vintage inspired crochet: christmas bow pattern

Timing, timing, timing! I was drawn to this Christmas bow because of the vintage feel of it. Initially, I imagined it in combination with a very simple wreath made of branches. I really liked the idea of the contrast between the simple and pure branches and the delicate, vintage-feel of the lace pattern.


I really, really wanted to finish it in weeks before Christmas, but I'm afraid I'm running out of time. Well, I'm still going to try! Instead of a bow this might be a table runner with a contrasting colored tablecloth underneath. If you start to crochet this now and have a few evenings you might be ready on time before Christmas eve! The original pattern comes from a contemporary crochet magazine which means it is probably copyrighted but certainly not available outside some parts of Eastern Europe and Germany. Because most of visitors the here are following this blog from outside Europe I feel I can share the pattern with you.



material:
- the original pattern suggests 250 g mercerized cotton (50g=280 meters) with 1-1.25 mm crochet hook.
- I used about 80 grams of a slightly heavier cotton yarn which I had in my stash ( 50g=210 meters) with a 1.5 mm hook
- silver ribbon (I used a leftover piece of dark green bias tape)

my pattern modifications:

• smaller squares: the original instruction is to make 1dc + 2ch squares (fill with 2dc's) but after making the first part I didn't like the look of it. The little angel-face was too stretched out for my taste. I restarted the project with 1dc + 1ch (fill with 1dc) and liked it much better. For comparison: the magazine picture (left) and my version (right):

   

• modification of the flower motif: because the smaller squares I needed to resize the flower a bit in the horizontal direction. For this I replaced the 7 chain 'rays' on the right and left sides with 5 chains. It has been some time since I crocheted something like this, so at first try I also made the mistake of not adding extra chains for the extra single and double crochets which are made in the next row. The pattern includes the finished amount of chains, one side from top to bottom: 4-5-7-7-7-5-4 ch. My count one side from top to bottom: 4-5-5-4-5-5-4 (this is the horizontally shortened version with the extra ch calculated. So this is exactly what you need to crochet if you use the smaller, 1dc+1ch squares:

• bow variation: I made my own version for the bow, a smaller piece without the flower motifs, just repeating the other patterns around:

   

the original pattern chart:
I used the US abbreviations below which are different from the UK abbreviations! Read more about it here!
- the original pattern uses US 1 dc + 2ch squares (fill with 2dc's)
- the crosses in the center of the flower represents single crochets.
- the pattern below is the edge, originally there are 11 repeats of the flowers in between.

source magazine pic & pattern: 'diana' crochet magazine