A St. Patrick's Day Weaving Project

A friend of mine decorates the exterior of her cubicle wall at work according to the seasons or Holidays.  

This month, she displayed one of my heart baskets to celebrate Valentine's Day (and I think February was just recently declared "Heart Health Month"). 

For March, she asked me to make up something relating to St. Patrick's Day, so I wracked my brain trying to come up with a way to make a Shamrock.  (Whatever she displays has to be at least somewhat flat on at least one side to hang it properly.)

I tried to create something several times, but nothing was working the way I had hoped.  

But then, as I was paging through one of my big 3-ring binders full of patterns, I found a pattern to make a woven "rug-beater".  I had made a few of these several years ago.

"AHA!",  I thought..."I bet  I can make this and manipulate it to look like a shamrock!"  And that's just what I did.  I dyed it green and added a raffia bow at the stem.

 

I had printed off this pattern  years ago, when it was offered for free by weaver Patricia Yunkes.

  I checked out her website and found that it was no longer offered for free, but she does still have the pattern available to purchase.  You can find it here. 

It's a bit confusing at first, but with some persistence, you'll eventually find it very easy to make.  All I did to make it look like a shamrock was to tighten two of the loops, making them smaller.  

I used #3 RR, and made the initial shape using just one strand.  Then I added two more strands, following the loops of the first one.

You could make these as big or as small as you want, just by varying the size of round reed, and the lengths of each strand.

And there you have it...an easy-peasy, cute St. Patty's Day Decoration!

I'm working on another decoration for her to display, this time for Easter/Spring. 

Stay tuned!