Voila! From diamonds to star

November 20, 2014 at 3:32 pm (Crochet & Crafting)
Tags: christmas, crochet, cushion, diamond motifs, Lion Brand, needlework, pattern, stitching, Vanna's Choice

My crochet hook has prodded me into working on yet another Christmas project, all in the spirit of adding more festive touches around my home.

After seeing a picture of a pretty quilt pattern fashioned from diamond shapes, I wanted to try to create a similar design using crocheted diamonds in place of fabric.

I also wanted to work on a project that would come together a lot faster than a quilt or afghan (go figure—Christmas will soon be here yesterday) so I decided that a cushion would be a manageable way of puzzling around with diamond shapes.

I discovered that this project is easy enough for beginners, so do go ahead and give it a try!

Here’s what I used:
Acrylic yarn—one ball each of dark green, cranberry, and cream, and a 5.5 mm hook. I used Lion Brand/Vanna’s Choice yarn, since I loved the rich colour of the Cranberry #180. Since it’s a small project, I had lots of yarn left over from each ball.

Once I’d organized my supplies, I curled up in a comfy chair and used the pattern below to make a bunch of diamonds.

(Abbreviations: ch=chain; sc=single crochet;
hdc=half double crochet; dc=double crochet; tr-treble crochet.)

Ch 4 and slip stitch to into the first chain to close it into a ring.

Round 1: Ch 1; *(1 sc, 1 hdc, 1 dc, 1 tr—ch 3—1 tr, 1 dc, 1 hdc) all into ring. Repeat from * one more time. Slip stitch into the first sc to close.

Round 2: Ch 5; 1 dc in the first sc (or the same space you’re beginning from); *1 dc in each of the next 3 sts; (3 dc—ch 4—3 dc) in the ch-3 space; 1 dc in each of the next 3 sts**; (1 dc—ch 2—1 dc) in the next sc; repeat from * to **; join to the 3^rd ch of beginning ch-5.

Round 3: Ch 3; (1 dc—ch 3—1 dc) in the ch-2 space; 1 dc in each of next 2 dc’s; ch 1; skip the next dc; 1 dc in each of next 3 dc’s; ch 1; skip the next dc; (3 dc—ch 5—3 dc) in the ch-4 space; ch 1; skip the next dc, 1 dc in each of next 3 dc’s; ch 1; skip the next dc**; dc in the next 2 dc’s; repeat from * to **; dc in the last dc; join to top of ch-3. Fasten off and weave in end.

Crochet five diamonds in each colour. Then, starting with your cranberry diamonds, use your yarn needle to sew them together exactly as they appear in the photos, using a simple whip-stitch. Once the cranberry diamonds are stitched together, sew the cream to the cranberry, then the green to the cream. When you’ve finished, you’ll have a beautiful circle of diamonds. (If you’re really ambitious, you could carry on from here to create an incredible-looking afghan but you’d need to gather up a whole lot more balls of yarn for such a project.)

For the back of the cushion, I just used the dark green yarn to crochet a plain circle approximately the same size as the front piece, then whip-stitched it to the green diamonds (it all seemed to fit well enough even though I was working a circular piece against the diamond points). Leave enough of an opening to stuff it with fiberfill (or you can use a cushion round; I was too lazy to go out shopping for one). Then continue to stitch closed the open space. As a finishing touch, I sewed a tiny gold bell in the middle and pulled the thread through to the back so it would make an indent.

So there you go. I call it my Christmas star cushion.

Advertisement