In wake of the recent Australian bushfire crisis I wanted to work on some wildlife inspired crochet patterns.
NSW has been suffering from bush fires since the Gospers Mountain fire beginning in September 2019. Five months later as I write this post there are still 61 fires burning across the state. In NSW alone over 4.9 million hectares had burnt before January 24, with 9.9 million hectares across the country. The number of wildlife animals estimated to have perished in the fires are just astronomical.
As we get closer to valentines day I have been seeing a lot of heart themed patterns popping up on my pintrest and Instagram feeds. My inspiration for these bookmarks is the koala heart applique by golden lucy crafts.
The Koala Face
While I tweaked the pattern from golden lucy crafts I am not going to list the whole pattern here (they deserve all the credit). I changed some dc to tr and hdc to dc in my version to match the tensioning with my different wool and hook size. I also made the sides a little longer so that the proportions all matched.
What I did differently is I made a second grey heart to fasten to the back of the koala head in the finishing stage. This worked well to hide the back stitches from assembly. You could also lightly stuff the koala head doing this method.
Leaves
I made two different sized leaves. Any pattern you like for leaves will work well for you. I chose to use one small and one large because it broke away from symmetry. In many ways nature is not symmetrical.
Large Leaf
The pattern : I used some remnant emerald green wool and a 1.5mm hook to make the leaves.
Chain 6, this will be the leaf backbone.
Slip stitch into the second chain from the hook, sc in the next stitch, hdc in the next, dc in the next chain. In the last chain work 5 dc.
Working back along the ‘backbone’ dc in the next stitch, hdc, sc, slip stitch, chain 1. Sc around the chain and then slip stitch into the very first slip stitch. Fasten off and weave in all ends.
Small Leaf
The pattern : I used some remnant emerald green wool and a 1.5mm hook to make the leaves.
Chain 5, this will be the leaf backbone.
Slip stitch into the second chain from the hook, sc in the next stitch, hdc in the next, dc in the next chain. In the last chain work 4 dc.
Working back along the ‘backbone’ hdc in the next stitch, sc, slip stitch, chain 1. Sc around the chain and then slip stitch into the very first slip stitch. Fasten off and weave in all ends.
Putting everything together…
I used remnant brown yarn and a 4 mm hook. you should only need a meter or so. This part will vary on your book. Just keep adding chain stitches until the desired length is reached.
Row 1: Join brown yarn to heart at the point using a slip stitch. Chain 30 +1 (or more if you want a longer tail.). Slip stitch into base of the larger leaf, slip stitch into base of the smaller leaf.
Working back towards the Koala head, hdc in each chain stitch. When you reach the head, hdc in the point of the heart. fasten off and weave in ends.
Now you have the completed pattern for my Koala bookmarks. I am selling these through my Facebook page to raise money for the bush fire relief efforts by WIRES in NSW. All profits made will be donated to help Koalas recover from the bush fires.
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Crafty Commuter 