Substituting Yarn for Crocheted Flowers with Suzann Thompson

Suzann Thompson is back this week with information about how to calculate the size of your crocheted flowers when substituting yarns from the ones used in the book, including downloadable list of the sizes of all the flower samples in Crochet Garden. Like what you see? Now until July 17th, Crochet Garden and Crochet Bouquet (Suzann?s first book) are 50% off at BN.com.

You can make the flowers and motifs from Crochet Garden in any yarn. But maybe you want to have some idea of what size the finished flower will be.  Easy?especially if you have a calculator handy!  Here?s how:

1. Crochet a gauge circle (see last week?s blog post on this subject).
2. Measure the gauge circle, using inches or centimeters?it doesn?t matter which.
3. Find your chosen motif in the table below and write down the number or numbers next to it in the ?Relative Size? column.
4. Multiply your gauge circle size by the number (or numbers) you wrote down.  The answer will be the approximate size of the motif.

Let?s say you want to make the Dogwood Flower in No. 10 crochet cotton, with a size 4 US hook.

Your gauge circle is about 3/8? across.
The relative size of the dogwood flower (from the table below) is 4.

So?
3/8? (size of the gauge circle) × 4 (the relative size of the dogwood flower) =
1 1/2? (the approximate size your dogwood flower will be, crocheted in No. 10 crochet cotton)

But wait, what about cm?  It works that way, too:

Your gauge circle is about 0.9cm across.
The relative size of the dogwood flower is 4.

So?
0.9cm (size of the gauge circle) × 4 (the relative size of the dogwood flower) =
3.6cm (the approximate size your dogwood flower will be, crocheted in No. 10 crochet cotton)

In the table, some flowers have two measurements.  Those are the width and height of the flower.  Multiply each of these numbers by the size of the gauge circle to find the finished width and height of your chosen flower.

Alright!  Now that we?re done with the math, let?s look at these pretty pictures.  They show all the  motifs of Crochet Garden, crocheted with the same yarn and the same size hook.  We made these photos so you could get an idea of how the motifs relate to each other size-wise.

Let?s go back to the Dogwood flower.  We used the Relative Size Chart to figure out how big it will be if you crochet it in No. 10 crochet cotton.

See if you can find the Dogwood flower in the photos (see the top photo, lower right).  By looking at the photo, you can tell that, using the same thread to crochet them,

• the Curly Ray Sunflower will be bigger than the Dogwood,
• the Maple Leaf will be about the same size,
• and the Candy Cornflower will be smaller than the Dogwood flower.

These are tools to help you plan ahead for your projects and to understand the sizes of the motifs from Crochet Garden. Download a handy flower size chart that lists all the sizes of all the flower samples from Crochet Garden.

(The motifs in the photos were created with Cascade Yarns Cascade 220 Wool, 100% Peruvian Highland wool, 3.5oz/100g = 220yd/200m, in many colors, using a 4.00mm (size G-7 U.S.) hook.)

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