Garden Flowers, Sunset and Shell Crochet Pattern

Hello!  I'm posting on a Thursday.. I usually try to stick with a M-W-F schedule.. but I'm a day late.  :-)  A huge branch of my 4th of July rose is blooming.. it's so gorgeous.  The flowers look to me like fireworks exploding.  I love these.

These flowers are looking very nice against the new red and white house!

The purple and green Shamrocks are so happy outside, it's amazing to me.

The Mandevilla and "black" corn plant are happily thriving in the sunshine and watering that Kristi does.

This is Kristi's purple Calla Lily is starting to bloom.. isn't it pretty?

This is another unique hydrangea that Kristi bought for me, isn't it pretty?

Here is my classic old purple hydrangea, lovely thing.

We have so many trees that it's hard to see the sunsets but sometimes I capture a pretty one.

Kristi has been painting trim and some of the red each day.  Our house is still a patchwork of colors on the front, as our son is "gone fishin'" but will finish up hopefully this weekend.

I've had a few people request my "Shells on the Half-Shell" crochet pattern, so here it is.  ((hugs)), Teresa :-) 

“Shells on the Half Shell” –  Blanket Pattern by Teresa Kasner

I am sure someone else has written a pattern similar somewhere – but I made this up as I went along and I love how it looks like rows of shells.

I used worsted weight yarn and a size G hook.  You could use finer yarn and smaller hooks or heavier yarn and a bigger hook if you’d like.

I chain as long a chain as I want my blanket to be wide – I don’t count and it always works out.  But if you want, you can chain in 3s until the width you want.  For a baby blanket you could do 90 chains.

Once you have the chain as wide as you want – then chain 2 more – turn and do 3 double crochets into the 2^rd chain from the hook, skip one chain, do one single crochet in the next chain, skip one and do 3 double crochets – and on across.

When you do the last 3 dc shell and the last sc – chain 3 and turn, do 1 dc in the base of the first chain, sk 1 ch, sc, sk 1 ch, do 3 dc in sc of last row, or the “ditch” between the shells on the first row.  Continue on until the end where you’ll do 2 dc in the last stitch of the shell below. 

On that 2^nd row, the 2 double crochets on the beginning and the end are what I call a “half shell”.  Each row is either all shells or one that starts and ends with a “half shell”.

3rd row, chain one, turn, do 3 double crochet in sc or "ditch" of last row between shells.

Just keep going until the blanket is the size you want.  You can do a square or a rectangle depending on it’s use.  Baby blankets are nice in squares while lap blankets are nice in rectangles.

You can leave it as is or you can do shells around the whole blanket when done to make it look a little prettier.

--> Copyright by Teresa Kasner, May 24, 2017