A Flower a Day: Crochet Puff Stitch Flowers

Materials: Acrylic DK
Techniques: Crochet puff stitch

For some reason, I didn't have this style of flower queued in Ravelry (although there are patterns in there, of course!), but it features in the issue of Simply Crochet which I picked up the other week.  The version in Simply Crochet is part of a pattern for a puff stitch flower purse and features flowers with 5 petals, each petal made directly into the centre ring. It didn't explain what a 'treble cluster' was, exactly, so I went to find some tutorials on YouTube so that I could learn how to do it.

There are some very beginner-friendly tutorials available. My first attempt (the pale pink flower) was with this tutorial from B Hooked Crochet. They are cute enough, but I wasn't happy with the way the chains stood out from the petals. Still, I learned how to do the cluster and went back to the magazine to do the 5-petalled flower (bright orange).

I thought I should do a couple more, just for the fun of being introduced to different ways to do the centres. This tutorial from Crochet Jewel was very easy to follow. I noticed that some of the tutorials mention the yarn brand and the US hook size, but 'Red Heart yarn with an H hook' doesn't mean much to me. The important thing really is to use whatever you want, with a hook size which matches your yarn size. (Peach with a bright orange centre.)

My favourite video tutorial, this time by Kim Poelwiijk, is also easy to follow, even though it's in Dutch. (Don't let the fact that some of these tutorials are in another language put you off, unless you are a total and utter beginner and can't tell a slip stitch from a treble crochet. If the work is clear and slow, you can follow it and perhaps learn to count in other languages, too.) I might have missed something from the other tutorials, but this one has each petal starting and ending with a slip stitch into stitch from the first round and only two chain before starting the puff cluster, which seems to give much better definition. (Salmon pink with a yellow centre).  Kim goes on to demonstrate how the flowers can be 'joined as you go'.