Wooly Trees
This is a quick tutorial to make a little tree ornament or decoration. The finished tree measures about 5 inches tall if you follow the tutorial to the letter, but it's very easy to modify.
We're going to start out by crocheting a cone. In the photos, I'm using a light worsted weight yarn and an F hook, although the pattern is flexible. There are two different ways to crochet a cone-- you can start at the top and work your way down, or start at the bottom and work up. For our purposes, to get this to turn out correctly, we're going to start at the bottom and work up.
Go ahead and ch 22. Join with a slst to form a loop.
This tree is going to be worked in a spiral, without joining the rounds, and yes, you need to do this. If you're desperate to join the rounds, go ahead and scroll down a bit to where we're forming the "leaves" or "petals" of the tree and you can see why it needs to be a spiral.
Sc around.
From here, you're going to continue to sc around, but add a decrease to each round. Change up where you're putting the decreases in each round. If you stack them all on top of each other you're going to end up with a tilted tree. I don't know, maybe that's what you want.
As you continue decreasing round by round, you'll end up with a pointy cone shape. Fantastic! Work as close to the point of the cone as you possibly can. You can use a sc or a slst to close the top of the cone.
Here's the tricky part: Without cutting the yarn, flip the cone so that the point of the cone is towards your body, and you're getting ready to make a surface crochet stitch. This is basically the same as making a fpsc-- you're going to insert your hook behind a stitch and form an sc as normal. Then, ch2 and sk the next st. Now sc into the next st.
See how easy that was? Go ahead and work your way back to the bottom of the tree. If you're obsessive, you can do this in all of the rows from the top to the bottom, for a very dense tree. If you want to make it a little easier, only put these sc--ch2--sc combos in every other row, you can jump from row to row by making the sc--ch2, then putting the next sc a row above.
By doing this, you're creating the foundation for the leaves. When you get to the end of your piece, it will be time to turn it around again!
This time, in each ch-2 space, you're going to sc, hdc, 3 dc, hdc, sc. Continue doing this in every ch2 space around.
When you run out of ch2 spaces, fasten off. You can pull the tailing end to the inside of the tree with your hook.
Now, make a cap for the bottom by crocheting as follows:
ch3, join with slst to form a loop.
Round 1: 7 sc into loop.
Round 2: 2 sc in each sc around.
Fasten off, leave a long tail.
Stuff the tree, and whipstitch the cap to the bottom.
Now it's time for fun! Sew or glue a loop on top for hanging, if desired. Add embellishments (like these super cool sparkly pompoms) by sewing or gluing them on.
Ta-da! Enjoy your wooly tree.