x 2 tr clusters (as pictured below). Join with a slipstitch through the top of your first ch3.

Row 2: Join 2nd colour in any of the ch1 spaces. Then ch3 (counts as first tr), tr 1, ch 1, tr 2 all into the chain space where you joined. Continue around (tr 2, ch 1, tr 2) in each chain space.

At the end of the round join with a slip stitch to the top of your first ch 3. Fasten off if you are changing colours for the next round, but you can continue with this same colour if you wish.

Round 3: join 3rd colour (if changing colour for this round) into any chain space.

Rnd 3 cont: ch3 (counts as first tr) and tr 6 all into the same chain space. Then tr 7 into each of the 5 remaining chain spaces.

Join with a slip stitch into the top of your first chain 3 and fasten off. You will want to choose another colour for the next round as it helps to define the flower petals.

Round 4: join next colour. Ch 2 (counts as first double crochet (dc) ),dc into each tr stitch from previous round. When you get to the space between the petals, treble right down through to the space in the second (light pink) round. You will end up with a long stitch, but this is what defines the petals. I've tried to show how this is done in pictures below.

So to do this treble stitch, as usual, yarn over hook but instead of inserting hook into the space in the dark pink round, insert it into the space in the light pink round. Then yarn over hook, bring it back through, yarn over hook and bring it through the first 2 loops on hook, yarn over again and bring it through the final 2 loops on the hook. Hope that makes sense! It really is just like doing a normal treble stitch.

Above - bring the hook back through and yarn over, ready to bring it through the first 2 loops on hook.

Above - the completed treble stitch. Continue around with a dc in each tr, and a tr between each petal as shown.

Join with a slip stitch into the top of the first ch 2 and fasten off.

Round 5: Join final colour and ch 3 (counts as first tr), tr into each dc. When you reach the centre stitch of each petal, (tr1, ch 1, tr1) all into the same stitch then continue with 1 tr into each stitch. This helps to form the hexagon shape. The (tr1, ch 1, tr1) into one space is also known as a V-stitch.

Above - first v-stitch.

Above - second v-stitch. In between each of the v-stitches I ended up with about 7 trebles I think. Continue this pattern all the way around.

When you reach the end, join with a slipstitch into the top of your first ch3. You can fasten off here, or add another border round if you wish - in either the same colour or a contrasting one.

I hope my instructions are all clear. Please feel free to ask any questions by commenting on this post and I will do my best to clarify. I love these flowers - I can't wait to get started on another blanket now! There goes my self-imposed rule to only work on one project at a time!