Crochet Challenge: What's your crochet style?

This weeks challenge:  What kind of crocheter are you?  Do you like to follow a pattern exactly as it's written?   Do you like to "wing it" and make things up as you go?   Are you a little bit of both?
Answer:  I enjoy the patterns made as the designer intended them, but may also be inspired to add to the story I see.

One example of crocheting a story is this giraffe afghan and matching toy for my youngest grandson.  The pattern, as written, includes the giraffes, tree, grass and cloud elements.  But in viewing the design, I transported to the African savanna, and more details emerged in my imagination:

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The sound of the giraffes crunching the succulent leaves; the heat of the hot sun bearing down and lighting up the day, while fluffy clouds slowly scud through a blue sky.

A beautiful bird flies through a flutter of butterflies, and surprise at an elephant walking onto the scene!  The scent of the flowers, and the delight at soft fuzzy caterpillars crawling on the tree and stone, and startle at the ssssnake warming himself on a rock!

Designing and incorporating the additional elements, and adding texture with different yarns for the tree trunk and clouds, made it a one-of-a-kind project.

A smile was on my face as I pictured the light in my daughter's eyes when I gave it to her for my grandson, imagining how in a couple of years he would enjoy the stories he would see in his own mind while he slept and played with it.

How can any craft be more joyous than that?!

An example of crocheting feelings is an afghan I made for my Nana.  Her favorite flower was the pansy.  I remember from the time I was a very little girl, going outside with her to pick pansies to float in a bowl of water.

She'd always say, "Pansies are special flowers, because no two are exactly alike.  Look!  There's a face of a pretty lady in the middle.  She's wearing a beautiful bonnet."  She crocheted afghans and slippers for everyone in the family, but didn't have one herself.  So I made one for her.  It had a pansy on each block, and no two were alike; they all had a different color combination.  I added an embroidered a message on the bottom border thanking her for teaching me that pansies were beautiful because they were different, and so it was with people.  She slept with it every night and day and asked to be buried with it.


An afghan I'm working on now, still in the planning stages, is for my mom.   I've designed this iris for it, and am working to gather up other particular elements that are especially meaningful to her.

What's your crochet style?  Do you have a project you've tweaked that you'd like to share?  I'd love to hear from you!

Until next time!
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It's never too late to join the 52 Week Crochet Challenge by Julie at Red Berry Crochet!
One simple task per week - your skills, style & knowledge will evolve by just having fun! 

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